Pixel Joint Forum: girl in flowers

Message

   Hello forum!

I'm very new to pixelart   and I hope to develop my drawing style and characters in pixels.. maybe one day I'll make good walkcycle of pixel girl (it's my dream, i'm workin on it).

So recently I posted "girl in flowers" pixel image to the gallery and it told me that 'We encourage you to participate in our forums which include a Work in Progress (WIP) category' that's what I'm doing.

As I was drawing it like by the end of march I guess I can't go step by step because I have final image already. I spent a week on this image and made some screenshots of whole process as well:

What am I doing wrong so it can't be in my gallery? I've used pencil and eraser and some hue/saturation to adjust pallette however on the actual image I didn't use hue/saturation (I was not sure if i can do it in pixel art so I redraw each pixel with new color). 

Final image looks like this:

Is it really so bad for the gallery? Please help stupid me!   

P.S: so so sorry for being emotional! My appartment was recently almost robbed so I'm emotionally unstable. Concentrating on new pixel image really helps me to distract though I'm pixeling a robber lol

Author	Message
atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Topic: girl in flowers - pixel art WIP Posted: 06 June 2012 at 3:56pm
	Hello forum! I'm very new to pixelart and I hope to develop my drawing style and characters in pixels.. maybe one day I'll make good walkcycle of pixel girl (it's my dream, i'm workin on it). So recently I posted "girl in flowers" pixel image to the gallery and it told me that 'We encourage you to participate in our forums which include a Work in Progress (WIP) category' that's what I'm doing. As I was drawing it like by the end of march I guess I can't go step by step because I have final image already. I spent a week on this image and made some screenshots of whole process as well: What am I doing wrong so it can't be in my gallery? I've used pencil and eraser and some hue/saturation to adjust pallette however on the actual image I didn't use hue/saturation (I was not sure if i can do it in pixel art so I redraw each pixel with new color). Final image looks like this: Is it really so bad for the gallery? Please help stupid me! P.S: so so sorry for being emotional! My appartment was recently almost robbed so I'm emotionally unstable. Concentrating on new pixel image really helps me to distract though I'm pixeling a robber lol
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shampoop Commander Joined: 26 July 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 183	Posted: 06 June 2012 at 4:47pm
	I like your final pic. Looks like an illustration from a children's book or something. Maybe lighten your dark outlines?
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 06 June 2012 at 4:57pm
	OMG first reply :D shampoop, thank you! Yeah, I'm kinda an artist/illustrator of cute pictures now trying pixel art for fun. Harsh lines are kinda a part of my style however I see that it's not working for pixel art that well. I'm trying to find a way of lighting them and still being into style. Gotta to finish and upload version with new lines I guess as soon as possible! Thanks for suggestions :)
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Friend Commander Joined: 02 July 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 553	Posted: 06 June 2012 at 5:16pm
	I think the harsh lines actually make your image very easy on the eye. What I do think you could improve on are anti aliasing, color count, and color usage. I say to improve your anti aliasing and not your line art, because your somewhat jaggy line art is also being used stylistically and pretty well done. But you want to anti alias some of these harsh jaggies to the colors that surround them. You also are using way too many colors, some colors are hardly distinguishable from each other because they are so close, which is something you definitely do not want to do in pixel art. Aim for as few amount of colors as you can. It helps sometimes to choose colors that may seem a bit farfetched, but the power of more powerful and abstract colors is that they are more flexible. So yeah, you don't want to have like say, 5 very similar browns for the hair etc. So yeah, you might want to brush up on anti aliasing, and definitely experiment with colors and try to use as few as you can, but I definitely say you should keep your style, since frankly I think you are very good at it and it is unique.
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 06 June 2012 at 5:51pm
	Frost Butt, thank you :) I have a hope now \(^0^)/* Ah, that called 'anti aliasing'. I got what you are writing so I need to use as less colors as possible (I think I got too excited on colors.. I love playing with hardly distinguishable colors). Adding this color-minimizing thing to my to-do list! I still think that I should work on lines a bit as well. We'll see :)
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Friend Commander Joined: 02 July 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 553	Posted: 06 June 2012 at 6:01pm
	well, it isn't a must to use a minimal amount of colors, but the reason for using a minimal amount of colors is to give you more control of your palette, to unify your piece, and well, pixel art just tends to look better and is more true to its nature when you use as few colors as you can. 8-20 colors is a pretty good ball park to aim for. Oh, and here, I highly suggest you read this page when you get a chance. It's Cure's pixel art tutorial. http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299 Edited by Frost Butt - 06 June 2012 at 6:01pm
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 6:46am
	Thanks so much for the tutorial! Definitely will read and try to use it :) I've been workin on this image and I went from 256!! to 28 colors (including 3 transparent on enges only). Here is before-after: Is is better?
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dpixel Commander Joined: 26 January 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 489	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 6:53am
	If you had 256 colors, I would imagine that would be the reason for it not being accepted into the gallery. It's kind of a red flag. Otherwise, I like it. Very nice style. :)
	hehe (ಠ_ಠ ) o_- :p
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 7:10am
	dpixel, yes!! I think that it was a reason for not being accepted. So so embarassing!! I hope it's okay right now lol gosh it's so embarassing From now on I'll pay attention to this aspect (next picture I draw has around 15 colors and I'm sure it's 15 colors!).
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Friend Commander Joined: 02 July 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 553	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 11:13am
	I tried to see what your image would be like with single color pixel clusters
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 11:25am
	Frost Butt, how this image can help me? Is that a tip? Really anxious to know)
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Friend Commander Joined: 02 July 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 553	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 11:38am
	well, I kinda like yours better, like your hair and yours looks less flat, but I think making the clusters less or 1 color definitely helps make the image look cleaner overall. I should've done a much better edit, but I was just showing you how less colors makes cleaner clusters.
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 11:50am
	Ah I see :) I like it more 'fancy' lol By the way many thanks for the link on tutorial! The best one I've ever seen. I'll try to resubmit this picture later on. We'll see!
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Friend Commander Joined: 02 July 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 553	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 1:51pm
	Thank Cure, not me. yeah, good luck with resubmitting if you choose to, and hopefully you'll continue to post your work in the wip section and get feedback from people that could help better than myself. I think my biggest advice for you now is to not do what you're doing with the hair. You really do not want to have very similar colors in pixel art. It can create an ugly look as well as a lot of banding. (see banding in the pixel art tutorial.) I don't have a strict answer on how you should go about improving this issue, maybe someone else will come in and help.
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 07 June 2012 at 2:18pm
	Frost Butt, I'm sure I'll be posting here :) Thanks to everyone!
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atpalicis Seaman Joined: 27 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 22	Posted: 09 June 2012 at 8:22am
	Please advice what's wrong with this image? 28 colors and 'Your piece was not able to gather the score needed for inclusion in the gallery'. What should I do? If there's a mistake and I won't discover it I'll repeat it again and won't be accepted :(
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WIP (Work In Progress)
Pixel Joint Forum : Pixel Art : WIP (Work In Progress)