[Visual] Tezuka wants to be good at ART IN GENERAL

For a few weeks now I have been trying out doing pixel art, so far it's quite mediocre and still needs a lot of work. Since I know you guys will be able to give me a few helpful hints, I decided to post what I have done so far:

Custom Version of the Red Queen - Blue Dragon (WIP)

Spoiler for Previous WIP:

I've spent about two weeks on-and-off on this one so far and I am quite happy on how well the blade has come out. I should have used a reference picture for this one, but I ended up doing it from memory. I am having trouble doing the design plate shading (where the blue and yellow is), which makes that area look tacky compared to the blade itself. The hilt has not been done yet and I have yet to add the handle to the sword.

UPDATE 29/11/09: I have done the basic and some advanced shading on the handle, now I am currently working on the design for the hilt.


Nero Hairstyle

Spoiler for Zoomed In:

Redwyn let me use the Nero hair template he had to help me with my basic hair shading technique. I am kind of happy how it turned out, but all I used to do it was a simple dithering technique.



Simple Head with Random Hair

Spoiler for Zoomed:

A simple test of skill by creating a head template and hairstyle from scratch. This is the one I am the most unhappiest about, the hairstyle is really basic and shows the dithering technique was not suitable for the hairstyle I did.



A Simple Bar



A simple white and green bar I did for a college project.



Anime Style Eye

Spoiler for Zoomed:

Will be part of a bigger picture. The reason why I am posting the eye by itself at the moment is that I have NEVER tried doing faces before, especially not anime/japanese art style ones. I am pleased with how the shading came out for the eye, but work still needs to be done on the eye lash before I call it finished. Critique on this would be greatly appreciated.



Head - Facing Forward (WIP)

Spoiler for Previous:

The second part of the bigger picture. The template for both the face and hair have been completed. This is the VERY FIRST TIME I have tried this, so I am still not sure about the shape of both the face and hair. I am currently doing the hair shading first, I will be taking my time with it though to avoid messing this up. The neck and shoulders will be added last, they have already been done, but this is just showing the head at the moment.



Older Bartz HD (Vector)

So I decided to do something a little different and created a large vector image of the new Bartz from my upcoming fan sequel: Final Fantasy V-II. I started doing the line art for it sometime yesterday, which only took three hours, sadly I decided to notice proportions were going to be difficult to compensate from the original pixel version. I started and finished the colouring today, I didn't do that much shading; firstly because I was going for the look from the classic SNES boxart, and second, I am not too good at it. :X

Original pixel version is by Redwyn.

Criticism for this peace would help a lot!

Spoiler for Somewhat large image:

Critique and tips from you guys would be highly appreciated.

Ummm... I'm going in a random order.

I like the bar. It looks like something that could be well placed in a game (or project in your case, whatever it may be) given that the other graphics fit that style.

The hair looks cool (the white one)

The side-view hair guy thing isn't that bad. The dithering is cool, but I think adding lines would be nice because it looks like he just has one ball of hair, you know what I mean?

The blade looks good except there's a couple of things that throw me off:
- Shading: If was supposed to be shading/lighting and not the actual coloring of the blade, on the left side of the blade (if you were to turn it CCW a little), there's spots of lighter colors between spots of darker colors. I don't know how you could light that IRL to make it like that so it seems kind of weird.
- Lines: The side of the blade of the left side (lol, I just have problems with that side, I tell you hwat) seems crooked. It might be that the shading is off so my perception of it is a little messed up.

Besides that, the blade is fine, but I'm not sure what that white thing is (just decoration? If I saw a reference picture I might be able to identify it better ) and the handle just looks too thin for the blade. XP It looks like it'd snap off any moment.

^ My $0.02

Let's see. I'll go in order lol.

The sword:
My favorite. The shading on the left of the blade is a little odd nearing the edge of the blade. It gives the appearance that the outline of the blade is warped a bit. I love the blue and gold decoration.

Nero Hairstyle:
Shading looks perfect close up, I'd like to see it in actual size.

Head:
It looks pretty odd in actual size. The head looks oblong and squished. I think that due to the color of the background, the lightest color of tint/shade in the hair seems to almost disappear into the background. Also, the forehead seems to stop but the 'poof' of the hair seems to continue off away from the front of the head giving the appearance that the head is similar to the body of a snowman. Like the hair is an oval shape sitting on another oval shape instead of the two being one singular oval shape. Know what I mean? lol.

Simple Bar:
Simple bar is simply good. I like it. I don't actually have any critiques for this, I like it the way it is.

The bar looks good.

The sword looks good to me, but I can't really pin out any points to note other than what they already said.

Nero's hair could use a wee bit more contrast in the middle shade. And maybe add in a slightly darker shade of the middle shade and do selective outlining on the outline.

Random head with hair... Honestly speaking, I can't see how that resembles hair at all. Well just listen to the other crit and you should be able to fix up stuff for this.

