The User Art Topic

[SpoOkyMagician]

Yes, I have a bad habit of doing that with pixel art. I just jump in and don't consider where I want to go with it. (I do have a rough idea though in my head of what I want though.)

But yea, I also see what your saying about anti aliasing. I screw around with that a lot. Too much most of the time. I try to add light/shadows with it. Which doesn't really work correctly. (I am still partially new to expert pixeling art rules/guidelines.) I only learned pixel art from an old forum friend of mine. I observed most of his art throughout his time pixeling. He is very good and I just learned by example though him with trial and error. I don't really plan to become a pixel artist though. (It's just something to do to kill some time for fun. It's not like my art is going to be used or anything. I only do manga/anime pixel art for the most part which will not be used in wesnoth. I do appreciate your C&C for telling me that but meh.)

edit: Here is his a self portrait my friend drew of himself in pixel art. (Tell me he isn't good. I dare you. )

Spoiler:

[Gambit]

He isn't good

Spoiler:

at miniature golf

[Girgistian]

Here is his a self portrait my friend drew of himself in pixel art.

Whoa.

[KKSlider]

Holy sh...ivers XD

Insane pixel art there! Keep it up

[Turuk]

edit: Here is his a self portrait my friend drew of himself in pixel art. (Tell me he isn't good. I dare you. )

Does he play Wesnoth...?

[SpoOkyMagician]

Nope. :\ (not to my knowledge. But there is a 'JW' on here but dunno if that is him or not. Probably not.) I knew him form the GMS forums when they where up (game maker showcase) but when yo yo games bought out GM; everything at the GMS went with it. (Snabela/Thomas [the forums admin] sold out.) but he started new forums but it quickly died out so most of the members don't keep in contact much anymore.

But I could try to talk to him on AIM and see if he still has time for pixel art or not.

[Turuk]

Ah, I doubt it is the same JW then. Well, try and get him into the game and see if he's interested in perhaps sharing his talents towards another project. We won't be selling out on him.

[SpoOkyMagician]

Unfortunally; he isn't online atm but I sent him a message for now. Hopefully he gets it. (If not; I will try to join that site he is on and PM him there later.)

edit: but enough about this. a partially off topic. Go back on topic please.

[Jetrel]

Yes, I have a bad habit of doing that with pixel art. I just jump in and don't consider where I want to go with it. (I do have a rough idea though in my head of what I want though.)

But yea, I also see what your saying about anti aliasing. I screw around with that a lot. Too much most of the time. I try to add light/shadows with it. Which doesn't really work correctly. (I am still partially new to expert pixeling art rules/guidelines.)

It has nothing to do with expert pixelling rules/guidelines. This is something basic about illustration, and is true for pixel art, painting, pencil drawings .... anything.

I try to add light/shadows with it.

This right here - this is your mistake. Don't start with dithering! Dithering is a final step AFTER you've added the shadows, not something you use to start adding them. It's all about WHERE the shadows go. Whether they're dithered or not is totally useless if they're in the wrong spot.

Skip the dithering because it's slow. You could spend all night dithering just one drawing. Dithering will guzzle up time like a cop going after a box of doughnuts. What you need to do first is learn where to put the shading, and you won't learn that if you take forever to do just one drawing. With drawings like this, you learn a fairly constant constant amount per attempt at drawing, so if you want to learn faster, you really need to cut down the time it takes for an individual drawing. You learn about the same amount from one drawing that takes 1 hour, versus another that takes 12 hours. You could learn twelve times as fast if you did twelve 1hr drawings.

This will collapse if you do a ton of lightning fast-drawings; you won't learn nearly as much from a 1-minute gesture sketch as you do from a finished, hour-long drawing*, but you'll still learn a sizeable amount - maybe 20% of that hour-long piece's reward. This is why so many kinds of art instruction focus so hard on teaching lightning-fast gesture sketches, because by doing a whole bunch of them in sequence, you get a ton of learning out of the experience.

It's also worth noting that what you learn in a really fast gesture sketch will be different; you'll learn about posing, anatomy, composition, and a lot of the mechanical skills of handling brushes and such (I'm assuming, here, you're drawing a human, which are common subjects), but you won't learn about the things that aren't involved, which are usually things like drawing finer-details on the body like facial features, or coloring, or shading.


If you want to get good, fast, at drawing, do a lot of short drawings, and stop yourself if they're taking more than an hour. Do a mix of little 1-minute gesture drawings, and a mix of longer 20-40 minute pieces, but stop all of them before they start sucking up too much time. You can occasionally treat yourself to a "long" drawing, but make the vast majority of your stuff short.


