Few days ago after a decade of hobbyist game development and producing below average graphics, I decided to fully concentrate on improving (or acquiring, really) pixel art skills.

This is my first practice image. Don't know how to make a GIF animation out of it. Hope you don't mind.

It supposed to be a humanoid feline space pirate, for a project I might develop in the future.

This is just practicing and WIP.

Any CC is more than welcomed.

EDIT:

The idea is that he is laying his hand on the gun that is strapped around his shoulder.


Thanks!

Edited by LachieD - 24 June 2012 at 5:12pm

Take anything I say with a grain of salt as I'm still learning as well.

I didn't realize the background was supposed to be a flag until I read your post (I thought it was the hull of a spaceship or something similar). Look up some pictures of flags blowing in the wind for reference, and maybe zoom out the picture a bit to give some context that it's a flag.

Your character looking flat has more to do with the colors you chose than the pose he's in. The colors are kind of garish and the blue uniform doesn't have much contrast against the teal part of the background.

In addition, it feels as if you just took each color and then made it darker or light for your highlights and shadows. That is a bad practice! Linear color ramps like that tend to be bland and uninteresting. This pixel art tut by cure goes into this as well as many other important things to keep in mind.

Take a look at this grayscale version of your picture.



There's contrast between the figure and the background (with the exception of his pants), but there's not much contrast between shading/highlights and base colors for the figure.

Your light source is also unclear in both the color and grayscale versions; it sort of looks like the light is coming from directly above, but there's not enough information to tell us that for sure.

A very good way to learn is to study other pixel artists' work. Examples of things to look for when studying others' work are how many colors they used, what is the hue/saturation/values of those colors, and what is the relationships between the colors (for example, what color is used as a shade for another color or used to AA).

As a closing note, he looks a little too un-beat-up for a pirate cat. He's got the eyepatch, but he should have some nicks in his ears, maybe some scars or tattoos. Don't just tell us he's a pirate, show us.



Edited by FancyOctopus - 25 June 2012 at 11:49am

You had 38 colors which is kind of a lot for an image this size.  I made an edit and reduced the colors to 14.  Reducing the amount of colors makes color management easier. 
I also added some more contrast...More to try to define the gun a bit better.
Take my edit for what it's worth.  Welcome to PJ!

I use the same nick over at FreeBASIC.  I've never posted any games anywhere.  Although, I've been working on a fighting game for about 2 years now on and off.  It's basically a 1 round match so far written in FreeBASIC with SDL.  Still has some quirks, but kind of fun.

Screenshot:

Another rendition. Not sure how much I like my latest edits. Any glaring problems with it?



Maybe I should try with something new from scratch.

I agree about the white highlights (in particular the white highlights on the shirt make it look like it's made of rubber).

The image feels a bit plain, but it works now that you can tell the background is a flag (though it would be really cool if you made it bigger with some more scenery so we could get some context for why he's standing in front of a flag).

One additional complaint, the red armband kind of blends into the red part of the flag.

Aside from the things mentioned it looks pretty good now!


Edited by FancyOctopus - 28 June 2012 at 6:04pm

Would you be so kind to circle these details for me?

This is the final version:


It's going up in the gallery.

Thanks for the advices Friend. Really useful. But as you said, I would have to restart to make it really right, and I kinda got tired of this image. Gonna try with a different character now. This was educative. :)