visual art Neelix, the pixel artist!

[Neelix 4]

Ollo, everypony! I just thought I'd share some of my pixel art. =3

[Ashbad 969]

Not bad stuff Though I would like to point out that some of your pixels have incredibly high color counts -- mostly due to the gradients you have. I would suggest trying to keep the color count as low as possible -- For example, your flower pixel is well into the hundreds of colors, but it could be done with only about 8

[moneyshredderofdeath 414]

I like them, especially the kitties. The first two cats could benefit from a little shading though, unless you were going for simplicity with them.

[Jokuc 8,172]

They're good!

[Pix3M 607]

I'm also a pixel artist

 

There's definitely the pixel work that gives it its crisp look that definitely has its fun appeal to it, but you might surprise yourself with how far you can go with only the pencil tool. Ashbad does bring up a good point if you ask me. While there is definitely some pixel work done, you may want to avoid using the brush tool, or whatever tool you used to create the smooth gradients.

 

< My avatar, as well as Ashbad's avatar, are only done with the pencil tool.

Edited June 24, 2012 by PixMeister

[Ashbad 969]

< My avatar, as well as Ashbad's avatar, are only done with the pencil tool.

 

Yessir, Pix is indeed correct with that Using a tool other than the pencil tool (well, line/curve/circle tools are fine too if their results are single-colored and aren't anti-aliased) usually changes the piece from being pixel art, to being what's called "index-painting" (basically, it's raster art that isn't as restrictive as pixel art, but is still made up of pixels in the traditional sense; same goes for Vexeling, which is raster art that imitates vector layers.)

 

And in addition, I would like to prod you to bring those first two pixels of the cats from the lineart phase into a more polished state; the lineart you have for them is pretty spot-on, so you really could go far lengths with the sprites. In fact, perhaps you could use them as a base for practicing low colors counts and more traditional pixel art techniques?

[Pix3M 607]

well, line/curve/circle tools are fine too if their results are single-colored and aren't anti-aliased

 

Lolol I seemed to have unwittingly made a blanket statement that was easily shot down.

[Ashbad 969]

Lolol I seemed to have unwittingly made a blanket statement that was easily shot down.

 

The curve tool is my best friend since I'm stuck on a trackpad, whenever I want to make some sort of sketch. It helps me kind of "sketch up" an idea in a pseduo-flowing motion similar to how I would do with a pencil

[Neelix 4]

Thank you all for the feed back! I never really thought about that. I've never been one to do anything traditionally. XD I've never used MS Paint for pixels, so from the beginning, I've done things diferently than most people.

But yeah, I'll practice with that. =3 I'm really bad with shading, it's my weak spot. So... should I dither for shading? I've only been pixeling* for a few months, and not very consistently.

I use Photoshop CS5 for my pixel art, and I've been guilty of the blur tool many a time. XD

*Or I suppose I'm more of an index painting, or whatever you call it, artist? I'm by no means good at it, and I'm just starting out. I'm not very familiar with a most techniques.

As for the cat linearts, I haven't done much with them. The first one hasn't even been colored in. (It's transparent, just the lines)

Actually, I'm wrong on that. I've made adoptables with the second kitty lineart on chickensmoothie.com. =3

Edited June 25, 2012 by Neelix

[Pix3M 607]

Thank you all for the feed back! I never really thought about that. I've never been one to do anything traditionally. XD I've never used MS Paint for pixels, so from the beginning, I've done things diferently than most people.

 

But yeah, I'll practice with that. =3 I'm really bad with shading, it's my weak spot. So... should I dither for shading? I've only been pixeling* for a few months, and not very consistently.

 

I use Photoshop CS5 for my pixel art, and I've been guilty of the blur tool many a time. XD

*Or I suppose I'm more of an index painting, or whatever you call it, artist? I'm by no means good at it, and I'm just starting out. I'm not very familiar with a most techniques.

As for the cat linearts, I haven't done much with them. The first one hasn't even been colored in. (It's transparent, just the lines)

Actually, I'm wrong on that. I've made adoptables with the second kitty lineart on chickensmoothie.com. =3

I tend to avoid dithering because it can create a texture that you might not want. Look at the sun hat I gave my OC. It's dithered. Ashbad tells me that it looks like it's made of sand

 

As for shading, it's more about darkening the right places than it is about the technique. You can do what I did for my earlier pixel works with just slathering colors in the right places without dithering (or anti-aliasing to soften up the otherwise hard edges). I am not sure how I can teach shading as for me, it largely has to do with being able to imagine your subject in three dimensions.

 

MS paint does have the bare necessities to make pixel art, but I wouldn't recommend using it as it doesn't offer so many options, unless you want bragging rights that you can make really good stuff with the most basic of basic image editing programs.

[~Chaos~ 3,967]

Those are cute! good job on them