First sig!

[ortiz9471]

Last night I was bored. I read a few tutorials on making pixel sigs, but ultimately decided that no matter how much I read the only way I'm going to get good is go out and try it. I downloaded GraphicsGale, and after a bit of messing around I'm pretty comfortable. I made a simple sig, and I like it. I've never done art on a computer before.

 

 

 

So, any tips for a starter? C/C please :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks guys I never realized that drawing on a computer could be fun :lol:

[Zoidnerd]

made me lol. its a good sig bro, its humor over time and thats a good sacrifice.

[Sir_Erderik]

Ya, pretty funny. You should try to get rid of the "click here to view full size image" thing, because its more of a hinderance. I'll look for work of yours in the future.

 

 

 

Edit: You should add a bull (red of course) charging off the end of the cliff screaming "NOO!!!

[ortiz9471]

I'm working on getting rid of the thumbnail right now, and contemplating putting a bull on the end. Most likely I will try tomorow, I don't have time tonight, and I most likely will mess it up.

 

 

 

made me lol. its a good sig bro, its humor over time and thats a good sacrifice

 

thanks, I figured if it's not going to be too great in quality it better have humor to make it bearable :wink:

 

 

 

I actually really like it, and plan on spending more time on it in the future. Just didn't quite know what direction to go in.

[shivers21]

red bull gives you wings! :-w :wink:

[LeonardMart]

opinion as a serious artist: thats no pixel. its too... erm... non-pixely!

 

 

 

opinion as a normal mortal person: lawl nice one, even if the art isnt great, i think its also an original idea :thumbsup:

[magerx7]

Hey not bad at all, that's way better than anything I could do.

[ortiz9471]

opinion as a serious artist: thats no pixel. its too... erm... non-pixely!

 

 

 

 

I was hoping it would be... erm... pixely enough, but knew that unless I did the ice.. erm.. pixely then it wouldn't be too great. Problem is, I have no freaking clue on doing that ice :lol:

[LeonardMart]

you say you read tutorials, but i dont think you followed what they say. first, the guy's arm is too big and is far from looking like a real arm. look at yourself in a mirror to see how an arm looks like when youre drinking.

 

there is absolutely no shading on the guy. that is a very important reason why this is more a cartoon rather than a pixel. pixel art is characterised of being made with every pixel placed carfully, not drawing wildly and then using the paint flood tool and call it a pixel.

 

the sky is far from being sky-colored. the colors are too saturated. look at the real sky. its a very light blue, and the sky nearer to the horizon is lighter.

 

the ice... there was a tut about drawing ice. look at the links at the gallery faq.

 

and the "got wings" text looks drawn by hand :P

[ortiz9471]

Thank you!

 

 

 

You see, I don't know what I have to do to make it look better, I'm new at this. I need people like Mitusbishi to give me tips :D

 

 

 

I'm working on that right now.

 

 

 

-Fixed the arm.

 

-Fixed the text.

 

-Fixed the arm again #-o

 

-Did some work on the bottom right hand horizon line, took me a very long time lol.

 

 

 

Things to do:

 

-Figure out how to shade ice

 

-Maybe fix horizon line

[shivers21]

here's just a quick idea on how you could shade the ice (i'm NOT a pixel artist, if it looks terrible, i know rofl)

 

 

 

 

just look at the bottom right corner, the rest is bad. ^ the white bands look kewl ^_^

 

 

 

EDIT: look from the big white band down.

[ortiz9471]

Eh, it's worth a shot at least. Can't do anything the rest of the nice I'm going to a end of the school year dance \ Then to a friends house.

[ortiz9471]

Any more opinions? I tried doing some shading on the horizon line but to get a good effect at all I think I'm going to have to re-do the entire sky and make the shading lines horizontal not vertical, if that makes sense? But then the area on the right would be tricky.. AHH this is harder then I thought.

[Jopie211]

opinion as a serious artist: thats no pixel. its too... erm... non-pixely!

 

 

 

opinion as a normal mortal person: lawl nice one, even if the art isnt great, i think its also an original idea :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Same. :mrgreen:

 

 

 

It's pretty funny, but could do with some improvements though. :)

 

 

 

Good job on making something funny and original. :)

[ThruItAll]

I wouldn't use a gradient for a sky, but I couldn't do better!.

[ortiz9471]

Sorry, I'm new to this. What's a gradient :uhh:

 

 

 

To do the sky I just started with a very light blue then in either direction messed witht he RGB values to make it a tiny bit darker every couple pixels.

 

 

 

If that's a gradient, then alright. I happen to like it O:)

[Faelenof]

Hey Ortiz. :)

 

 

 

From a regular forum user's POV, good concept. :P Makes me laugh. ^^

 

 

 

Now, from a pixeller's POV:

 

 

 

As has been pointed out, gradients like that generally don't look too good on pixel signatures as they look a little fake. Fortunately it seems like you've pixelled them manually, so they don't get the big no no from me.

 

 

 

Gradients are the gradual change from one colour to another - kind of like on a pipe or something. They're very easy to make automatically on some programs without having to do the whole RGB values thing - but if you did it automatically then it wouldn't count as a proper pixel. :)

 

 

 

As has been pointed out above, gradients aren't the best way to pixel a sky, but of course as an artist you have a bit of license with your style. I personally suggest reading a couple of the tutorials in The Gallery Rules, FAQ and Resources and try a few sky techniques there if you can find them. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is misterxman's signature. Don't worry too much about how good it is, he's generally considered one of the better pixellers on the forums. What I want you to focus on is the ice-blocked guy on the right of the sig. You could try to emulate that sort of pixelling on the ice.

 

 

 

One way to improve in pixelling is to study other people's signatures, especially those who are more experienced. They know what they're doing. Also, read as many tutorials as you can and try new things.

 

 

 

Also, if you're having trouble with anatomy (it doesn't affect you too much at the moment as your character is small), research on the internet on human anatomy. Read articles on it and look at pictures. Use references. Same goes for the bull if you're going to do it. We've got all these resources and we may as well use it. :D

 

 

 

Good luck!

[ortiz9471]

Thanks =D>

 

 

 

I never realized there were so many links in there.. I've gotta try them.

 

 

 

Edit: I zoomed in on it and put a black line over where the color changes on this section. As you can see the lines are far from perfect and aren't evenly spaced, so it's manually done not automated :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

^I did that in paint so it's saved as a jpeg so it looks a little different (too me at least..), but you can obviously tell it's the same thing.