Dark Bit Factory & Gravity
ARCHIVE => Archive => GFX & sound => Topic started by: Pixel_Outlaw on September 23, 2008
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I'll probably not use this in anything but I feel that my art skills have been abandoned for some time now.
This is just to develop some old skills.
Just an early logo. Crits welcome. :inspired:
I like to stay low color, just my style. The letter spacing will change once I'm happy with the font.
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Cool :) I like the beveled edges !
Just some stuff I noticed :
- the diagonal line in the "R" letter look weird : it'd be nice if it could be directly connected to the rest of the letter.
- the junction in the middle of the "R" letter : there's a black line which isn't on the same junction of the "E" (I hope it's understandable, I'm afraid I don't find the good words to explain that :/)
and a last thing but this time, it's totally subjective :
- the "T" seems weird, the vertical bar looks too high for the horizontal one's width (just an opinion though)
Voilà, I hope we'll see soon the continuation of it :)
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Thanks for all of your thoughts. I understand what you mean and your terminology is Good. ;)
Do you think the junction for the R or the E is better? Would one method work for both?
The T is bothering me too, I agree. I just need a way to keep the crystal style and fix it.
I might work more on this tomorrow. I have a large AutoCAD technical drawing to get done. :-[
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You have a nice outline there, I like the style of Crystals for drawing with, I would give some advice on outlines 1st of all.
If the outside edge is curved or angled, then it is better it the inside edge is also the same eg;
/ /
and not
/|
Some of the letters dont really connect, for example the R and K, you know the bits I mean, the little foot of the R and the K.
How are you making the logo? is it pixelwise?
If so, expect to spend a long time on it if you want to make something amazing.. Low colour oldschool != fast.
The logo I attached uses 16 colours and took me at least 30 hours.
I recommend getting the outline consistent before you start filling it in really, I am excited about seeing a logo made out of Orange crystals. Theres no need to limit yourself to a few colours unless you absolutely want the extra challenge.
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Thanks, this won't probably make it for the site it was just driving me nuts because I had a vision and wanted to finish it. I'll see what I can do. I know the time involved with low color works all too well. This is just a work in progress yet. Still pretty open. I don't mind hacking away in Paint.
If anyone has a small edit to show I don't mind. I do insist on having artistic say in the final though. No hard feelings.
Shockwave, That image is showing 3069 colors, Do you have the original? I always love low color work.
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I'll see if I can find a better version of that logo without the unwanted colours.
The outline you have is almost there tbh P_O I think it's worth persevering with :)
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Do you think the junction for the R or the E is better?
The "E" one is better for me :) The "R" one creates a break which looks weird.
If the outside edge is curved or angled, then it is better it the inside edge is also the same eg;
/ /
and not
/|
Totally agree, if an outside edge is diagonal, then the inside corresponding one must be too :)
If anyone has a small edit to show I don't mind.
Here it is : I just changed the first "R" junction and the parallel lines at the first "O".
As I see shockwave is an awesome pixel artist :p So shockwave, if you see anything wrong in my edits, please tell :D
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OK so I've tried to rework some of the letters. The main problem now is attaching the leg to the R and the K. I sort of like the detached look as a style but I'm not compleatly happy with it. If I attach the leg with a verticle bar the R becomes an A and the K becomes an H. Again the shading and inner parts will probably get more colors as I finish. I'm just going with my impression of retro. I also like the orderly look created by using tiles. I might do something with the angular edges and their currently square inner sections. I'll get to fixing the inner sections once I get the legs right on the R and K.
EDIT: I'm trying a new type of R here. Does it work for anyone?
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All the really good logos on Pouet, for instance, aren't just funky backgrounds with lines of text in fonts on the top. Either the font is the logo and it's all graffiti-esqu custom stuff, or the whole thing blends together as one piece of art. If you're aiming for that kind of outcome then I think you're approaching it from the wrong angle.
Not that I don't like what you're doing :)
Jim
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If you like the colours and the design, how about keeping the colours and drawing the outline first before you do any filling or shading? I think you'll find it easier to make the logo connect together that way :)
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Well I don't want to scrap this as I've put too much time into it. I see that it has failed in it's purpose but I still like it as an artwork. I'll just finish it anyway and put it in my online gallery on an art site. Honestly I just feel that this diverges too much from the common notion of a modern demo logo to really draw the response I was looking for. No hard feelings. :P It just gets harder and harder to get acceptance for low color/resolution work in a million color high res time. I guess I make this kind of art because I really wish that I could have been an older person in a time of such limited resources. I guess its fair to say that things that may have been graphically passable in the early 90's are not so impressive today. I make art for myself honestly and the same holds true of my games.
I dabble in a little of everything but I'm really not a true master of any of it. I was honestly hoping for better but as I said this perhaps is too different from what people expect. Even if I put more time into it, it would still look like a video game title screen. I can only draw from what I know and what I like. I just would have liked to come into the demo world back when 2d computer graphics were new and people were amazed by a 16 color palette. Don't get me wrong, I love the pseudo 3D Pouet stuff but my heart lies with low resolution low color work. I always wanted to be a Nintendo graphic artist but just missed the boat by a fistful of years. I did the high color thing for my early years of spriting but just found that I liked working with limitations most people would blow off as nonsensical.
So I'll probably finish this under the guise of art. I guess it isn't in line totally with the modern notion of what a logo should be. It isn't a failure it has just failed to reach the target audience. We all share different backgrounds and experiences but I have not really had the chance to fully grow up making demos and intros. I don't have that experience to take with me so I must keep pressing on, producing works that please me and if somebody else likes it that's just a bonus.
