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[gggfhfdh]

if you dont want to blatantly take someones colors, can you at the very least partially take some of the advice people have been giving you

[Ridley]

I don't want to spam the thread, and the very lengthy reply I sent Toast isn't in my outbox to copy out of regardless.

I have considered everything people said, and the changes I made are a result of that. But I can't take a lot out of all of it. For instance, complaints lobbed of pillow shading are meaningless to me because I didn't employ pillow shading, even though it's striking a lot of people as though I did because that's what it must look like, for whatever reason. When I was drawing the sprite, the shading was in no way derived from the contour, and that's the definition of pillow shading--so when people tell me to stop doing that, all I can think is "stop doing what?"

Other things are just contrarian or circular. "needless dithering" was so that it looked less banded, and the only way I could think to make a grainy texture. Wide bands of colors were to avoid the appearance of pillow shading. And to avoid both of those, I could only go back to legitimate pillow shading. What am I supposed to do?

I resolved misuse of black outlines with softer near-black tones of those colours on interior edges; I shaded in steps with regard to light source, which was far distant and East; brightened and shifted colors; double-checked silhouetting, and did my best to make the dithering uneven and in parts connected, so it would not be a simple pattern but clearly an attempt at texture, (which a handful of tutorials recommended doing under constraints.) Anything else I do seems to get me nowhere, but it would be nice if someone yielded that this was in some way an improvement, or the messing with changes to please you lot was apparently a waste of time.

You cannot say that I have just ignored or fielded the advice, I've taken it all in.

[namragog]

Oh boy, I haven't seen one of you guys in a while. Stop acting like a victim here. You are legitimately ignoring everyone's advice, even going so far as to make up reasons as to why you haven't. If you genuinely feel this way, which I believe you do, look at other pixel art, study it, practice, and show us what you have done when you think you're good enough.

You probably think you're good enough now though, so how can we jump over that hurdle? Honestly, I don't know. Try taking advice, maybe. If something looks to others like it's pillow-shaded, either it is, you're using a gradient, or you have way too many colors in the wrong area.

I want you to get better. I seriously do. But to do that, you need to get over yourself and take some criticism.

[Ridley]

I apologize for jumping to defend my work. I recognize that I've got a lot to learn, and many flaws to fix. But it's a lot of unexpected criticism to take in at once, these being what's left of my first sprites.

Yes, clearly I think that I am the best, and also that my first sprites are the immaculate representation of the human anatomy. I would never be anything approaching humble.

This is constructive indeed.

[gggfhfdh]

alright boys and girls back the fr*ck up i'm about to make a coherent text post

If you had actually, ACTUALLY, REALLY, SERIOUSLY taken in ANY of the advice, your sprite wouldn't still look like this:



(for reference, this is the help you had to work with)


Now I know this might be an incredibly hard concept for you to grasp, and it s for most artists that are either new to art, or simply just struggling to improve

but when someone gives you advice there is absolutely no shame in TAKING THAT ADVICE AND USING THEIR EDITS AND TIPS AS A REFERENCE
you, and others like you, vehemently ignore all advice except for the parts you like and at this point you are legitimately just plugging your ears and screaming that you blindly took a handful of comments at face value instead of bothering to figure out Why The Heck Someone Told You To Do That Thing

changing a black outline to a colored outline does not mean you fixed anything

changing banding to dithering does not mean you fixed anything - in fact, you have a perfectly good example of how to do something else entirely right in front of your face

claiming you started shading with regard to lightsources ABSOLUTELY does not under any circumstances mean you did do that, or that you fixed anything

using UNEVEN DITHERING is silly and stupid and you're a stupid butthead

things you do "seem to get you nowhere" because you are actively trying NOT to improve anything, you're upset that people don't like your sprite and so you're throwing a hissy fit and acting like a kid that was just told to clean up his room before he could watch tv
"i FIXED it. GOSH"
"NOW its better. LET ME GO WATCH TV"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN its not clean i have all the dirty stuff in a PILE now!!!"

So, yes, I can in fact say you have ignored every bit of advice given to you. Because you have
hearing is not the same as listening or whatever that saying goes like

i just made a long forum post on a saturday night im going now

[namragog]

^

[powly]

Ridley seems to have the same few problem with critisism I do; I think I'm good enough to tell which advice to follow and what not, which is pretty paradoxal - if I did, I wouldn't need the advice at all! I also grow too fond of my art to actually try the things people say I should. It's also a mistake, especially when you can just try making a new iteration and have the old one waiting in your drawer/different file.

Sadly, I haven't found a cure for this - I just don't do much art anymore :/

[Schoq]

The most glaring thing is the hair. If that's not pillow shading, you've invented something even worse.
One could probably come up with a material and shape and light condition that would produce something like that, but hair on a head it is not.

