Here is a small piece I did, after looking at examples, I understand that it might not qualify as pixel art. I used a small Intuos to draw this in Grafx2 using the default palette. I just selected some dominant colors as base colors. A goofy western style character profile.
My question is this. Here is a current picture I am looking at right now on pixeljoint.com. This is obviously done by an experienced pixel artist. With me just starting out, I don't have the terminology down, so I can just show you what I mean. If you look at the red vehicle, you will notice that the rounding is done with shading.
I thought it would be as simple as copying some lines, but as most of you know, without the right steps it can start to fall apart. If you see the green hat on my picture, there is a similar rounding around the edges. I would like to shade this correctly and highlight it also. So I'm looking for some pointers on how I can do this. My experience is with very simple sketches, but the pixel art with the vehicle is an example of what direction I would like to go. As for the size, after looking at some threads, I know that it's way too big for pixel art, but I would like to apply pixel art style coloring to it at that size.
Here is my first step at applying some shadows, but I'm not sure how I would dither this or anti-alias?
The rounding technique is called anti aliasing. Google it, I'm sure you can find a tutorial on it to get you started.
I don't think you should mess with dithering. At least not until you're experienced enough to use it to good effect. I don't ever use it myself.
I googled anti-aliasing and found a tutorial on opengameart.org, so I will be looking at that.
Before your recommendation, about skipping dithering, I did this. Is it acceptable? I also used the dither pattern to create a shade under the nose, where I did not darken the surrounding area anymore.
Another question I have though. Before I try anti aliasing. A lot of artists, use a darker color for the outlines than the color next to it. When I tried it with the skin tone, it looked too blurry. So my question is this. With the outline around the head and around the hat, what color should I select for this. I am using Grafx2 default palette and I did not edit the palette yet. When I select the two colors, what should the selection be based on where the hat meets ths skin of the character and also the hair?
Right now the outline is basically just the lineart.
The lit parts are all over the place.
When shading you have to think about where the lightsource is.
- however, I see that the ear and hair receive light from the left or from above.
- the nose seems to be lit from our point of view (no shadows apart from the dithering you put there, so I don't know).
I won't comment on the lineart since I don't know what you're going for.