Digital Doodlers and Animation Amateurism

1) Stitching together the final animation files.
2) Video editing.
3) Upload to channel.
4) Share.
5) What I’ve learned, or at least think I have learned.
6) What next.

View: https://youtu.be/_0EkKuEwA5M?si=9CJGm6enFExPg46u


I’ll write more later. Snack, then sleep. It’s been a long day.

Some technical details, with actual words and stuff in my next post.

”Black Mage Trap”, by… Me.

Hardware:

• ipad gen… whatever this one is… uh… 6th gen ipad pro 12.9 (found the about in settings, hah, couldn’t hid from me!)
• Logitech Crayon

Files and Frames: 2000 frames, exactly.

• 80 individual filesspread across 4 chapters.
  • Those 80 files, stitched together, make the 2 minutes and 18 seconds of video linked just up there.
• Fewest frames: 3, on the extended credits placards, files 74, 76, and 78.
• Most frames: 93, on the Game Boy version of Black Mage running off the screen to the left, coming back onto the screen on the right, and slowing to a stop. File 57.

Color Palettes:

• Black Mage (NES) used 4
  • Black, Blue, Yellow, and the dark yellow/brown.
• Special Effects used 3
  • Blue for flames around his eyes (set to really translucent, then watercolor stacked to add depth/brightness/opacity)
  • White and a very translucent yellow w/watercolor to add to it for the Lightning.
• Overall Background / “In Screen” used 4
  • Four descending shades of green, derived from a Game Boy emulator that changed it up to enhance contrast - original Game Boys, it was a lot harder to differentiate the middle two.
• Gameboy Hardware used 6
  • Two grays for the shades of plastic, a blue and daaaark red for text, and the two reds for the light - when it changes to green later, that is the same as the “in screen” color palette.

First Black Mage (Paint 3D): October 27, 2023. That was the thread where I was changing up my avatar and meticulously editing files in Microsoft Paint 3D.
First Black Mage (Pixquare): November 19th, 2023. First instance where I started playing around in my program of choice and drew my first Black Mage, a rendition (aka copy) of the Hadoken pose from 8 Bit Theater.
First Animation - the original casting: Started in December 2023, stopped on January 10th. Prompted by a realization that gif’s don’t play nice with different opacity levels of layers without a background, and I wanted to completely rework the efftects.
Start of second run, what eventually became this: The start of this thread, January 15th of ’24!
Completion of Black Mage Trap: March 31, 2024.

Programs used - the go-to’s:

• Pixquare - my go to pixel art and pixel art animation program. It looks rudimentary, but it has a host of features that other pixel art programs don’t have, and it’s much more pixel art purpose driven (and easier to use) than something more fully fledged and wide ranging like Illustrator or Procreate. Also cheaper than its competition, and always improving and adding new features. I love it.
• Sketchbook - Thanks again, @Carhole! My go to freeform sketch… book… When I want to game out an idea real fast, storyboard, etc. Amazing value for money for what it does! Just recommended it to my Dad.
• EzGif.com - gif stitcher and easy to-video converter! Outrageously simple to use. Has it’s limitations, but if you want to turn a gif into an MP4? It’ll do that, no sweat!
• Procreate Dreams - my video editor of choice. While Final Cut pro is available on the ipad, I don’t like subscriptions. This is more full featured than free options, and I‘m learning how to use it better and better the more time I spend with it. And a one-time buy was nice for this much capability.

Programs Used - the also-ran’s:

• Procreate and Pixaki - Procreate is a stunningly fine piece of art software that is just too… much? And Pixaki is a nice pixel art program, but it is lacking in many features that Pixquare has that I REALLY like. The watercolor toggle, for instance - Pixquare has it, Pixaki needs it. Native output to animate PNG is nice, though! Both Pixaki and Procreate are still on my ipad, just in case I want them.
• iMovie and ClipChamp: The native iPad and Win11 video editors. They’re… fine? I guess. Rudimentary. Some neat options, but… eh.

Carhole said:

You did an amazing job in tackling this project through your vision and tenacity with the software—brute forcing your learning process along the way. Your focus deserves kudos too but more importantly, simply ask questions. Especially if they’re not in the help file or associated instructional trees made for the product at hand.

Click to expand...

