Athena's Sprite Road.

[BynineB]

Man, the critique here lately is just incredible, from both the people posting it and people responding to it. I'm learning from it too, it's so helpful. By the way, like a god damn boss, Gors. If it's anatomy you want to learn, this helped me.

I also want to give kudos to the OP for having an OC. Quite creative!

[Maxim]

@Gors:

Avoid doing dithering, unless you're: 1-working with an extremely limited palette; 2-is simulating gritty surfaces, such as orange's skin;

Dithering is also used, if someone intentionally aims for a certain retro look (like Sega Genesis graphics). I know, it's not too common nowadays, but i wouldn't say just because something isn't popular, it should be avoided. It's always good to explore different styles instead of just following one route.

Recycle colors. [...] it keeps your work tidy and more elaborated.

...if you are working with a limited palette, yes. Otherwise, why recycle colors, if "you can easily add a new color to the palette with today's technology"?

[Hoeloe]

@Gors:

Avoid doing dithering, unless you're: 1-working with an extremely limited palette; 2-is simulating gritty surfaces, such as orange's skin;

Dithering is also used, if someone intentionally aims for a certain retro look (like Sega Genesis graphics). I know, it's not too common nowadays, but i wouldn't say just because something isn't popular, it should be avoided. It's always good to explore different styles instead of just following one route.

Recycle colors. [...] it keeps your work tidy and more elaborated.

...if you are working with a limited palette, yes. Otherwise, why recycle colors, if "you can easily add a new color to the palette with today's technology"?

Dithering is genuinely a difficult technique to use successfully. A lot of older games, even with very limited colours, don't use it for this reason. If you're just starting out, it's probably not a good idea to attempt dithering.

Also, while it's not necessary to recycle colours, it is good practice if it won't hurt your work.

[Gors]

Hoeloe nailed it.

Dithering is a technique to get midtones with two different colors, but it is hard to pull it off properly. In this case, the easiest is to simply add a third color.

Also recycling colors is important because this means you used the colors at its fullest. One of pixelart's characteristics is small color palette. This characteristic was inherited from old videogames which suffered from the same fact. Today you could make pixelart with thousands of colors, but it won't look good because:

1-it's hard to manage a lot of colors;
2-having a lot of colors means you'll have a lot of similar, pointless colors;
3-it will not look like pixelart.

[Kimahri-Ronso]

Best thing to do is come up with your own pallette. Don't use MS Paint default, save for maybe a few of those colors.

[AthenaChanNyan]

Best thing to do is come up with your own pallette. Don't use MS Paint default, save for maybe a few of those colors.

Thank you for your recommendation. I don't use MS Paint though... Uhm, I'm using the free version of Graphics Gale, and her colours were originally thought to be sort of...bright...

[AthenaChanNyan]

I hope this double post can be overlooked in this case. Editing me previous post won't tell anyone I added something to it...

So, well, I drew Sally, another of my OCs, in pixel art. Wearing a poncho. Uhm, I'm planning on animating her, but I wanted to show the still image here first, in case you guys have something to say. With fresh eyes... Since I've been staring at her for a long time already. I must admit I am not so sure about the shading of the poncho, but I tried to make a few slight foldings on the end, and a little shadow for her chest area.

Perhaps, the contrast is better this time with respect to Eri. But if you guys think it should be improved, pray tell.

[Hoeloe]

The shape of her legs and feet are a bit weird, and the folds of the cloth at the bottom of the poncho doesn't make much sense. The face is also oddly shaped, being triangular, and all the skin could do with just a little more contrast.

[Sengir]

I especially like the hair in this sprite, but the poncho isn't making much sense.

I guess It depends on how tight the poncho is, but I would think that if the poncho is draped over her body there wouldn't be any need for shading under the breasts but highlights over the breasts. Try looking at pictures of linen on clotheslines for references on the folds of draped cloth. And I'd suggest removing the inner parts of the eyebrows (she looks angry) and instead giving her eyelashes.

I'm not really an artist but I hope that helps

[Gors]

the hair is much better in this sprite, you shaded it as a group of lines instead of a solid object, which is good. increase the contrast on the skin/hair (blond people are generally harder to make due to the similarity between the skin and the hair tones).

the lines are much better now, but you have some jaggy here and there, I'll help you when I go back home.

another tip I can give atm is don't mirror body parts. It'll make your character artificial.

[Gors]

sorry for the lack of quality, I was too sleepy and couldn't get better references or images..

[AthenaChanNyan]

I've been working on the sprite for some time. I see a little improvement, but perhaps there is more to fix?



I kinda hope not, haha. Have a nice day/afternoon/night.