Again, no hard feelings. My thoughts just diverge too much in execution I think.
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No, it's not hard to get acceptance for low colour work, there are a lot of artists who are really fanatical about it that still release things like that.
What you have had is honest advice of how to improve the form of the letters, the idea is very nice and you should not give up on it.
I have attached another logo, this one always divided opinion. Lots of people thought it was shit, I loved it, it would have looked much nicer with a brighter colour scheme but the point is that all the letters although they are simple follow the rules.
If you asked me for advice on something and I told you it was amazing when it needed work I would not be a friend to you, the hard feelings are just in your own mind, everyone who gave advice was just trying to help you improve.
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I think your logo is pretty cool, Pixel_Outlaw.
In my opinion it looks rather metallic than crystal, except of the "spikes" which remind me of the emeralds in a boulder-dash-clone i played on cpc :)
As you said yourself it looks like a title-screen or front-cover from an early 80s video-game and that's what I really like about it.
Today there's no technical reason to use limited colors, so it's solely an artistic one - which should be obvious/different/stylish/interessting to the viewer.
My favourite artist to achieve this was cyclone:
(http://www.abload.de/thumb/cyclone-ahnepappaozx.gif) (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=cyclone-ahnepappaozx.gif)
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Excepted some awkward borders/edges, I like your logo too :)
For the "R" and "K" bars, I have to admit I don't know how to handle it. But concerning the logo itself, the colors (but once again, it's totally subjective, just a personal opinion) seem a bit too contrasted. It'd be nice to see some gradients in the letters (even a slight one, just to give some depth to those colors)
hum.. After a (short) reflexion, I don't know if a gradient would be a good idea, the "flat faces" are a full part of the logo ..
*Useless post* :whack:
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OK, I was under the impression that people thought I wasn't following advice.
I will make changes I suppose. I don't want people thinking that I can't take advice. That's where the no hard feelings phrase came into play. I still am trying to fix the whole dangely leg thing. That is my focus right now. I've added a few more colors now and have swapped palettes since the old one was too contrasty as pointed out. Again just small steps at a time. I still plan to sink more hours into this. It's hard when I kind of know where I'm going with this and you cannot really see my intentions because I have them stored visually away in my mind. I can see a rough result but you cannot, only small baby steps and changes that some may like and some may not. I'm not a person to run away and give up on a good concept. I would have never started programming if that were the case. I had been having a really rough evening lastnight and perhaps I was too hasty to project emotions into the mix. I don't always progress logically and tend to branch from one fix to another, just how I work.
I will still work on the outlines I think, just trying to fix the whole dangly leg thing and maintain some style. The R's have become a lot like the letter A now... I tried lower case r but it sort of broke with the capitol letters. Jim said that I should unify the letters but I'm not sure how to do this.
So still on the "to do list"
* make sure each letter conformes to some undefined style
* fix inner borders
* possibly add more colors (while still sticking to the C 64 palette)
* Make letter points more quartz like. (Less steep)
* add some other small points of interest
* Sign corner
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Cool ;D
The "R" 's are very cool :) Maybe you could use the "R" gfx for the "A" 's and for the "R", modify the one you have in some way like it : (see attachment)
Just an idea.
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I really like your R image. I think that is the solution. Thanks. I'll edit this so I can begin work on the other details.
Still very much a WIP not a (RIP).
I've changed the length of the crystal points and added rounded inner sections as Shockwave suggested. It actually worked great for the W which now has more clearly defined legs. I'm getting a bit worried about the file size now. It is almost 10 kilobytes. ;D
I'll probably tinker with colors next not too much though the C64 doesn't have many intensities of colors so I had to use a dark gray for the darkest color. I think it works visually.
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I like that outline much better I am glad you haven't given up on it too :)
The structure of the letters looks much better now. I'd say that it's ready for shading now, and you could think about a background too.
Now would be a good time to select a colour palette that will give your logo some depth unless you want to go for a cartoon style with outlines? In both cases, contrast is good, in the case of cartoon style you'll most probably want it to look a little flat with thick, dark outlines, otherwise if it's going to look like gems, it will need some nice gradients:
A nice example in 32 colours by Red Devil. I used to be in Wizzcat with him and I remember him sending me copies of this logo over a period of months!
This is about 20 years old now:
(http://www.pouet.net/screenshots/13898.gif)
Incidentally Red devils logo is inspired by one made for the group "complex"
Another factoid, Red Devil is colour blind!
Anyway,thats the kind of palette that would work for a crystal logo too, but maybe more imaginative than blue.
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Really well done logo there! Especially considering his limitation.
Thanks, the reflection on the letters is more of a palceholder for now. It is hard to pull off a good gradient with the C64 colors. Especially when I can't really dither because it adds an unwanted texture to the crystals. Everyone it seems is doing blue ice/glass/crystals so I wanted to try something a bit different. The 16 color palette is really fun to work with especially the implied colors you can get. This orange while satisfying may not be the final color. I plan to put more time into it. Put it up on the ol Pixel Joint Forum too for some more crits there.
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Pixel Joint will certainly help you on colour choices and shading :)
Please dont give up :D
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Hey :)
Pixel outlaw > your last logo is really good :) Edges are fine and letter are well recognizable ! Can't wait to see what's next ^^
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This last version is quite nice and I like the style of it. It look like you are improving with each version, so its definately worth working on.
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Jim said...
I say a lot of things. I often recommend people don't pay attention to anything I say, but they don't listen ;)
Jim