1) Thanks for the compliments. It has been a shockingly fun hobby to stumble around in. Being able to do it on half of my ipad while I watch TV/Film/Sports on the other half has been an amazing way to explore new stuff, both in this AND in watching stuff again for the first time in years.
2) Self teaching Adobe products scares the fuck out of me now, but I sure wasn’t scared 20+ years ago with Photoshop and Corel products.
3) Regarding the documentation: There have been a number of processes that I have brute forced through layer additions and merges and copy pasting of things that I could have done with two selections to edit all of a desired subset of frames and layers at once. Didn’t know what those buttons did! Or changing the frame length for every frame in a sequence one at a time with multiple presses to go from 20ms to 150ms in 5ms increments on a dozen frames - a) there is a way to do it for a selection of frames all at once and b) there’s a freaking slider i didn’t know about!


DuckDuckGo (and I presume the google advert machine) responds surprisingly well to things like:

Searched: What the fuck is a key frame?
First result?

Which I still need to read! Different piece of software, but it looks like it covers the bases.
Have I heard the term key frame before? Yep! Do I know what it is? Sort of!
… really, self?
Um.
No. Not really.
Hence still needing to read it.

But as for the help file specifically? I didn’t even know it existed! I looked for it about a month ago, couldn’t find it. Now there is an easy link in the program that I don’t remember seeing before that takes me to it and actually explains all the little bits that I wasn’t sure what they did! I’m planning on reading through it over lunch.

But that’s all part and parcel to ‘lessons learned and what’s next - the post’, which I still need to write.

From that link right up there…

Its difference from traditional animation is that animators make the interpolation between keyframes one by one, and they are responsible for creating the correct timing and pacing for the movement. In Digital Animation, the software is responsible for calculating and interpolating itself the animation. One of the things we can control on digital animation is how this interpolation will happen.

Click to expand...

Okay.
I need to learn how to use this in Pixquare. I know keyframes are in there.
Because I was doing the first bit - drawing one by one, timing and pacing adjustments. I think I did a decent job, but…. Yeah.
Okay. Wow.
Yeah. Of course there is a software process for this. And still, mind == blown.

Testing and learning! To be added to the list, number 2 from the top!

Black Mage Trap - Lessons, Learning, and What's Next!

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Lessons?!
These are just for me. Reminders for later self.

Frames!

• Regardless of whether it's a .gif, or a long form animation that turns into a video? Set a basic unit of time / frame rate for the project. I didn't for the first chapter and a half, and it played merry hell with later video editing later. AND it made transitions between files stutter a bit early on as well.
• For longer delays? Use multiple frames. Then once the timing is narrowed down? THEN make a frame with a delay that is a multiple of the base rate and ditch the excess frames. Makes maintaining a desired frame rate MUCH easier.
• Things to remember:
  • 50ms = 20 FPS
  • 40ms = 25 FPS
  • 20ms = 50 FPS

File size (dimensions)!

• For animation? ESPECIALLY long form? Try to stick within an overall confines of something that is a 16:9 ratio. It'll play much nicer with the eventual editing software that'll be needed to make it look like not-ass later. Being clever about the dimensions (don't worry about it!) can really bite you in the ass later once you start involving other programs.

Stitching for video!

• When I started getting the video edited together? I found I didn't have frames set up to establish an overlap that would have made video editing MUCH easier. Had to go back in, edit those files to create the overlap frames, then combine them into their base video files (one per chapter), THEN edit the chapter video files together. Add those frames, Dia! It'll save you SO much "Doh!" busy work later.

Special effects!

• Try "less" first! Often times, it looks better, where "more" just becomes overpowering and... not as good. <- Insert more succinct and elaborate phrasing. What I'm trying to say is that less is often times the better option. For example - I like the final two lightning animations when BM is taking notes at the end a LOT more than the ones when he is casting for time during chapter one. Start small, Dia. Get larger and more elaborate if needed, but always see what it looks like small first. Because sometimes "small" is exactly what you need.

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Learned!
Self reflection time!

History and dealing with it:
I am still incredibly envious of my Dad and my grandfather who passed (his Dad). Both actual artists in their own way.

My Dad is MUCH more technical focused, but he can freehand electronic and mechanical components like nobodies business. Want a free hand breakout drawing of the internal workings of heavy duty turbine jet engine, with a huge amount of minute detail that is pretty damn accurate? That's him. He's also not a half bad cartoonist when he puts his mind to it.

