Here is an updated version. The guy typing on the computer is supposed to be Otacon from Metalgear2.


Edit: If you were wondering where the (sweet!) animation is, here is the start of it. He's supposed to be typing. I'm planning to continue the animation so the end result would be a little clip. What's the maximum size a gif can be posted at? Is 1 mb small enough?

Edited by nivek - 01 July 2012 at 2:09am

Heres a pretty rough edit. I changed some colors, removed the outline of the unicorn and edited some angles. I stuck with the colors you had otherwise there would be more changes. I presume that black things is going to some other dimension or something otherwise the rainbow that passes through it should have the same angle as the other section on that wall. There were quite a few very similar colors that im sure you could compensate without them. Lastly there is unclean linework in some places. I hope this doesnt sound too mean, I'm rootin' for you i know how hard animations are man.

:|  You didn't add depth to the monitor.  At this angle (slightly above, you'd see the 3rd dimension slightly on the monitor.  You didn't really even add depth to the monitor stand.  The shading is so hard to see.  More contrast!  Why don't you add shading to the planes of the room?  And give the monitor lighting.  I picture a very dark room.  Much darker than you have, but have the monitor light adding a very stark light to the dark room, lighting the man's face in a creepy way from the bottom and spanning light to the walls in the back.   

xD That looks pretty nice.  And combined with the content within the piece, it adds quite a bit of humor, I think.  Before it just looked like a dude sitting in a room typing at a computer with rainbows and a unicorn in the background.  Now it looks like the same thing, but with a random dude sitting in a dark room....It actually adds a lot contextually.  Makes him feel more alone and adds more absurdity to the rainbows and stuff on the wall.  Speaking of stuff, I think you could also incorporate the outer space thing a little more.  It's not really adding much now and is in an awkward place.  Again, just throwing ideas out there... Maybe have the whole wall or most of the wall being a black hole portal like thing going to outer space.   I personally like where this is going, but it's up to you to decide where you want to take it.

But in the end, are you going to focus on cleaning up your pixels before this is deemed finished?  It's pretty rough on a pixel level.  Jagged edges, too close colors, lack of contrast in areas, harsh outlines and so on.

I finally finished most of the animation today(displayed on the top post). Now I'm going to clean up the pixels and add more detail to the rip in the wall.

Edited by nivek - 03 July 2012 at 7:38pm

I'm going to take a break from the unicorn piece and work on some fun animations.

I think the next piece should be an animated comic strip similar to this:


Here is another rushed animation sketch:

The last few animations look like sketches don't they. I kinda rushed through them yesterday not thinking about the pixels in the piece.

@Friend if you have any refinement ideas for the unicorn piece, go ahead and post them.

Those sketches of Monica are huge...  You'll go insane trying to refine something that big.  Something this big could be considered an "epic" in pixel art.  Definitely not something you want to go for when learning to creating a refined image.  Just having a character as the anchor of your piece would be a lot closer to something this size on average:

 

A common goal for refining is having your lineart only being 1 pixel thick.  Look at very basical tutorial on cleanness, and one key thing that separates pixel art from oakaki:

 

Now, just a very basic application of this idea of cleanness to something you did:

 

Bear in mind that these are rules, and of course in art, rules are allowed to be broken, but it's not really a good idea to try to bend the rules until you can follow the rules first.  In the end, you need to do what serves your piece best. 

I'm impressed you refined the line art that much.  Good job, though there's still iffy spots like the left shoulder and purple gem above the breasts.  Only thing is the lineart is just the tip of the iceberg.

I still disagree with the size because it doesn't leverage pixel art techniques very well.  It can be done of course, as you can see in things like the image below.  Working at this size won't really force you to think like a pixel artist, nor really help you improve with pixel art techniques because of that. 

 But I can't make you do anything, and you can't make me finish that decapitated cat head on a rag thing

The position of the arms makes it look like you're hiding the hands to avoid drawing them. The head is a little lopsided, with more weight on our right. Neck is short, leg on our right is too thin and the other leg just tapers rather than vary in width according to the underlying anatomy (tiny knees, no calves). chest is pretty square and broad.