Ummm... I'm going in a random order.

I like the bar. It looks like something that could be well placed in a game (or project in your case, whatever it may be) given that the other graphics fit that style.

The hair looks cool (the white one)

The side-view hair guy thing isn't that bad. The dithering is cool, but I think adding lines would be nice because it looks like he just has one ball of hair, you know what I mean?

The blade looks good except there's a couple of things that throw me off:
- Shading: If was supposed to be shading/lighting and not the actual coloring of the blade, on the left side of the blade (if you were to turn it CCW a little), there's spots of lighter colors between spots of darker colors. I don't know how you could light that IRL to make it like that so it seems kind of weird.
- Lines: The side of the blade of the left side (lol, I just have problems with that side, I tell you hwat) seems crooked. It might be that the shading is off so my perception of it is a little messed up.

Besides that, the blade is fine, but I'm not sure what that white thing is (just decoration? If I saw a reference picture I might be able to identify it better ) and the handle just looks too thin for the blade. XP It looks like it'd snap off any moment.

^ My $0.02

Bar - Thanks!

Hair - Thanks again, credit goes to Redwyn for the template though.

Side-vew hair - Yeah, I didn't use an outline for his hair for some reason, which makes it look like one big blob. I guess a few outlines will help, I'll see what I can do.

Sword - The spots you see is actually dithering, obviously it works better in some areas better than others. I'll try something else later and see how it looks. The hilt has not been coloured and the handle hasn't been drawn yet (as it states in the description). The thin thing you can see on the end is the throttle which makes the blade "accelerate". You can look at the wiki article about it here.

Let's see. I'll go in order lol.

The sword:
My favorite. The shading on the left of the blade is a little odd nearing the edge of the blade. It gives the appearance that the outline of the blade is warped a bit. I love the blue and gold decoration.

Nero Hairstyle:
Shading looks perfect close up, I'd like to see it in actual size.

Head:
It looks pretty odd in actual size. The head looks oblong and squished. I think that due to the color of the background, the lightest color of tint/shade in the hair seems to almost disappear into the background. Also, the forehead seems to stop but the 'poof' of the hair seems to continue off away from the front of the head giving the appearance that the head is similar to the body of a snowman. Like the hair is an oval shape sitting on another oval shape instead of the two being one singular oval shape. Know what I mean? lol.

Simple Bar:
Simple bar is simply good. I like it. I don't actually have any critiques for this, I like it the way it is.

Sword - I'll fix that, I didn't realize how out-of-place it looked. Also I thought the decoration looked a bit tacky, but I guess if people like it, I'll just "tweak" it a bit. :X

Hair - Thanks! I'll make an original sized copy of it soon.

Head - Yeah I get what you mean. The head template itself actually looks quite good if I say so myself, but the hairstyle I tried to do came out terribly wrong, especially with the lack of outline. I will try another hairstyle soon which isn't an oval shape. lawl

Bar - Thank you.  

The bar looks good.

The sword looks good to me, but I can't really pin out any points to note other than what they already said.

Nero's hair could use a wee bit more contrast in the middle shade. And maybe add in a slightly darker shade of the middle shade and do selective outlining on the outline.

Random head with hair... Honestly speaking, I can't see how that resembles hair at all. Well just listen to the other crit and you should be able to fix up stuff for this.

Hair - Could you a bit more specific about "selective outlining"?

Head - Yeah I know.  

I'll take all of what you guys said on board and try a few things you tried out. First up; shading problems on the sword.

Here, Tez, I went ahead and did it for cha.

Step 4 for Selout.

This is pretty good pixel art is always fun but just a little tedious although it pays off in the end.
i used to do a lot of isometric artwork and it wasnt bad if i do say so myself, just stick with it if you enjoy it and youi'll jjust keep getting better

Updated the Blue Dragon, see the first post for details.

Here, Tez, I went ahead and did it for cha.

Thanks Redwyn, now I can add it to the post.  

Step 4 for Selout.

Ahh I see. At the moment, I just want to get the sword done. I'll try selective shading later on the blade.

EDIT: Changed the colour of the hilt to match the name and plate design.

Added "Anime Style Eye".

Critique would be helpful. 

Added "Head". Hopefully this will be my best work yet with a little patience. 

By proportion, the eyes would be totally absolutely covered in hair on your latest stuff. Was this intentional?

Sort of, I wanted the hair to be quite big, but I ended up making it too big. To compensate I will be drawing eyes outside of the hair, if you know what I mean. The eyes will also not be completely covered, so you will still be able to a lot of the eyes.

If it doesn't turn out right doing that, I'll just make the eyes a bit bigger to compensate instead. 

Necropost!

I've added a new piece I actually finished to the first post. Comments about it are more than welcome.

The Bartz thing is the new one? If so, looks cool! Reminds me of the FFI I played on PSP.