Zero's art

[Trubbol]

That is amazing.

[blueknight1758]

I wish I was as good as people like you in pixel art cause that guy look seriously amazing, if put in the right place.

[Jetrel]

drew this in art class today instead of working on my actual assignment, if anyone wants it they can use it

Nice!

I really like the body palette; the blue secondary-lighting was an excellent choice.

[Boldek]

you just drew that for fun?! awesome.

[william150]

you are a master of sprites

[Shinobody]

One question: Is he supposed to be horned? Because if yes, it is barely visible, and if no, well, one of tongues of flame above his right (unseen) eye looks a bit horn-like. (But that's maybe just me...)
And if we're talking lighting, it looks like flame he wields in his hand emits light, but much bigger flame-crown/halo does not...? (There is just small highlight on top of head, but that's all...)
Ah, and this is awesome.

[Zerovirus]

Nope, no horns, and as usual I totally suck at dynamic light sources. What follows is a long excuse as to why I've prioritized practicing other things over dramatic lighting.

Spoiler:

Actually, in real life, since our brain gets most of its archived references from seeing things under daylight, most close-up light-sources (like the burning hand) are blurred out due to the existence of much larger overpowering sources like the sun, to the extent that the human brain actively expects a figure's shading to be made with a diffuse lightsource from above similar to the sun. At day, nearby sources of light don't really do much- try holding a torch with one hand while standing outside at noon, and see how much your body's shading really changes. It's not very noticeable.

Thus, part of our brain actively tells us that close-up lightsources can be discarded and you'll still get a marginally realistic drawing, while we consciously know that this is not always correct, especially if the close-up lightsource is a very strong saturated color that doesn't blend well with the sun's color, like say a purple or blue lamp.

When we /don't/ disregard said close-up lightsources, we get dramatic lighting- dramatic for the sole reason that it violates our brain's internal guideline of 'diffuse lighting from the sky' while still looking realistic, and thus very attention-grabbing.

In short, to an average viewer, whether the close-up lightsource is strongly represented in the piece's lighting is not crucial, since we inherently expect lighting to be up from above. Sure, having a secondary pallete is really cool- for example, I might decide to change the fire to blue and throw in another blue flame in the other hand to explain the blue sub-pallete that I used, but it's not necessary.

At night, the sun-rule doesn't apply, of course, but if you're going to draw a sprite you might as well draw it according to the expectations of your audience. Trying to get a consistent and perfect representation of complex lighting with a single sprite is all but impossible since lighting changes throughout the day.

[Zerovirus]

Working on composition and finalizing blocks- trying to emulate a dark night, but I'm wondering if maybe I should lighten up the palette a bit. Any critiques would be nice. I'm thinking about putting a bit of the milky-way in the background or something like that.

[Frogger5]

To me, the shape of the moon looks a little chubby. Maybe the anti aliasing on the diagonal sides of the moon could be a little darker?

[Great_Mage_Atari]

I'm no pro, but here goes. The moon is pretty bright up above what I am assuming is a calm body of water. But what gets me is that the moon has no reflection on the water. Maybe adding a mild reflectiom will make it a hit brighter?

[Zerovirus]

I'm no pro, but here goes. The moon is pretty bright up above what I am assuming is a calm body of water. But what gets me is that the moon has no reflection on the water. Maybe adding a mild reflectiom will make it a hit brighter?

Yeah, I know about that. Not adding reflections until I do the other details of the water and sky, in case I decide I want to add a sea serpent or something after I draw a reflection and ruin the original work.

[Shinobody]

Mkay, so, why ship is illuminated this way? It gives feeling that there is some strong light source to the left, most visible on our left "tail" or "tentacle" or whatever it is. The only other lights in here, apart from the moon, should be stars and reflected light from sea/lake - but this one would be weaker and fuzzier, and would come from sky and surface of the water respectively?
I mean by that, that this left thing (whatever it is) should be shaded by "mast" and its "base" (I hope you get what parts I'm talking about).

[dirtywhitellama]

more moonlight on the right side of the structure to increase the contrast compared to the dimly lit left side would probably help fix the problem shinobody mentioned.

both sides of the cliffs meet the water directly at the horizon. its not totally bad, but you may want to try mixing it up a little. Like in this reference, you can see the different points where the water meets the islands and different "horizons" on the water.

also, keep in mind reflections are NOT just a flipped vertical image. it doesn't look like you've done that though.

nice start anyway

[Zerovirus]

I seem to have a distinct inability to finish anything before I start other projects.

[dipseydoodle]

Amazing, love the cello Zerovirus.