My Grandfather was an actual no shit professional artist his whole life. Architecture, portraits, landscapes. Pencils, paint, inks, charcoals, etc. The whole thing. I have two of his pencil works framed above my kitchen table, both a little larger than a postcard (without the frame); I like small and easily transportable for my knicknacks, in case I need to live out of a pair of duffel bags again. My parents have a LOT of his paintings at home. He worked as an independent contractor doing work for a half dozen midwest architectural firms for years. He paid for several years of membership to his local golf course by doing a full series of 36 paintings, three for each hole - view from the tee box, the defining feature of the hole (a lake, or a sand trap, the sharply sloping fairway, that one tree, etc), and the green. He was a capital 'A' Artist.

Me? Not so much!
I write. I write a LOT. (look at this post!)

Shit, I'm in the middle of once to three times a week writing up settings and characters for a new story! But that was my only real outlet for artistic expression until now - I can't draw free hand for shit, wasn't really ever interested in it. Painting? Same deal. Even miniatures I found myself getting bored super quick. Music? I enjoy it, but I can't make it - tone deaf, can't keep time for shit, etc.

But this? Pixel art and animation is something I enjoy. Something I'm doing research into and actively learning about and trying to absorb more stuff. Something I feel (regardless of whether it's true or not) that I might be good at. Not good enough to do this for a living or a side hustle, but as a hobby? Yeah, I think I might have a modicum of talent in this. Enough to boil water, as it were!

Learned about myself:
I have learned that static images are okay.
They are. But the fun is in animating it. I can't really see just making a static image in the future; creating the image is only the first part of the process. And I'm going into each project with an eye towards, "How do I animate this?" Example! I want to render those two pencil artworks that my grandfather left me in pixels. But now I'm thinking how do I animate them in a tasteful way? And yes, I have ideas! Both massive ones and subtle ones. Leaning towards subtle....

I have learned that I really enjoy animating and working on this out in public, in a coffee shop, with my ipad clearly visible to people if they want to look at it. Hell, yesterday evening I had an old guy watching while his drink was being made at the cafe, as I made BM run veryfast across the screen. There was the conversation I had with the mom and her early-teens kid about what I was doing, how I was doing it, etc.

I've also learned a shit ton more about working in these environments than I knew a few months ago. A far cry more than MS Paint! And I've never done any video editing or animating before at all. And the best part is I have some idea of how much there is to learn still, and it is both daunting and exciting in it's vastness!

Why the Black Mage:
He's easy to render in pixels, and I've kind of adopted the imagery as my online persona. I expect to move beyond him, but I like taking him on adventures and expect that he'll show up in almost anything I do.

Finally? That being able to watch shows for the first time in years because I have it on the same screen as the pixel art and animation work is amazing. I don't think I would have ever watched Severance or Foundation or started watching Fringe again (I only saw seasons 1 and 2 back in the day) or plan on actually watching TV shows without this. I can't just sit there and watch stuff most of the time - I need to be doing something. Everything else I have as a hobby? I end up ignoring the show entirely. This? Somehow I don't. It's actually really fucking nice!

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What's next?
Lunch! But beyond that?

Constant:

• Read and watch more stuff to learn. Target things.

Immediate:

• RTFM! For reals, yo. At least get a basic understanding of what the hell all the buttons do in Pixquare!
• The walking/run animation for Black Mage. I want to take another crack at it - the third.
• A rework of my avatar - the corona triumphalis could be better!

Near term:

• KEYFRAME TESTING!!
  An emoticon sized version of my avatar (finger pointing BM).
• The character study of other figures beyond BM, both drawn from other sources AND hopefully my brain!
• The hi-to-lo fidilety study with my car. From a straight trace-over-the-lines job down to the fewest number of pixels to identify it as my car. I figure as long as it's blue, a convertible, and has those red mirrors? You'll be able to tell.
• More [redacted] that'll end up in containment until there is a breach. If you know, you know.
• Setup and remake my Imgur account so it aligns with the new youtube channel I made. I like "Diabolically Pixelated" as a thing, regardless of it going anywhere.