[Zack Bell]

Note to self: Don't post programmer art during a pixel argument. It will be ignored  

I do agree about taking the criticism a bit better though. Even without reading all of the posts, it just comes off as a bit rude and defensive because of the sheer size of the responses. A quick "Thanks for the input." and then leaving the thread alone would have been better, imo.

As for my personal input, I don't like the random ish dithering on the shirt and the hair still feels pillow-shaded to me.

[:^)]

Holy crap. I give major props to Ridley right now.

You guys are being the most arrogant pricks ever.

GUY NEW TO PIXEL ART: here's an attempt
JERKS DEFINED BY PIXEL ART: try harder
GUY NEW TO PIXEL ART: how's this?
JERKS DEFINED BY PIXEL ART: LOL wow you are a jerk. why didn't you art harder like i told U?
GUY NEW TO PIXEL ART: Well I'm tryin bro.
JERKS DEFINED BY PIXEL ART: go home kid. you don't even know how badly your presence offends me.

when someone doesn't fix the things you're trying to show him are wrong. Maybe you need to take more time to explain to him or direct him to some tutorials or sheesh maybe not be an ass.

I personally think you ruined what he was trying to accomplish with your "edit"
It's just damn arrogant the way you guys are acting. I'm kind of pissed off about it.

[clockwrk_routine]

ridley's also not going to improve in a day or a week.  it's takes a couple months or years for someone to know what they are doing wrong or what they could improve.  regardless whether someone says something doesn't work, if you're inexperienced with visual art you're not going to understand (or rather see) half the criticism that's being thrown your way. maybe people's advice will poke into his head some ways down the road.  I recall shading just to keep things not flat and loosely inspired by DBZ and not at all grasping or being able to consider lightsource when say my teacher would point it out.  It was like a foreign language or speaking math to me.  I think it takes a lot of time, practice, interest before you move on to learning something else, the animations pretty decent.  In regards to ego, you grow out of it.

[geepit]

Note to self: Don't post programmer art during a pixel argument. It will be ignored  

Them pigs look cool!

[Shawny]

[SolarLune]

My programmer art is getting better as I'm forced to do my own sprites. 
Sadly, I don't have a way to post GIFs at the moment. I won't be posting any animations for awhile.

Indeed, not bad. I think the shadow of the pigs could be a bit thicker (coming up toward their sides), to give the pigs a more round, cylindrical shape, as they're looking a bit flat right now. The dirt could also be a bit lighter. Otherwise, it's pretty good.

[Zack Bell]

Them pigs look cool!

Thank you, sir.

Indeed, not bad. I think the shadow of the pigs could be a bit thicker (coming up toward their sides), to give the pigs a more round, cylindrical shape, as they're looking a bit flat right now. The dirt could also be a bit lighter. Otherwise, it's pretty good.

Thanks! That makes sense. I'll try to round him up a bit and then find a way to post the walk animation along with it.

[J. R. Hill]

Allow me to jump on the Ridley Critique Bandwagon...



I just doodled this up in MSPaint at work, but I think this should give some insight into what we're seeing versus what you're seeing.

1. The hair isn't shaded, I'm not really sure what you were doing with it, but if you look at your versions, there are areas where the top is darker than the bottom, and other areas where the bottom is brighter than the top.  (Of where individual hair clumps would be)  I think it's easiest to shade each hair clump individually.  I didn't do a very in-depth job but I think it should be enough to get the idea.

2. It's better to shade with hue where possible.  If you look at your own hand, the areas that are darker aren't more grey, they actually (depending on your skintone) go pink then a dark greyish brown or purple in the most shaded areas.  Also, most generic light sources are tinted yellow, lightbulbs, the sun, fires, etc.  So when things get brighter they also become more yellow.

3. There are some more drastic measures I'd take if it were my own sprite, like removing the black outline on the skin/hair divide, but those are stylistic changes.

4. Stray pixels/Jaggies on the outline.

[Slow]

Very nice.

[Ridley]

...

I'll do the rest likewise but I won't post them here, and I'm not going to comment on the criticism debacle. I'm not going to fuel a fire for an argument that shouldn't have happened in the first place. Nothing good will come out of more posts.

Maybe I'll move to a workshop topic later.

I don't know.

Seeya.

[ANtY]

Note to self: Don't post programmer art during a pixel argument. It will be ignored  

I liked the pig

@Ridley: these hairs are for sure better than earlier, good job.

BTW I remember how when I started drawing everyone was telling me that all my works are flat as hell and I just couldn't see it, no matter how much time I'd stare on my works I just didn't see them and now I see how flat they were at the first sight. Just sayin'

[ANtY]

working on an attack animation since yesterday, any suggestion how to improve it?