Super Goth Bros. -WIP
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8604
Printed Date: 30 September 2025 at 8:21am
Topic: Super Goth Bros. -WIP
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Subject: Super Goth Bros. -WIP
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 5:03am
 Hello! i'm currently working on a pixel art,which is like SMB, but more gothic.
Here's my Progress:
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/230609/54083_super_goth_bros..png - http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/230609/54083_super_goth_bros..png
Started making the castle after making a lineart, although i think i need to change the pallate into something more gothic
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Replies:
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:09am
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Hi :D
First of all, you should link to your image using the [I][/I] tags. That way it'll show up directly in the forum without anyone having to click a link, AND everyone will be able to click-zoom it. As for the art itself, it's a bit early to tell, but on the castle I'd advise you to focus on really nailing that cylindrical shape before you start texturing, or at least keep the shape firmly in mind while you texture. What I usually do is paint in very rough blobs of darker/lighter shades to indicate the rough 3D shape of the object, then texture on top of that, using it as a guideline for where the texture should be darker or lighter. I know you've only done a bit so far, but it seems like it's in danger of looking very, very flat. As for the texture itself, it looks like you've got a lot of random, noisy pixels in there. Even if you're going for a kind of rough look I'd clean it up a little, or at least use less contrasting colors so it doesn't look so sandpaper-y. You mentioned your palette. I agree that you should gawth it up a bit. Try moving towards blues/purples in shadow. That'll help give it a nice moody feel. You can also go straight black to match the background in deep shadow, but do so sparingly or nothing will be readable. Anyway, keep it up! You're off to a good start. ------------- |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:24am
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well, at the top of all, i may remind you that it's supposed to look 2d.
and with the noisy texture, i wanted to give it disorder, to fit the atmosphere.
and i'm gonna change the colors.
Edit: The Update is here! Here it is!
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/230609/60021_super_goth_bros..png">
 Edited the pallate, continued making the bricks. made the regular item brick. how did it go?
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Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:35am
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I'm just some guy on the internet and all of my advice can be ignored safely. Except for putting your image in [I]<url here>[/I] tags. Don't ignore that. You'll be a million times more likely (at a very conservative estimate) to get replies and helpful critique. ------------- |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:44am
| Well, i agree. the update is up in my last post ^^ |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:47am
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ahhh, I'm such a douchebag. I meant [img][/img] tags. That'll teach me to post early in the morning. Oh well, you figured it out, despite my epic fail.
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Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 6:50am
| yeah, i kinda figured it out myself when i pressed the preview and the link was shown italic |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 1:40pm
Sorry for the double post, but i made an update!
 changed the pallate (from the first one), and finished the castle (two versions: with and without outline). oh yeah and i finished an item block.
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Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 23 June 2009 at 4:16pm
| You just gave the worst and most annoying excuses not to improve your artwork that I've ever seen. You will never improve with that attitude. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 1:56am
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Originally posted by ThereIsNoCure
Do you mind explaining?
You just gave the worst and most annoying excuses not to improve your artwork that I've ever seen. You will never improve with that attitude. |
Posted By: r1k
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 2:26am
are you keeping the black background? If so, I think your tower could look more volumetric if you made the shadow side darker. Also, I dont think the grainy texture works too well on the flag. Heres a really quick edit just to show what it would look like with darker shadow maybe also try not using the same colors for the flag so its less monochromatic. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 3:34am
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as you said, made the right side darker, but i used the regular colors, i didn't add another one as you did. change the shading on the flag (dithering), and added a skull.
offers for changing the color?
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Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 10:00am
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Originally posted by ShoySlayer Do you mind explaining? "it's supposed to look that way" "i meant to do that" "not being able to tell what it is or discern volumes is just my style" |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 11:15am
| oh, that. you can see i DID impove some of the thing he said. |
Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 11:49am
| way too much dithering and noise, hue-shifting would help the boring monochromatic palette. why is it lopsided? what's the perspective? |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 12:23pm
| The Perspective is Platformer-like,it's lopsided for making a "dark" atmoshpere and "dark" feeling. and what's hue shifting? |
Posted By: God_Is_Evil
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 12:46pm
I would add more contrast to your colors and as thereisnocure said add hue shifting. Notice how even though the texture is noise you can add more of one color or another to make the shading in some spots look brighter then other spots. And, To hue shift you would make your darker colors change into cool colors and your light colors change into warm colors. So when your choosing your highlights you would make the shades more yellow or green and when your choosing your dark shades you would make them more purple or blue. So in the example my highlight is more red because i was moving from purple to yellow. And the dark color is more blue because i was moving from purple to blue. And one last thing that could help would be using saturation to emulate depth. Make your darker colors have less saturation and your lighter colors have more saturation. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 12:57pm
| ohhhh, okay then, as long it doesn't pass the special 3 color limit.although i'll stay with the old desigh. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 1:20pm
Changed the pallate and the flag's color.