Long term:

• Building a couple of things for an upcoming thread in a part of the fora where my Black Mage is going to have to be incredibly non-descript. FY25 shenanigans.
• Xenocrates! I appreciate the work I've put in, and I've learned somethings, but I am going back to square one - the ancient philosopher head in a jar - and building out from that.
• The above mentioned project with my grandfathers art.
• Pixquare has the ability to set up guide squares and lines and things for making things from an isometric perspective. Time to experiment and play!.
• A whole SLEW of smaller animation projects, both involving BM and not.
• Building and animating scenes for stories I've written or started to write.
• Video editing?! Learn?! SCARY!

The BIG Project, aka WHAT is next for Black Mage:
Where did he teleport to?! What is next for our intrepid... well, he's not a hero. Um... "Traveler". What is next for our intrepid traveller? Inspiration drawn from one of my favorite pieces of media. Which one?
Two words:
"Greetings Starfighter!"

Alright, run and walk animation development!

As @ajk48n pointed out when I debuted the original animation, it didn’t look quite right - the head and hat movements did not correspond to what the rest of what that chunky body was doing. When I tried to correct it, it ended up looking funky enough that I scrapped it and went with my original design with the head bounces and hat wiggles divorced from the rest of it. In small form, it still gave the impression of movement which was the goal.
Edit: what was going on with that last sentence? I blame ipad touch screen typing and shift transition induced delirium

Now that I have finished the big animation, I wanted to go back and tackle this again. After giving this some thought and watching a few videos of people in motion, I came up with the following things I wanted to address.

Head/Hat:

• Downward head movement means hat wiggles up, and vice versa.
• Head movement should go down on the step rise, and go up on step fall.
• Head/hat movement neutrals out at the neutral/starting position.
• This is to aid in transitioning from the walk animation to other forms/poses. It’s not necessarily true to life, but it IS true that I wanted that flexibilty!

Hands/Arms/Feet:

• In the original, step and arm movements were linked on each side. Right arm goes up as right foot comes up, left with left. This gave the impression that BM is an awkward waddler at speed, and a guy who moseys/dances at slower frame rates. Funny, but not what I was intending.
  • Going to keep that original file though, just in case!
• To remedy this, I wanted right arm / left leg to be paired, and right arm / left leg to be paired. This took some fairly major reworks to the entire animation.
• At the mid point “apex” of the step, I wanted BM’s foot to leave the “surface”.

I also had one big constraint: the total number of frames for a given cycle needed to max out at 12. There are pony related reasons. .
I could go less than that, but 12 was the max.

Alright, that’s enough words!

For reference, here is the original 12 frame animation at 20 frames per second, both standing alone and in marquee.

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You notice what I mean? Watch the arms/feet on each side - they move up and down at the same time. And the hat/head is just completely disassociated with the rest of his body. As he moves across screen, he looks like he‘s doing some sort of bad dance move.
Does it work? Yeah, he’s moving. But not figuring out a way to make it better has continued to bug me since I failed at the second attempt.

First? Plan!
Here are all twelve frames with movement/animation changes. Hat edges, eyes/head, far arm, near arm (NA), Far leg and Near Leg (F.L. an N.L.).

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Here is what that looks like in motion. He’s MUCH more frenetic, but he’s also ‘moving’. And it’a a much more natural motion. Framerate is still 50ms per frame, or 20fps.


In comparison, with the new animation on the left and the old on the right.
One these guys is hustlin’. The other is moseyin’.

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I think that looks MUCH better. And when I slow him down? He goes from running to jogging to “my doctor told me I had to”. This was simply adjusting the frame timing. 50ms / 80ms / 100ms == 20fps / 12.5fps / 10fps.

Now we are cooking with gas!

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Now that I’ve got an animation that works? I set about tweaking it. First up was a walk, which removes the foot lift. First one is at 10fps, second is between 6 and 7 (150ms).

Still moving, but not nearly as frantic. In my mind!

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So there we go. I’m happy with how that turned out! And now, sleep!

ajk48n said:

It's looking really good, nice and fluid. Btw, if you ever want a reference book for classic 2d animation style things, this is the go-to

The Animator's Survival Kit Book by Richard Williams

Although really, there's so much online now it's not really necessary but, yeah, it's a really good reference book for all these type of things. Even if you don't want a Disney style it has a lot of pointers about follow through, anticipation, etc

Click to expand...

And I found the google doc pdf of it, for perusal here at work. Thanks!

I’ve been knocking out a small project, a fiddly project, and an animation that was a LOT tougher than it seems like it should be.

