another background

[bikerboy]

another one i made today

hope you guys like it

[AnimalMother]

The choice of your colours is hardcore 

[Hezad]

Heya

I'll be totally honest : I don't like this one :S Why ?

1) the colors : As animal mother said, colors are hardcore I mean imho, you should limit yourself to a much lower number of different colors (rainbow colors for the BG and those clear yellowish-fuchsia colors used for the text really don't match and don't merge well together)

2) the complexity of the image : My eyes can't "choose" a place they like to stay on in this image 'cause there are way too much details, shapes, orientations, etc..

3) I can't find any thema in this image : What's the subject ? Is it some kind of a graphic signature ? (in this case, I think the image format is way too big)


voila 'just my two cents !

[bikerboy]

2) the complexity of the image : My eyes can't "choose" a place they like to stay on in this image 'cause there are way too much details, shapes, orientations, etc..

that's the beauty in a picture, it must have many details so the viewer must seek and find them all, if for example there was the most complex pic with a babe in it, most of the people would look at the babe all the time and miss the rest.

3) I can't find any thema in this image : What's the subject ? Is it some kind of a graphic signature ? (in this case, I think the image format is way too big)

1024x768 is the default screen res for xp users and it's a wallpaper
i actually made it so i can put it as a background to a Greek site like myspace.

[Hezad]

that's the beauty in a picture, it must have many details so the viewer must seek and find them all,

I don't think a picture *must* have a lot of details to be beautiful, sometimes simplicity is way more enjoyable than something submerged by details (imho). But yeah, it *can* have many details, of course.

if for example there was the most complex pic with a babe in it, most of the people would look at the babe all the time and miss the rest.

I'd say it depends of the size of the babe image. If the image is flooded by other stuff of the same size, I really doubt the viewer will draw out on it

1024x768 is the default screen res for xp users and it's a wallpaper Cheesy
i actually made it so i can put it as a background to a Greek site like myspace.

Oh yeah didn't notice the size Ok, so imho, it's also too contrasted as a wallpaper (Icons on desktop must be easily visible. I'm sure it'd not be the case with this wallpaper behind ). 'can't say how it'd look on a website so no opinion about it

[hellfire]

it must have many details so the viewer must seek and find them all

You can look up some basic principles of design and the use of colours here.

[Shockwave]

As well as the colours I can't see anything in this other than a collage of built in photo shop effects, you should check out the work of guys like kenet, visualice, alien, irokos, mx, can, etc etc to get some ideas of how colours and design can be beautiful.

There are some notable artists on this forum too, generally what you find with them is that they spend a long time (many weeks or even months sometimes) on one piece.

Although I am reknowned for having no colour sense at all when I am making demos, believe it or not I actually started life as a graphics artist on the Amiga, and back then I used Deluxe Paint, pixel pushing basically with a limited palette (usually 16 or 32 colours for pics and logos, 8 or less for fonts).

I was in groups such as paintbox with saint and lils of the silents, wizzcat and several others and had my art used in lots of scene stuff, I placed 4th in the gfx comp at the digital main event 1991 (I was beaten to 3rd by lynx of rebels, I actually took his pic along to the party for him because he was a mate, silly me..).. I placed in a few other gfx comps too so I do know vaguely what I am talking about.

My advice is to decide what you want to do... Are you a coder or an artist?
Then practice...

Practice and practice until you get good at it.

When guys give you constructive feedback, don't dismiss it.

When you post your picture or code here you will get critique, it's a good thing to follow peoples advice, especially when thay are all saying the same thing.

Another thing about pixel art... Even in my most productive days on the Amiga, I never pumped out the work at anything like the rate you are doing.. It's better to spend a year on something that is amazing than make 100 mediocre - average pieces in the same time frame.

[bikerboy]

My advice is to decide what you want to do... Are you a coder or an artist?
Then practice...

Practice and practice until you get good at it.

When guys give you constructive feedback, don't dismiss it.

i like both , so i will try my best on both.

i never dismiss constructive feedback, i accept it and think about what everyone says.

about the rate, when i have an idea i try to create it, that's all.

it just happened that the last days i had many ideas and tried to make them happen.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Some things I try to loosely follow when I make art. This is just my process but it has helped me in my projects.


First you might consider working from the HSV model in Photoshop. The following will make sense.

1. Hues, what kind of hues do I want to use? Most of the time I only use about 3 different hues. This lets the elements of a picture tie in together. You don't have to have 3 colors but limiting your hues to 3 or 4 will make the elements tie in together most of the time.

2. Saturation level. Along with hue, different saturation levels can really make or break your work. If you have all kinds of saturation difference between your colors, they may look out of place and clash visually. It is like putting a glaring neon sign in the middle of a water color scene. It may be best to just choose a rough saturation level for the entire work.

3. Value or Intensity. This is where you get your shades of a color. Intensity is how much light is hitting a subject, the more intensity levels you have in a range of colors the rougher the image will look. A rubber ball will have many levels of intensity where something like a smooth plastic ball may have as few as 3 or 4.


I would also say just ignore the filters in photoshop for the most part. They work for very simple things if used sparingly but any good design teacher who uses Adobe will tell you that you can easily go overboard with them. Honestly I wish Adobe had never added them. People use them to make 3d looking objects and most of the time the lightsource is wrong when used with other things. The filters are what people use to shade art anymore and they are almost always wrong because people fail to set a light source. That brings me to another point.

Set an imaginary lightsource and make sure ALL of your elements help define it. One must not just go crazy shading from all directions, set a source for your light and stick with it. Filters may seem impressive at first but they clash with each other when you are trying to do something complex.

Most of the demoscene art looks like paintings and drawings. If they are text they are usually something VERY personalized. I mean that that demoscene text is almost never something you find and apply a filter to. Each letter must adhere to a very personal and original style not just a generic font with a bevel and pattern applied.

Keep making art, perhaps slow down and really dig into the subject matter. Keep in mind the size of most early pieces that exemplify the raster style. They were relatively small and very very hand detailed.

This has nothing to do directly with your work, mostly just tried and true methods.

[JL235]

For me a desktop background must be subtle. This is because it's nothing more then wallpaper and shouldn't make looking at the desktop confusing or distracting. I prefer backgrounds which use the similar shades and tones across. For example I used to have an image of a llama in a stable as my background. It was a very clean photograph and a very beatiful llama. The colours comprised entirely of different types of brown.