Pixel Art

[Urugamosu]

Done!

Is this good?

 

[Nina]

???

I'm sleepy and have my last day of 'real' work tomorrow. Hows this for starters?

I wanted to start shading outlines and what not but I'd thought I'd wait for feedback first.

 

[Fairy]

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Good job guys!

Done!

Is this good?

Urugamosu, I specifically like how you used your AA in this. It's clean, organized, and adds a lot to smooth out the piece. But, remember that when you AA a line, you're blending it. So when you blend out your highlight, it should be lighter than the base it's on.

Your palette is nice too, but your leftmost two colors seem a little flat. Try lightening them up. You want your palette to range the light to dark scale, so it's implied your first and last colors are white and black respectively. Don't be afraid to go hard with it! :)

???

I'm sleepy and have my last day of 'real' work tomorrow. Hows this for starters?

I wanted to start shading outlines and what not but I'd thought I'd wait for feedback first.

I may have a bias for the color palette you used. Overall well done though. :)

 

[Nina]

I may have a bias for the color palette you used. Overall well done though. :)

Absolutely didn't mean that similarity, haha! Purple is like the best shading color in the world and yellow is the best highlight color, imo, so yea! I used that color ramp link you gave us and edited it a bit.

 

[SojournsEye]

Done my catch up work. ^^

 

[Fairy]

@SojournsEye; well done! Your homework looks good. :) Your color ramp seems a bit lacking on the light side though. Your rightmost two colors are virtually identical, so make sure you brighten up the last one. You'll want it to be aroundabout the #ff4242 range.

 

[Urugamosu]

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Good job guys!

Urugamosu, I specifically like how you used your AA in this. It's clean, organized, and adds a lot to smooth out the piece. But, remember that when you AA a line, you're blending it. So when you blend out your highlight, it should be lighter than the base it's on.

Your palette is nice too, but your leftmost two colors seem a little flat. Try lightening them up. You want your palette to range the light to dark scale, so it's implied your first and last colors are white and black respectively. Don't be afraid to go hard with it! :)

Thank you for that, It did look a little weird when I made it. Anyway, I cleaned it up. :)

 

[SojournsEye]

Is this a bit better? Or did you mean the other one?

 

[Nina]

Some minor outline changes. : )

 

[Fairy]

Excellent guys, those look much better. Well done!

@Lornami; I see what you did there. Don't jump ahead too far now! ;]

 

[Fairy]

Spoiler:

✔

✔

✔

✔

Some of you dearies still owe me homework, this is your polite reminder! :)

 

[Circuit]

Yeah, I realise I'm late with my homework. I'm hopefully going to get on that today. But today has been the first day in nearly a week where I've been able to dedicate any time to anything related to art, because of the time I need to invest. Since a week ago, I've been working and travelling, and also no longer have my tablet with me D:

Regardless, I'll catch up soon (just gotta move my own class forwards first, which has also been neglected ><)

 

[soulryu]

This is pretty horrible, I keep having trouble with this.

Spoiler:

 

[Lycanthropy]

I'm sorry I'm late with my homework. I was busy with schoolwork for the last few days and couldn't really find the time to do this. The shape is still troubling me and it took me a while to produce something didn't look horrible. Is this good?

 

[Fairy]

Don't worry, all of you guys did absolutely great. :)

 

[Fairy]

Shading & Dithering

Thank you everyone for your continual support, participation, and most of all, patience! This class we are going to be going over shading, lightsourcing, and dithering, and what it means in pixel art. But, before anything else, roll call!

Spoiler:

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Shading

Shading and lighting exists in every aspect of art, and capturing those shadows is what helps make your art feel real and give it the illusion of depth. This applies for pixel art as well. Shading, in pixel art terms, refers to the process of altering the color of an object/surface/polygon in the 3D scene, based on its angle to lights and its distance from lights to create a photorealistic effect. With the creation of a color ramp, you are pre-deciding what your shadows are going to be colored.

The important thing to know about shading is that it is dependent on the lighting used. Your shading will have a different effect according to what lighting technique you use. For the sake of ease and simplicity, we'll only focus on two schools of shading.

Ambient lighting
An ambient light source represents a fixed-intensity and fixed-color light source that affects all objects in the scene equally. Upon rendering, all objects in the scene are brightened with the specified intensity and color. This type of light source is mainly used to provide the scene with a basic view of the different objects in it. This is the simplest type of lighting to implement and models how light can be scattered or reflected many times producing a uniform effect.

Directional lighting
A directional light source illuminates all objects equally from a given direction, like an area light of infinite size and infinite distance from the scene; there is shading, but cannot be any distance falloff.
​

Common Mistakes

Commonly, new or young pixel artists will make the mistake of linear shading and pillow shading.

Pillow shading is shading by surrounding a central area with increasingly darker bands. Pillow-shading is bad because it pays no attention to the light source, and conforms to the shape of the area rather than the form it represents of how light affects it, ignoring a subject's 3-Dimensional potential. Pillow shading is often, but not always, combined with banding, as the above example illustrates.

Linear shading on the other hand is when a range of colors is simply stacked on top of one another, paying attention to a light's direction, but with no regard for how that light may be impacting an object's surface. However, it is not to be confused with just "blocking out your colors", a pixel art technique in which you very liberally apply color to the area meant to be shaded and refine it.

The left is an example of blocked out shading, the right an example of refined shading.
​

Where to begin

Always start by assigning your base color to the subject and defining a light source. Use the (darker) colors you made with your color ramp to begin adding shadows to where it makes sense to. Focus on the shape of the object, and the way it contours. When your shadows have been laid out, begin highlighting sparingly. Though it should be noted that different textures (visually representing different surfaces) have different levels of reflectivity.