First, small project is actually very very small. Blinking Black Mage Emoticon!
He’s a wee little guy.

Next, putting the corona triumphalis on BM following an overly generous petition for services rendered in The Bad Place. So, new avatar was required instead of jyst my base Black Mage.
This came in 3 versions. Well, 3,5. I’ll post the both full sized (spoilered) and how they render when shrunk down for the circle over there <—-.

New Avatar version 1: I made a rudimentary Laurel crown thing. First pass. Looked not good as an avatar, if I’m honest.


I mean, that’s okay. But not as good as it could be.

Version 2.5. I used an actual oak leaf for inspiration, made a template, then got busy. The result?


Better! But a Bit monochromatic. Version 2.0 (vice this 2.5) was even more a singular color..

Version 3? I think I’m going to let this one ride. The solution ended up being a LOT of leaves in a variety of shades, making a broad corona triumphalis.


Full size it’s a bit eh, but in Avatar size? I think a decent job. I’ll probably either rework it (the corona) or ditch it entirely whenever I do the next update or major change to the BM Avatar.

Finally, the animation that was a bigger pain than I had thought going in? Hold on, we’re going to need this…

Up next? Either my car or a bunch of different characters and applying them to a skeletal framework. Also developing that skeletal framework.

And a preview, so far. Very, VERY much a work in progress!

I started making a list. It turned pretty daunting, very fast.

The Pixel 124 Project (“Pixel 124”).
End goal: Have an animated sequence of the car traveling through a variety of terrain, with us as the viewer (and me, as the artist/animator ) being situated on the drivers side of the car, with the vehicle making turns to the left and right and the animation following along. It all looks VERY cool… in my head!

Steps to getting there:

• Refine the basic shape of the car.
  • To include accent lines and creases, if practical.
  • Get the damn wheels and tires right. And the brakes.
  • And the wheel wells.
  • Get the exhaust on there.
• Lighting/Metallic Work
  • I’ve watched a few videos and have played around a tiny bit, but I need to really dive into this.
    • Start with simple square and figure out how to give it that metallic look - this is all about lighting and shading contrasts to give it that glint.
    • Extrapolate that out to the whole car.
  • For the shading and shadows, do UNDER the car as well!
  • Do up three to five lighting layers that I can apply to the car depending on where the light is coming from.
  • Possibly go even further and do a default and a low light setting.
• Actual lights!
  • Figure out how to do glass.
• Animation - basic movement
  • Wheels rotating.
  • Front wheel turning towards and away from the viewer.
  • Exhaust jittering.
  • Suspension travel to simulate going over bumps.
  • And eventually up and down motions for ascending and descending.
• BM integration.

Further development of four additional angles - full turn towards viewer, full turn away from viewer, and intermediary positions. Base image, lighting, animations, etc.

This then turns into:

• Draw and animate it moving along a road.
• Scenery. Animating the scenery moving, with close objects (to the viewer) transiting the scene very quickly and large/far away objects moving much slower.
• Transitioning time of day.
• Different terrain.
• Up and down elevation.
• Turning toward and away from the viewer, and animating those motions accoridngly.
• And even more.

This is a MONSTER of a project. I expect it to take months and months, and I am fully planning on diversions and ventures into other things from time to time. If I finish it, great! But there are lots of things I want to learn about and teach myself that this project covers (or at least introduces) that I figured, hey, let's START here.

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And the latest, with BM in there for fun. For the record, this is about as small/pixelated I can make the car while retaining a high enough fidelity to very clearly see that is a 2016-2020 Fiat 124 Spider*. Smaller and it starts getting a bit too chunky, and you lose a lot of detail. Larger gets you more detail, but then I have to do the scene around it at that advanced scale as well. Oi. No. .


Wheels are hard! Especially these goofy guys! These are trace jobbies that I’m going to scrap and try something a bit more ‘essence’ than true to life. Granted, here and at actual scale they don't look too bad. But zoom in (like when I work on it in Pixquare) and they look like butt.

*Specifically a 2019 Fiat 124 Spider Abarth in Mare Blue Metallic with the Veleno appearance package (red mirror caps, red fascia, and red tow hook port cover).

This shit is tough! First, the wheels. Here was pass number 3, with new wheels. In the still, you can see a rudimentary scorpion in the wheel cap. However, when animated to go around? It ends up looking rather… well. I decided to change it.

