Brain -palette and highlights/shadow
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14939
Printed Date: 09 June 2026 at 12:23pm
Topic: Brain -palette and highlights/shadow
Posted By: uint
Subject: Brain -palette and highlights/shadow
Date Posted: 17 August 2012 at 12:56pm
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Hello!
I'd still say I'm completely new to pixel art. I decided to make a brain. I started with the outline and I'm not quite finished yet 
I want to start with the shading and highlighting right away - I'm excited to do that. Though, I'm in doubt how. I'm wondering what colors would be suitable for shading/highlighting this, this is my current palette: 
I've tried finding a good combination of colors, and shading with them but it didn't turn out quite good, because of my lack of knowledge and experience. I ask you for advice on how to proceed shading/highlighting and finding the right colors. Btw, is there a good word for "shading/highlighting"? Thank you very much! |
Replies:
Posted By: Yuran
Date Posted: 17 August 2012 at 11:42pm
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If you work in Photoshop, the problems with the choice of colors you will not.
Advise to make with a small piece of shading / highlightin on your work. So it will be easier to choose the right combination of colors |
Posted By: uint
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 3:51am
| Okay, I will try. I guess it'll be some king of pillow shading that the tutorials warned about. Also, is there any way to change one color to another? Like ctrl + h in a text document (i.e. replace all #ff0000 pixels to #bb2222). I'm using Paint.NET. Edit: I'm writing my own plugin now lol |
Posted By: uint
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 7:15am
The thing is, I don't know if it's my shading or the palette that is wrong. I changed the palette to more blueish and tried shading but...
It doesn't look any good. Edit: I tried again, this time I remove the second lightest color from the palette and used the darker one to fill the brain. I tried to be careful with the lightest color 
When I first drew the lightest color, I thought it looked too much like a simple line, not a highlight, also on far distance. So I added the average of the lightest color and the color that I filled the brain with, and kind of anti-aliased the lightest line. I now get what you mean by pillowshading, because that's pretty much what I achieved by doing that. So I undid and tried some dithering instead... Still unsure. I want it to be kind of shiny; wet and slimy. |
Posted By: Ashkin
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 3:21pm
 As you can see, brains aren't really all that purple. They have a pink middle tone, which fades away through orange to black at the darkest crevices. The highlights are nearly white, so it gives us quite a range of colors. White, pink, orange. I hope this helps. |
Posted By: uint
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 4:26pm
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Hmm yeah, thanks. What I also see is that my brain looks more like a cross section of the brain, cut right through - it lacks dimension.
So I tried to make the edges of the brain more like they were going inwards (idk how to put it, sorry); perspective. I've only done it on the bottom left and the left part yet though. 
I didn't change the colors yet but I will. I don't know why I imagined the brain purple... who knows. But yeah, I will try those colors ^^ |
Posted By: Buddy90
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 7:15pm
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A brain doesn't need a lot of shading. The crevices in the brain are more like holes, and the rest of the brain is a fairly uniform shape. Basically, a brain is a ball, with wrinkles. Shade it as you would a ball, and ignore the wrinkles. The lineart looks good, though.
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Posted By: Yuran
Date Posted: 18 August 2012 at 11:37pm
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I like the piece of the brain where uint made a shadowI love nice shadows.
And the purple cord to me more pleasing than if you use the colors of this real brain |
Posted By: uint
Date Posted: 19 August 2012 at 5:11am
| Thanks guys. I'm a little in doubt with everything. Maybe you're right I should shade it as a ball at first. Then I would look at the wrinkles and peaks and see what I could do there. (Edit) And first of all finish the lineart. |