Actually, pixel art should be smoother than normal spriting, because it is larger and has more room to add details. No one said this wasn't accepted, but people are saying there are ways to improve it. Its fine if this is your style, but these are merely suggestions to make the art look better. And there's no arguement about these being better than some other pixel arts on the site. There have been topics about th e quality standard of the pixelarts and man have been removed. Many more need to be removed, but just have not been yet. And CeeY's comment could help, if you would listen to constructive criticism. He said it lacked depth, meaning as it is, it is too simple-looking. To fix them, you could add depth to make it look better, thus improving your art.
Also, upon closer inspection, I noticed some problems with the art itself. One of Jirachi's arms looks like it has no shading at all. Umbreon should have nose and mouth. Drapion looks like it has different lightsources coming from both sides inwards on its arms.
Avoiding AA effects to SMOOTH it out? Uhh, the goal of AA is to make Pixel Art look smoother.
And no, they aren't as close to perfect. The Umbreon and Jirachi lack contrast, and I think more could be done to all of them. And tracing is frowned upon, so, frankly, if you traced these, I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask you to put more work on it.
Welcome to the forums, btw.
(07-31-2009, 09:03 PM)EpicWes Wrote: [ -> ]Actually, pixel art should be smoother than normal spriting, because it is larger and has more room to add details. No one said this wasn't accepted, but people are saying there are ways to improve it. Its fine if this is your style, but these are merely suggestions to make the art look better. And there's no arguement about these being better than some other pixel arts on the site. There have been topics about th e quality standard of the pixelarts and man have been removed. Many more need to be removed, but just have not been yet. And CeeY's comment could help, if you would listen to constructive criticism. He said it lacked depth, meaning as it is, it is too simple-looking. To fix them, you could add depth to make it look better, thus improving your art.
Also, upon closer inspection, I noticed some problems with the art itself. One of Jirachi's arms looks like it has no shading at all. Umbreon should have nose and mouth. Drapion looks like it has different lightsources coming from both sides inwards on its arms.
Ok, even if you said exactly the same thing as CeeY said, you said it in a way that actually helps me. See, I'm a spriter at heart, so I'm used to working with very few shades to try to make a good image. it's part of my style and it works for me. Umbreon really can't use more depth since it's color is black anyway. Also, in pretty much any scene you look at, you can't see Umbreon's nose, and only if its mouth is open can you see it. Drapion, I admit that it wasn't all that great. I'm not that good at shading all those different angles and the scene it was taken from had multiple light sources since it was in a hallway with lights from mutlple angles.
As for the comments about using AA to smooth the art, in some cases, using anti-aliasing in the wrong places gives the impression that the shading is blurry. I like having smooth, yet crisp edges in the shading. I may be able to do some work on the outlines, as well as possibly the shading on Jirachi (note that the scene Jirachi came from, the light source was coming from the viewer's perspective, perhaps sightly to the viewer's right. The scene was from the Jirachi movie when Jirachi was flying around teleporting in the candy Max had asked for. The point of view was from the ceiling, looking down at Jirachi flying around, so the shading is more on the other side of Jirachi, where you can't actually see, and aside from the crown part, Jirachi doesn't have any shiny parts of its body to reflect the light source.)
It's fine to limit the amount of shades you use, but you could certainly make more use out of them. Especially the darker ones for AAing.
which is what you should work on first imo. of course, poor AAing can make the shading look blurry...that's because its poorly done. Good AAing takes practice, and its not simply putting one pixel or line of a dark shade next to the outline. I suggest you find some good AAing and study it.
Also, black can certainly have as much depth as any other color. it just needs a noticeable amount of contrast.
one more thing to be nitpicky about is that the yellow/blue on umbreon needs to also be AA'd with the black to lessen the conflict between the two colors. it looks rough right now.
(07-31-2009, 08:50 PM)CCH Wrote: [ -> ]I'm surprized you all keep bringing up the shading... I think it looks as close to perfect as it's gonna get... Also, as a pixel art, it's not really supposed to be overly smooth, is it? Every artist has their own style of work, and this is how I like mine to look. If you guys don't want to accept it, but you'll accept other art that's not drawn with as much quality, then fine. I was told by the members of my site that these were some of the best pixel arts they've ever seen and that they'd be easily accepted at tSR.
As a reply to Rokkan's comment, CeeY didn't give any useful comments, just said it lacked depth. This kind of comment doesn't help me improve my work. The goal when I made these was to avoid using AA effects to try to smooth out the art.
What I meant was, they looked a bit flat. Your colors could use more contrast and whatnot. This was before It was moved to sprite discussion. I was about to give you some useful advice, but I decided to delay on the post and wait to see what others would say. You may think your pixelart is perfect, but I guarantee you others can see flaws in it and give you advice on how to make it better. That is what this board is for.
(07-31-2009, 08:50 PM)CCH Wrote: [ -> ]I'm surprized you all keep bringing up the shading... I think it looks as close to perfect as it's gonna get...
i'm sorry i just have to do this
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/44179.htm
thats as close as youre gonna get to perfection
(07-31-2009, 11:02 PM)-The Raytheon Experience- Wrote: [ -> ] (07-31-2009, 08:50 PM)CCH Wrote: [ -> ]I'm surprized you all keep bringing up the shading... I think it looks as close to perfect as it's gonna get...
i'm sorry i just have to do this
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/44179.htm
thats as close as youre gonna get to perfection
Heh... I'm not planning on putting that much detail into mine... My definition of perfection is when the work is exactly what the creator wanted it to be, not what others want it to be. If I wanted, I could possibly put so much detail into it that you could see the fur texture on Umbreon, but I choose to keep the simple shading style they used in the anime.
I will consider putting a little AAing into it, as much as I don't like the style. At the very least, it could help smooth the edges such as some of the outlines...
Oh, so it's objective perfection now :rolleye:
and AA'ing is not a style
(08-01-2009, 01:24 AM)-The Raytheon Experience- Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, so it's objective perfection now :rolleye:
and AA'ing is not a style
I consider it a style since it's possible to do art without it... It's either a style, or at the very least considered a technique.
of course its a technique.
a style is a set of rules, idiot.
(08-01-2009, 01:28 AM)-The Raytheon Experience- Wrote: [ -> ]of course its a technique.
a style is a set of rules, idiot.
Please don't call people an idiot just because they use the wrong term. A style contains a group of techniques, so I can still say my style does not involve anti-aliasing and still be accurate.
Anyway, this thread is not meant to discuss what anti-aliasing is. It's to help me find ways to make sure these pixel arts are ready for submission, since it seems some of you think I could improve them in some way.
*some*
more like *anyone with a clue*
(08-01-2009, 02:02 AM)-The Raytheon Experience- Wrote: [ -> ]*some*
more like *anyone with a clue*
I'd rather you not post in this thread if all your going to do is try to put people down. If you can't offer any useful comments on my work, don't bother posting here.
here ill start with umbreon.
The 'fur' doesnt look like fur. it looks flat, with the shading chucked there just for the sake of it.
Ok...now it just seems like you're being overly defensive against all constructive criticism, and i don't like that. :<
We're spending our precious time trying to help you, but it's pretty obvious now that you don't want the help. While that is somewhat understandable, at least understand that what you consider high quality differs from what we see.
Quote:It's to help me find ways to make sure these pixel arts are ready for submission, since it seems some of you think I could improve them in some way.
I'm definitely not the only person who suggested AAing. So at least try it and stop being so goddamn defensive.