Still image:

Animated:


Zoom in a little, still a scorpion! But at it’s default size? Yeaaaaah no.

I do like that even though the wheels still look a bit jank? That actually helps to really illustrate movement.

Here is pass number 4. Revised the center cap to a simpler shape that doesn’t animate into anything questionable, and instead is there to basically shoe the direction of motion. I also did a fresh pass at the glass on the lights that I like a bit better. The windshield glass will render better with a background behind it, but is suitable for now. I also added in some funky brakes that I want to tweak positioning and color. Calipers are good, though. Also added some extra definition to the wheels.



And here is a still image of my first attempt at lighting.
Much, MUCH work left to do and learn!


I think I need to go play with a simpler object than “a car” for a bit, then come back to it!

Overall, I really like the shape of the car and the lines. Now I’m into the fiddly bits and the details to really make it pop.

Now we’re cooking…

Ball!


Lighting attempt #2. Referenced about half a dozen pictures I’ve taken over the past few years and you know where the brightest glare and sharpest contrast in light/color is? At the edges of the wheel arches! Every time, in near darkness and in bright light. I am particularly happey with how the door handle turned out! At the actual image size? That looks a LOT better than I thought it was going to.


Next?
Redo the lighting/shading of the wheels and door/bodywork seams. Move the damn brakes! Add wheel nuts? After that, I think pose 1 with default lighting might be close to done!

And I’m calling the first pose with default lighting done.


Up next, something completely different! Take a break from the car for a bit.

Hmmm…
The tires are made of 4 identical pieces. I rotate ‘em, they look exactly the same - the four-step rotation ends up just looking like a static image.

Maybe some fake text that goes ‘round to imply motion, some slight variations in color…

Hmm.

Making this note here:

Each frame is 50ms. So 20fps. Four frames per rotation. Which means that for those 20 frames, that tire rotates 5 total times per second. Which equates out to 300RPM.

According to magical calculators? The normal tire size on that car has a diameter of 24.3”, and will complete 832 rotations per mile.

Two different calculations:
300RPM / 832 rotations-per-mile == .36 miles per minute, or about 21.63 miles per hour.
(300 RPM * 24.3”) / 336 = 21.69 miles per hour.

So, base rate of 50ms per frame (20fps) approximately equals 22 mph. Good to know for future endeavors!

ajk48n said:

Very crude idea, but like this at its most basic

Click to expand...

drops mic


Pirelli logo and opposite P-Zero? Check!
Slightly deformed tires? Yarp!
Definitely better indicators of motion!

Slight modification to the rear wheel arch line.
Adjusted the lighting on the creases above the door handle to better match reality.
Changed the specula position on the rear deck and the rear wheel arch to match the specula positioning of an above-slightly-forward light source.
Learned what specula is.

For reference, here is my actual car - one of the many images I used as a reference. I’ve made quite a few changes to make it work with pixel art (the rear reflector is 4 pixels at it’s widest, for instance!) but I feel I’ve done a decent job of representation here.


Edit: oh wow, um, my guy is set to 100ms per frame, not 50. So, about 11 miles an hour. Whoah. Here is 20ms, about 54mph…


That’s too damn fast!

Working on my character study of a bunch of different characters. Paying particular attention to ratios - head to torso to legs. What I’m seeing is a mixture of legs and torso ratios - older sprites tend to have longer torsos, newer characters had longer legs. Regardless, the head is always tied for or the actual longest (tallest?) part of the body. Which makes sense considering the medium. I guess.

Because of things @Drizzt321 and @SunRaven01 were saying in the lounge regarding certain equines and lunar fishes…

Drizzt321 said:

=)

Click to expand...

SunRaven01 said:

I am dead. This is the best thing ever hahahaha.

Click to expand...

Then my work here is done.

Well, not done. Not really. Not even close!

Even though I have drawn up basic versions of three more MLP friends, I just haven't had the opportunity to animate them yet. Some of the particular details with them get extra fiddly as they move through the run loop. For example: getting Trixie's cape to look good over the top of the tail was a lot harder than I thought it would be!

And I might need to do a stupidly over detailed version of a zooming Moonshark by itself, completely with twinkling lights and little floating 'whiiiiirrr' and 'Graaaaaah!' noise-words that follow them around...