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Posted By: God_Is_Evil
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 1:24pm
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The weird castle thing i made was just a example, I was using more than one object to show you the difference between the hue shifted colors and the old colors. |
Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 1:32pm
| hasn't improved yet. more contrast means dithering is more evident. need more defined forms, less details. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 1:34pm
| kay |
Posted By: Levi
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 2:50pm
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lol thereisnocure - you're really hammering this into him. You're right, but you just sound kinda agressive. Perhaps trying to persuade him to make these changes some other way than calling him annoying might help more? I mean that in all respect too, I'm not trying to start a fight :P |
Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 24 June 2009 at 4:20pm
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i give crits so they can improve, this applies to technique and attitude as they both relate to how good one's art can be. this is off-topic, only post if you have something constructive to say about the WIP @shoyslayer: only bump your topic with updates on the art, not one-word responses |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 25 June 2009 at 3:46am
you're right, and here's an update.
 there are three versions, the one i used in the first WIP, a "clean" one, and one with a proper dither, you were right, it looks better.
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Posted By: r1k
Date Posted: 25 June 2009 at 5:25am
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"it's lopsided for making a "dark" atmoshpere and "dark" feeling." I think its actually having the opposite effect and making it look un-serious and cartoonish. |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 25 June 2009 at 11:58am
| well, i don't really know bou't it, but should i change the desigh? if so, can you offer any? |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 25 June 2009 at 4:07pm
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Your shading needs work. Th lighter pixels are evenly distributed along most of the left side, with just a small column of darkness on the right. This makes it feel like it has a flat face on the left that's receiving most of the light.
Your shape is basically a cylinder. If you Google "cylinder" (or possibly "cylindrical tower"), you'll find all kinds of examples of how these look in real life. They generally have a column of brightness on the spot that's facing a light source, and it gradually gets darker as the cylinder curves away. How wide this column of brightness is depends on the material and the intensity of the light source: shiny metal focuses light into an extremely narrow column, whereas something like your tower will diffuse the light and spread it more evenly. As an exercise, I'd suggest removing all of your bricks and dither and just trying to make a smooth cylindrical shape, preferably while staring at photos of real cylindrical objects. And another thing. Dither. A) it should be one of the last things you do, and B) when your colors are so high-contrast, it's going to look gritty even if you do a cleaner, more patterned dither. I'd lose the dither altogether until you get the shading right, and then CONSIDER adding it back in. And if you decide to, do it sparingly. A little goes a long way on a piece this small, and you've got it pretty much everywhere right now. Good luck, and don't get discouraged even if people seem harsh. Remember that they wouldn't even be bothering posting if they didn't think your piece had potential. ------------- |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 26 June 2009 at 1:06am
How's that? as you can see it's without dithering.
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/260609/39809_NewCastle.png - |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 26 June 2009 at 6:23am
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That has a much better sense of volume. Good work.
I'd make the bricks smaller at the bottom than at the top, the same way the tower as a whole is. Right now you've got the bricks going down at an angle to match the left side, but because of the building's tapered shape, it sort of makes them look like they're spiraling around it, if that makes sense. Same goes for your shading, I'd say: taper it, rather than matching the angle of the left side. I'd probably lower the brightness of your brightest color a couple notches, and maybe dither it just a tad to blend with the next darkest shade (if you're really certain you can't add another color). Maybe desaturate all your colors a good bit? It'll make it feel more run-down and grim. ------------- |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 26 June 2009 at 8:43am
| @hatch, can you give me an example of your saying, i didn't really get it quite. |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 26 June 2009 at 9:51am
Sure.
I know it's really crummy. I had to slap it together in a couple minutes, so sorry. Anyway, from left to right: how your grid of bricks is aligned, how the grid should be aligned, how your shading is aligned, how your shading should be aligned. They should taper down to match the width of the building rather than just lining up to match the angle of the left side. As you can see, it sort of looks like they're curving or spiraling around the building in the latter case. If this still isn't clear, let me know and I'll try to explain better (and I'll find time to make a better example pic) ------------- |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 27 June 2009 at 1:45pm
Update!
 fixed everything said/showed.
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Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 28 June 2009 at 7:50pm
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Your shading, dithering, and sense of volume are all VASTLY better. Great job!
That said, I think you may have misunderstood what my crummy example pic was saying. Firstly, I wasn't suggesting that your grid of bricks should be all arrow-straight lines, I was saying they should get slimmer at the bottom to match the overall shape of the tower rather than all be parallel to the left edge. Ditto for your shading. I think the rough, irregular grid before really helped the mood. My bad for making such a lousy example. I promise I'll make it up to you by doing a better one later. Watch this space. ------------- |
Posted By: Fatalis67
Date Posted: 28 June 2009 at 11:38pm
| The last few images you posted don't appear in my browser |
Posted By: ShoySlayer
Date Posted: 29 June 2009 at 3:15am
it's because my upload site, Spam the web, closed it's image uploading. here's the latest edition:
 here you go ;)
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