Pixel Art | Rainbow Dash -- the Art of Being Awesome

[Ashbad 969]

Finally turned this drawing into pixel art!

 

 

(the revision process took all day)

 

I tried doing it in a completely different style than normal, in which I use semi-heavy boarders and medium-heavy dithering to try and eliminate color banding. Was able to only use 24 colors; could've dropped it to 16 easily, but that would ruin the hair and get rid of some of its better detailed areas.

 

Comments/Critiques/Criticism welcome

[MVC NVMXD JVRXD 2,406]

It's great! I love it!

[Ashbad 969]

It's great! I love it!

 

Thanks bro

[~Chaos~ 3,967]

That's so awesome! nice job

[Pix3M 607]

I am not a fan of dithering as it adds extra details where details might not really help your case all the time. We're dealing with ponies, and ponies are awesome because they're simple.

 

I found the coat color to be rather bland. Care to read Protip #3? I wanna see what happens if we paly around with the palette. Would you mind if I play around with it a little?

Edited May 20, 2012 by PixMeister

[That One Techpriest You Used To Know 2,286]

WHOA!!! Nice! Not as good or as popular as i expected.

[Ashbad 969]

I am not a fan of dithering as it adds extra details where details might not really help your case all the time. We're dealing with ponies, and ponies are awesome because they're simple.

 

I found the coat color to be rather bland. Care to read Protip #3? I wanna see what happens if we paly around with the palette. Would you mind if I play around with it a little?

 

Hmm, go ahead, but I wanted to play around with it some first

 

So, for the first step of my edits I removed the dithering:

 

 

I think you're right, it added too much detail. Then I changed up the coat palette a bit:

 

 

Played around with it some until I hit this:

 

[Pix3M 607]

Here's what I got

 

 

Made many minor changes, but I would think the biggest change to note is how I changed the coat color around a bit. I desaturated the colors and varied the hues here. The lightest color starts at the cyans , then it goes to blue, then a purple.

 

I also changed Dashie's right eye so she looked less cross-eyed.

[Ashbad 969]

Here's what I got

 

 

Made many minor changes, but I would think the biggest change to note is how I changed the coat color around a bit. I desaturated the colors and varied the hues here. The lightest color starts at the cyans , then it goes to blue, then a purple.

 

I also changed Dashie's right eye so she looked less cross-eyed.

 

Nice edit! Though I'm not entirely sure I agree with your changes. I tried keeping the hair a little bit dithered between rainbowed colors in order to provide a "fuzzy haired" look while not going overboard and having two shades per color to achieve it. As for the colors, I was actually experimenting around earlier today with them further after looking at how you do them in your (great) pony pixels:

 

 

I raised the lum of the top colors and lowered the hue towards the hotter colors a notch, and then with the darker colors I dropped the hue towards the cooler colors and then dropped the lum, while raising the sat. I like your color choice too, except I'm not sure if I'm so keen on the dark purplish color

 

And in addition, fixed up a few small border issues and did a slight bit more A-A in some areas like the wings that I didn't do to much with before.

 

EDIT: seems as if in the process, I actually was able to bring the color count down all the way to 14 O_o

Edited May 20, 2012 by Ashbad

[DJ-Techy 14]

that's awesome, love it

[Pix3M 607]

Nice edit! Though I'm not entirely sure I agree with your changes. I tried keeping the hair a little bit dithered between rainbowed colors in order to provide a "fuzzy haired" look while not going overboard and having two shades per color to achieve it. As for the colors, I was actually experimenting around earlier today with them further after looking at how you do them in your (great) pony pixels:

 

 

I raised the lum of the top colors and lowered the hue towards the hotter colors a notch, and then with the darker colors I dropped the hue towards the cooler colors and then dropped the lum, while raising the sat. I like your color choice too, except I'm not sure if I'm so keen on the dark purplish color

 

And in addition, fixed up a few small border issues and did a slight bit more A-A in some areas like the wings that I didn't do to much with before.

 

EDIT: seems as if in the process, I actually was able to bring the color count down all the way to 14 O_o

 

I don't even think 'fuzzy' is the best texture for hair.

[Ashbad 969]

I don't even think 'fuzzy' is the best texture for hair.

 

Well, I just personally don't find the straight, un-dithered form of the hair to have as much character. It just makes it look a bit flat in comparison to the rest of the pixel, as the body has dimension due to all of the shading applied. I tried again with adding some lighting to the hair that crosses between the different colors, but I don't think it works out as well.

 

EDIT: doing a 3rd revision will post soon.

[Z.J.A. 136]

That must of taken so much time and effort! It looks wonderful!

[Rainbow☁Dash 6]

That's very good. Keep it up!~

[Ashbad 969]

Have been working on this a bit more. Fixed the shading issues, got rid of some of that contrast, and shot it thoroughly with my German A-A (anti-aliasing) submachine gun. Now, I'm working on fixing some fin-tuning issues (mostly banding) in the body, and then I'm onto the daunting task: the hair.

 

[Love4discord18 269]

Thats great! Love it!

[Bolt Chaser 81]

awesome! good job with it

[Pix3M 607]

I just saw your latest edit submitted to the MyLittlePixel group.

 

I just picked up a book from a library on color schemes and color harmony. It says that very vivid, saturated colors can be compared to 'shouting'. Colors like the ones you picked for Dashie's coat is very saturated, but the same thing can be said about her hair. Her hair is also very vivid and saturated. What ends up happening is that both her coat and hair are competing for attention, which ends up in chaos. I suppose this is the very reason why I found it more appealing to desaturate her coat and instead let her hair get the attention.

 

It also pointed out why I happened to find Rainbow dash very, very annoying to draw. There are too many colors to handle so it's harder to find color harmony.

[Ashbad 969]

I just saw your latest edit submitted to the MyLittlePixel group.

 

I just picked up a book from a library on color schemes and color harmony. It says that very vivid, saturated colors can be compared to 'shouting'. Colors like the ones you picked for Dashie's coat is very saturated, but the same thing can be said about her hair. Her hair is also very vivid and saturated. What ends up happening is that both her coat and hair are competing for attention, which ends up in chaos. I suppose this is the very reason why I found it more appealing to desaturate her coat and instead let her hair get the attention.

 

It also pointed out why I happened to find Rainbow dash very, very annoying to draw. There are too many colors to handle so it's harder to find color harmony.

 

Hmm, interesting. Perhaps I should go back and try playing with de-saturate her coat; I agree, desaturating her hair would make the whole thing bland. Thanks for the tip!

 

~

 

As for those out of the loop:

 

 

After many hours of work and experimentation.. Ta-Dah!

 

 

learned a lot along the revision process ( http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/7-Rainbow_wow_fa_sho.png ) I think that through my reading of upper-level pixel art tutorials/knowledge dumps, I've improved in my pixel art abilities significantly in the past few weeks.