The way you learn in drawing is by experimenting; throughout each drawing, you'll be doing lots of little "experiments" where you try to do something (like draw a hand, or shade a leg), and then learn from whether it works out or not. It's the scientific method used over and over again on a small scale. You could probably give this a rate; you could call it "experiments per hour" or EPH. I've begun to suspect that a person with a high EPH ratio is gonna learn much faster than a person with a slow EPH. It's not just how long you practice, it's about -how- you practice.

edit: Here is his a self portrait my friend drew of himself in pixel art. (Tell me he isn't good. I dare you. )

Spoiler:

Why would I say he's bad? - He's JWW aka "Scruffs". I'm aware of, and like his work.

[SpoOkyMagician]

It has nothing to do with expert pixelling rules/guidelines. This is something basic about illustration, and is true for pixel art, painting, pencil drawings .... anything.

I meant rules/guidelines for like knowing the light source, drawing sketches, etc for art in general. If you don't follow the common sence rules of art, your art will look crappy/suck. (which is exactly what I was saying and you were saying as well. So, we are clear. But yes, I broke the general art rules/guidelines and it ruins the picture.)

This right here - this is your mistake. Don't start with dithering! ...Blah Blah Blah.

Yea, but whatever... I don't really want to pursue getting BETTER at pixel art anymore... It's not my thing... I was just bored and wanted to draw. (There is a reason why this is in the off topic section.)

Why would I say he's bad? - He's JWW aka "Scruffs". I'm aware of, and like his work.

Maybe this might help...

[sarcasm] (Tell me he isn't good. I dare you. ) [/sarcasm]

If it doesn't... You have no sence of humor...

[scienceguy8]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35071157@N04/3759277958/

Art for electrical engineers. It isn't done yet, but I am happy with it so far, mainly because I have all of the surface mount components on one side, so I can use hot plate reflow soldering to save my poor, shaky hands from the trauma of soldering parts the size of large rice grains to the board, and there are no vias (plated holes in the board whose only purpose is to carry current from one side of the board or the other). Just gotta figure out where to put the LEDs and their resistors to keep the package as small as possible, and of course the obligatory contact info, graphics and logos, pertinent info, etc.

[Jetrel]

This right here - this is your mistake. Don't start with dithering! ...Blah Blah Blah.

Yea, but whatever... I don't really want to pursue getting BETTER at pixel art anymore... It's not my thing... I was just bored and wanted to draw. (There is a reason why this is in the off topic section.)

You're not the only person reading this thread, and that's part of the purpose of this thread. I know you personally don't care, but you're helping out other people by being an example. Lots of people are desperate to get better.

Maybe this might help...

[sarcasm] (Tell me he isn't good. I dare you. ) [/sarcasm]

If it doesn't... You have no sence of humor...

Sorry, it didn't seem like friendly sarcasm, it seemed like the spiteful kind - sort of the oneupmanship I'm too used to in the videogame industry. "Young turks", cockiness and all, which I really don't have much patience for. To me it sounded like a rebuttal of my advice; e.g. "yeah, well I learned from this awesome friend who's better than you, so shut up". I'm sorry if it wasn't that, and if you were just honestly trying to be funny - this is the internet and I can't hear the tone of your voice to tell if you're joking or not.

[SpoOkyMagician]

You're not the only person reading this thread, and that's part of the purpose of this thread. I know you personally don't care, but you're helping out other people by being an example. Lots of people are desperate to get better.

True.

Sorry, it didn't seem like friendly sarcasm, it seemed like the spiteful kind - sort of the oneupmanship I'm too used to in the videogame industry. "Young turks", cockiness and all, which I really don't have much patience for. To me it sounded like a rebuttal of my advice; e.g. "yeah, well I learned from this awesome friend who's better than you, so shut up". I'm sorry if it wasn't that, and if you were just honestly trying to be funny - this is the internet and I can't hear the tone of your voice to tell if you're joking or not.

Well, I am a good/neutral person overall. (But, I do understand what you mean from that perspective.) But no, I just meant it to be silly/joke around. (Not hateful.)

But anyway...

Nicely drawn scienceguy8. (I'm not a "hardware" kinda guy; but looks nice nonetheless.)

[Girgistian]

Yet another item of wonder in the abysmal depths of the Internet!

[SpoOkyMagician]

Ha! I love it!

Very creative/unique/funny.