But that'll be for another time!

SunRaven01 said:

What I just heard you say is, "I need to do a version of a Moonshark that will allow Sunny to piss off the entire Soap Box in one fell swoop when she starts putting it in all her moderation notices."

Click to expand...

Maaaaaybe
I'll add it to the list-o-things I'm working on. Might be a while, though. It's a pretty damn big list!

Okay, one last car image - I wanted to add in an idle animation. Which is all exhaust related. With a background, this will be much more transparent. No background, as is displayed here? That transparency gets nuked in .gif, but it still works for here.

Full idle:



At 10 FPS.


Back to the character study!

One of the results of the character study. This is hard as hell!

I’ve drawn up about a dozen figures from other properties, watched a couple three, four videos, etc.
Everything I saw for pixel art is that you are working on such small scales, you want to accentuate and exaggerate the head, with particular emphasis on the eyes.
This is effort number… 6, 7? But the first one that I looked at at went, yeah, that doesn’t look hideous.

Robe is a rough draft. Hell, all of it is a rough draft!
But I wanted to share. BM next to, well, me, for scale. Looking slighty <—that-a-way.

I’m sleepy, but I wanted to get this up.


Far Right? Black Mage drawn at a scale of 4 used to represent 1 pixel of the original image. 4px-per-pixel.

Second one in? First attempt I didn’t feel too embarrassed about.

Next two: Full “pixel” versions, with some head refinements. I did the fully pixelated version (4px-per-pixel, same as Black Mage) so I could do the little (1px-per-pixel) versions. Hair is less buzzed, but that’s fine. Both with and without borders.

Third set of is a refined robe and gloves and boots, but retaining the super blocky pixelated head. I kind of REALLY like this as a design/artistic choice. Since the head is the most important part, the features need to be big and bold and distinct. The rest can be really detailed even at this scale - details that can be appreciated nd are useful for establishing the character, but not necessary to readily identify him.

If any of that makes sense. I am extra tired, and it’s time for bed.

Work tempo was such that I got to play around in MS Paint. Entirely focused on facial expressions and playing around with hair and accent marks. Extremely limited default palette, and limited variability. Still fun though. One image at tiny 'actual size', the other at 800% larger so you can actually see the pixels.




That was fun. Second row far right is a deranged son-of-a-bitch looking at SOMETHING .

And the bottom right lantern-jawed guy with the mullet was entirely too much fun to make. Some experimentation with how adjusting his mouth one or two pixels one way or another COMPLETELY changes the facial expression was a lot of fun to play with.

Two thoughts struck me while I was on the exercise bike this afternoon.

1) Sorry this has been so focused on heads lately, but I feel this is a really important thing to get right. All of the expression possibilities there, and the nuance of changing a single pixel!

2) My writing? NO ONE reads my writing but me. I understand why, too. That fear of putting something of yourself out there is crippling, and is also one of the things I think holds me back from really excelling at it, even though I hugely enjoy it. But this stuff? It’s like I’m the opposite, and fall on the extreme extrovert side of, “hey, look at this terrible thing I drew!”

It’s weird to me, that I can feel so differently about sharing the results and works in progress and ideas for two different forms of artistic expression that I massively enjoy doing. Anyway! Yep! Working on heads and faces. Trying to get a mental framework built, a basic work flow of A to B to C, then refine. I’m getting there, but it’s taking time.

More heads. I think I’m finally starting to get where I wanted to go. Lots of experimentation on the left side, more refinement on the right.

First: ACTUAL size, 1 pixel drawn per pixel represented. 1:1px


Second, 4x size. So 4 pixels per pixel represented, 4:1px


Lots of experiments with skin tones and shading on the face, and with the eyes. And obviously with the hair on the right.
From here, I think I’ve got the elements of my next character done and figured out. At least his head!


And here’s a screenshot in app. Zoomed in pixel fun.

Hmm. Really close!

So, 1px:1px


Which I think looks pretty darn good at that scale!


This is a straight “export at 4x” to get a 4px:1px scale.

And I think at this scale and larger, a bit more shading definition needs to happen around the face and the neck opening needs to slide to the right one pixel. Things that seem inconsequential at the smaller scale suddenly demand a bit more nuance. Expected, but hard to visualize until you really pull back and look at it.

But still, really close!