Remember the rules about lines and apply it here. Your shading and coloring must be clean along with your outlines. Make sure you're using smooth transitions and not doubling up on lines that don't need it. Avoid banding and too much AA. Once you feel your shading is sufficient, you can begin refining your shadows and highlights accordingly.

Dithering

The word "dither" in pixel art is a branch of its vanilla definition, meaning to tremble. And that is a literal, visual representation of what you're making your pixels do, shake outside of their normal spheres. Dithering is used to create additional colors and shades from an existing palette by interspersing pixels of different colours. On a monochrome display, areas of grey are created by varying the proportion of black and white pixels. The different colours can either be distributed randomly or regularly. Basically, your mixing colors without adding to your color count and smoothing the transition between two contrasting colors.

The traditional and most basic form of dithering is the 50% dither, a checkerboard between two acting colors. As the above example illustrates, there are many ways to buffer between a solid color and a 50% dither, so be creative!

The 50% dither, much like banding, is something that is easily recognizable and allows your eye to pick up on the underlying grid, thus interrupting the audiences whole view on the piece . If you use dithering, do so selectively. It can be just as damaging to a piece as it is successful. Not all pieces need dithering!

Other categories of dithering include stylized and random dithering, however these are advanced techniques and should be reserved until one is comfortable with dithering. They have the added potential of including unnecessary, harmful pixel "noise" to your piece.​

Your Homework

Easy. This time it's up to you to use the above tools to fix any problems with the existing shading on your shape. Most of you already have (whether intentional or not), but define a light source, shade/highlight appropriately, and dither out your pixels. All using the palette you made in the last lesson. If you need to, make adjustments to your palette but remember to post the new one. So to recap:

• Create a light source. This can be from any direction.
• Reapply shading and highlighting as necessary using your established palette.
• Dither your shape.
• Adjust your palette if needed.

You guys are doing great.
xoxo

 

[Nina]

Hhuuuuu I think I can't really do more on my pyramid! They really don't have a point I should dither/shade on too much.

Thou, dithering is something I've always had a problem with/never liked how it turned out. (I guess I also do small pieces)
Do you have a small exercise I could do with that?

 

[Fairy]

Yeah as a matter of fact I have a few different homework plans I can pull out for this one so anyone who doesn't want to practice dithering on their shape can do an alternative homework assignment instead. :)

edit
I've made up a quick practice sheet for everyone.

For this homework:

• Showcase three different styles of dithering, traditional (classic), stylized, and random using no more than six (6) colors. Choose wisely! Keep previous lessons about color and contrast in mind.
  • Classic dithering is the normal 50% dithering, however you have more than enough room to experiment with 25% and 75% dithering as well. Check the above lessons and try your best!
  • Stylized dithering is another dithering technique characterized by the addition of small shapes in the pattern. This technique can simulate texture, so think carefully about what feeling you'd like to convey. I recommend using less than three colors for this one.
    Spoiler:

    
  • Random dithering is how it sounds, random. There's no rhyme or reason to it, besides the fundamental idea that you're transitioning between colors.
    • While it's true that dithering in itself should be used sparingly, it's a good thing to practice. Learn the lesson here but make sure your mindful with how you dither outside of this homework. More often than not, you're better of not dithering than you are over dithering or doing it in the first place!
• You must also use the prior lessons to color, shade, and dither the above shapes.
  • Yes, the triangle is an impossible shape. Sometimes the things you pixel won't be so easy! So think outside of the box here.
  • There are also two circles with light sources illustrated in random areas. You're to color, shade, and dither these circles according to these light sources to give them a 3D effect.
    • For those of you without a basis in traditional art techniques, feel free to look up a shading reference or ask me. :)

Okay so this homework is not mandatory but boy I'd like to see you guys do it! If it's too intimidating, feel free to just practice dithering on your shape like planned. I'll only push you guys as far as you allow me, but I also do want to challenge you so you learn. I encourage you to experiment and have fun, but stay comfortable as well.

So far I've been extremely happy with the results here and all of you guys are doing spectacularly. I'm thinking near the end of the lesson I'm going to add a student request section, so think about something you guys want to learn in specific!

 

[Nina]

This has been taking me
like all day!!!!

Is there a process that I'm missing or does it just take awhile to apply dither? I'll be honest I c+p after I got first transition for the slide gradients, but that's easy because it's just one direction/not accounting shading.
I keep spending an exorbitant amount of time having to think about it.

Yes I shaded the outlines first, I got frustrated

Also is this stylized or random, idk it was fun haha.

 

[Fairy]

This has been taking me
like all day!!!!

Is there a process that I'm missing or does it just take awhile to apply dither? I'll be honest I c+p after I got first transition for the slide gradients, but that's easy because it's just one direction/not accounting shading.
I keep spending an exorbitant amount of time having to think about it.

Yes I shaded the outlines first, I got frustrated

Also is this stylized or random, idk it was fun haha.

^That would be stylized dithering, since you're using larger, square pixels in a pattern. :) And holy shit I looove your ramp here.

You did great. Exceptional, even. You captured everything I wanted to see in with this homework. Everyone, if you are confused about how this assignment should look in it's completed form, please see Lornami's post because it's emblematic of everything I want to see.

And no, there is no shame in c+ping the pattern once you have the first one done. Which is another thing I wanted to bring up, actually. If you can take shortcuts, for god's sake take them! Pixel art is nothing if not tedious. Use the fill bucket, copy and paste dithering, anything you need to do to make the process less painful.

Maybe it's the masochistic / obsessive compulsive side of me, but I really like dithering? Something about traditional, 25% - 100% dithering in an organized, damn near seamless gradient makes me smile. Coming up with new patterns and how they impact the eye from a distance and make two colors look is something I find fascinating.