help teh artisticaly challenged plz!

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xvi revya
Red Slime
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 PostWed Nov 25, 2009 5:43 am
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Twinconclusive wrote:
Now you're just running from the problem.



These are all recognized to be "humans" and yet their proportions are pretty different from each other and from actual humans.

In addition to being around humans all the time, People can also identify with similar humanoid features.

Yeah, there are some basic prereqs you've got meet when drawing something to call it a human, but you can still have enough flexibility to develop a style around that.


And that's probably what makes it difficult for me, at least. A head, limbs, a torso; all part of what we call human. Sure, you may be given leeway to play around with their proportions and other features, but the fact that you still have to conform to the head, the torso, and the limbs, eats away at the freedom that drawing non-humans give you. Non-humans take on a whole variety of forms and without any standards to conform to, everything you make IS a non-human.

Also, like what I said earlier, a single pixel can make or break your creation, but in the case of non-humans, it does not hold true.

Twinconclusive wrote:
I would hardly call an airbrush spray of Red gradients a monster.


There's this elemental monster or such from a game I cannot quite remember at the moment. It is basically a patch of different shades of green.
­Uncommon
Metal Slime
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 PostWed Nov 25, 2009 2:59 pm
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xvi revya wrote:
Also, like what I said earlier, a single pixel can make or break your creation, but in the case of non-humans, it does not hold true.

That's...not really true. Depending on the pixel, it could really break either one, and if it's just the one pixel, there's always the chance to fix it. It usually takes a lot more than just one to break an image.

The main thing is not to overcomplicate the image. 20x20 means you don't have much room to work, so you've got to abstract it to the essentials, just the basic stuff you need to convey what you have about your character. The same goes for the colors you chose. The walkabouts you posted earlier aren't bad in form at all, the guy's clearly human, if anything's hard to discern about his robe (it looks like a tunic with a sash to me, which isn't too far off), it's because you've thrown so many similar colors into the mix and it's hard to tell where one thing ends and the other begins.

If I had any advice to give, it would be to not worry to much about about shading until you're satisfied with your basic forms, or even just to simplify your shading techniques until you've got them down a little better.
xvi revya
Red Slime
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 PostWed Nov 25, 2009 10:09 pm
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Quote:
That's...not really true. Depending on the pixel, it could really break either one, and if it's just the one pixel, there's always the chance to fix it. It usually takes a lot more than just one to break an image.


Well, I guess if it's one pixel, it can always be fixed easily. But what I meant to say was, one pixel can destroy or create the look you're aiming for.

Quote:
The main thing is not to overcomplicate the image. 20x20 means you don't have much room to work, so you've got to abstract it to the essentials, just the basic stuff you need to convey what you have about your character. The same goes for the colors you chose. The walkabouts you posted earlier aren't bad in form at all, the guy's clearly human, if anything's hard to discern about his robe (it looks like a tunic with a sash to me, which isn't too far off), it's because you've thrown so many similar colors into the mix and it's hard to tell where one thing ends and the other begins.


I really have a lot to learn from this. Well, at least it looks like a tunic. V

I guess I'm just looking for some sort of justification for my inability to draw, now that I look at it. But eh, practice always helps.
­Soda_piggy
Slime Knight
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 PostSat Nov 28, 2009 5:25 am
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If you want to become really good at pixel art, I suggest (more than anything else) that you spend some time studying the pixel art of really great looking games. You can learn a LOT from imitating others' work. Sit down some time with sprites you find from any old great SNES game and study the form AND color-palette. They are each of equal importance! Then try to imitate what they have already done. You'll start to see that they have certain practices that they follow when making sprites, such as outlining, shadow, and lighting direction. Most importantly, just keep plugging away at it! Smile
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­Soda_piggy
Slime Knight
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 PostSun Nov 29, 2009 6:37 am
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Just did this today because I thought it might help you to see what I mean.



I used the Magus sprite as a template and shaded my character in similar ways (and took some liberties elsewhere to maintain my own style). This type of imitation has really helped me to get better at spriting and I think it might help you out too.
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