Pixel Art attempt ... suggestions?

[DrewCCU]

I started working on this and I'm - obviously - not finished but i cant seem to get enough realism with the mountains here ... any tips/suggestions?

thanks.

[Lad]

 It looks pretty good, but it isn`t pixel art - in pixel art the placement and the color of each pixel is thought of. Blender tools, photoshop effects and color reductions are not allowed in pixel art . You clearly didn`t choose every color yourself, as the color count is 2833.

If you want to do pixel art I would suggest learning from here.
http://pixeljoint.com/pixels/links.asp?id=2192

I think that the mountains do not look as realistic because  the contrast is a bit dull if it`s morning. (Just my opinion. You can wait and see what others have to say about this)

[DrewCCU]

It looks pretty good, but it isn`t pixel art - in pixel art the placement and the color of each pixel is thought of. Blender tools, photoshop effects and color reductions are not allowed in pixel art . You clearly didn`t choose every color yourself, as the color count is 2833.

If you want to do pixel art I would suggest learning from here.
http://pixeljoint.com/pixels/links.asp?id=2192

I think that the mountains do not look as realistic because  the contrast is a bit dull if it`s morning. (Just my opinion. You can wait and see what others have to say about this)

i really dont think these rules are concrete ... maybe i did use a little too much blending but i was only trying to follow this tutorial by an outstanding pixel artist:
http://www.barnettcollege.com/tutorial1.htm

[Kastchey]

Maybe you could try making your mountains more jagged and solid? They look more like piles of sand right now.

And Lad, you are obviously right about pixel art, but this 'pure pixel' technique is not really common among indie games makers. Probably because backgrounds in many early 90s games were painted and then scanned pictures, and people here often attempt to mimic this style using filters. So I believe that when somebody refers to 'pixel art' here in this forum, it will be pixels+filters in most cases, especially when talking about backgrounds.

i really dont think these rules are concrete ... maybe i did use a little too much blending but i was only trying to follow this tutorial by an outstanding pixel artist:
http://www.barnettcollege.com/tutorial1.htm

Perhaps the outstanding pixel artist who also happens to be a member of this forum would care to help?

[Darth Mandarb]

I could tell straight away that was from the FoY tutorials! 

I have never agreed (and will never agree) that using a tool or two makes something not pixel-art but this isn't the place for such a discussion. 

I think it's off to a good start. 

However, my feelings on what is or is not pixel art aside, I think you are using WAY more colors than you need to.  In such a small space that amount of color is undetectable to the human eye.  You could probably achieve the same look with 4-5 colors.  However ... since you probably aren't going to be animating the background mountains ... an overuse of color probably doesn't matter much in the long run.  But achieving a look like that using less colors is good practice.

[Andail]

I too could tell immediately which tutorial it is based on

And furthermore I second everything Darth said

[Khris]

With that loose definition of pixel art, anything except maybe vector graphics or digital photos could be called pixel art, which pretty much makes the distinction between pixel art and other digital art nonexistent. So while I don't scream in agony if something that's not pixel art is labeled pixel art, I don't think accepting that pixel art is usually about control over every single pixel and a confined palette isn't too much to ask either.

Choose a base color and draw outlines of mountains, fill that, then try to convey volume using only one lighter and one darker shade. Don't be afraid to use lots of photos as reference. Here's a nice one.
If everything's in place, use a few intermediate colors to soften hard edges a bit.

[abstauber]

I really have to sit on my hands, not to comment this whole pixel art discussion.
For simplicity, let's say low-res art

I have a seperate palette layer (I'm not using PS palette management) for each bigger or object. So in addition to your mountains layer, create a mountains_pal layer and start defining three colors: darkest, brightest and midtones. The start modelling and after it looks right, make those three colors six. (or get lazy, set your brush to 30% opacity and start blending, like Miez has told us )

If you're still not pleased, try the some correction layers. I like the saturation layer and play around with it until the colors look good.

Another approach could be, that you start drawing the mountains without the haze. And after that, add a color overlay to make it look far distant.

And after all - it already looks nice. So what - perfectionism doesn't get your game done