ID:2315318
 


Looking for critique, advice, etc. on some pixel art I recently made.

The top base is the oldest -- about a month or two old.

The bottom base is more recent. I recall seeing someone say something about limiting your pixels to improve faster (or something similar), so I made that.

The middle base I just made within the last hour. I'll make the other directions soon and begin animating it.

Appreciate it.
Made some revisions and added additional directions:



That headband on the side view kinda bothering me. Overall though I'm content.

Decided I'm not going to jump into animations so soon. I want to get comfortable with forms and perspective first.
Form and anatomy is real off, shading is highlighting regions that aren't well defined, so it just seems like it's textured rather than actually an object with depth.







Ears are roughly central to the head. Put your fingers loosely around your ears. Twist your head up and down. Notice how they only move subtly? The ears are fixed very close to the upper spine's pivot. The jawline begins at the connection of the ear to the head.



The curvature of the forehead is actually slightly flatter than the crown of the skull. The nose sticks out the furthest, which is roughly the middle third of the face. The jaw should be in line with the brow in most cases, and will sharply curve into the neck.

The only time that the ears should be part of the silhouette is in the front and back views. Even small turns of the head will expose the rear of the skull as the new silhouette.

Notice the shape of the skull here:


Also, for your shading, try to think in terms of shape a bit more. Darker colors indicate light reflecting off the surface further away from the eye, and can also be useful for indicating depth/distance from the observer.



Took a few minutes to touch up your front and back shading. That sideview needs a totally new silhouette, so I didn't touch it. Don't care for the pose too much, honestly. The legs should be a little less splayed. And the perspective seems a bit wonky too. Maybe a bit more aggressive 3/4ths if you are going for that. For iconographic perspective, really anything works.
In response to Ter13
I find it quite hilarious that you used Mr. cage as a reference
In response to Xyberman
Xyberman wrote:
I find it quite hilarious that you used Mr. cage as a reference

One should always strive for perfection.
I find it quite hilarious that you used Mr. cage as a reference

Made me laugh as well.




I appreciate the insight, Ter13. I'm still a lil' puzzled as to the finer differences between texturing and shading. I used another base as a guide of sorts, so I suspect that's where my confusion begins.



However, I'll do some studying on that stuff instead of badgering you and let the revisions speak.
That's a solid improvement. Perspective is hard, and proportions tend to depend heavily on what you want to actually emphasize, but you are moving in the right direction for sure.
In response to Ter13
That's just one of the bases I was referencing initially. Apologies if my wording was misleading.

Plan on doing some studying and posting an update later today though.
Revision 1:



Revisiting north and side views tomorrow.
Bright spots are light reflected. Them being at the corners of the shoulders means that your shoulders end in a sharp point that happens to face the camera perfectly flat on.

Honestly I don't think highlights are required on a base icon, especially one of this size, if the base was in a 96x96 frame and was an appropriate size to the frame I could probably understand adding in highlights however with such a small work space adding in highlights can often stand out way more than needed, for example the highlight on your characters head seems not only too bright but also looks as though zoomed out it's going to cause some serious clustering on the icon and make it well in my opinion unbareable to look at (of course that could just be me that thinks so), I'd also advise maybe dragging the 1px line on each arm downwards making it a 2px line to avoid it looking like someone's just broken your bases arms causing them to just sort of push outwards (they are totally bending the wrong way)
Also, why have the toes got highlights? surely with the feet being at the bottom of the base and considering where the light is hitting, the feet wouldn't see any light, in fact they'd be the darkest part of the base
In response to Gold94
I agree as far as the highlights on the body go. I also think the highlights on the head are too bright/apparent -- stands out a bit much when zoomed out. I'll remove/fix next round. Thanks @Ter13 too.

I'd also advise maybe dragging the 1px line on each arm downwards making it a 2px line to avoid it looking like someone's just broken your bases arms causing them to just sort of push outwards (they are totally bending the wrong way)

That minor change produced a hella difference.

Also, why have the toes got highlights? surely with the feet being at the bottom of the base and considering where the light is hitting, the feet wouldn't see any light, in fact they'd be the darkest part of the base

Is that right? When I picture a light shining on the canvas from the top right, I imagine the areas of your body that stick out the most are the parts catching the most light -- the chest, the feet, and the knees somewhat. I could be picturing this wrong though -- 3/4ths perspective is a very weird point of view to me.
In response to FKI
FKI wrote:
I agree as far as the highlights on the body go. I also think the highlights on the head are too bright/apparent -- stands out a bit much when zoomed out. I'll remove/fix next round. Thanks @Ter13 too.

I'd also advise maybe dragging the 1px line on each arm downwards making it a 2px line to avoid it looking like someone's just broken your bases arms causing them to just sort of push outwards (they are totally bending the wrong way)

That minor change produced a hella difference.

Also, why have the toes got highlights? surely with the feet being at the bottom of the base and considering where the light is hitting, the feet wouldn't see any light, in fact they'd be the darkest part of the base

Is that right? When I picture a light shining on the canvas from the top right, I imagine the areas of your body that stick out the most are the parts catching the most light -- the chest, the feet, and the knees somewhat. I could be picturing this wrong though -- 3/4ths perspective is a very weird point of view to me.

I mean top right is behind the character in south view in 3/4 perspective so if we're talking in-game and realistically then the light source would be basically hitting the back left of the character really and truly which'd cast a shadow on the right side of the body and illuminating the back left of the character pretty much solely maybe highlighting a little on the front left to give proof there is light source but honestly, all of this sounds pretty complicated if you start taking it all like that lol

edit: but where the sun is higher up the highlight would become less vibrant the lower down the body it goes
In response to Gold94
honestly if you insist on a highlight I'd just keep the one on the head and that's it, but tone it down a little xD
I'm really late but since Art & Sound doesn't see many posts anyway I thought I would do an edited version of this base too even though FKI has probably long since changed his needs.

I tried to keep it similar in colour and thickness to the original but I had to change some key things (like having to remove the mouth). I even put in highlights with extra care on ass related details.