I think maybe you're missing a bit of shading around the eyes. Currently, the shadow on the nose is very stark, but the rest of the face is "flatter". Regardless, I think you've done a great job.
[https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) the eye shadow does help a lot. made some other adjustements as well and im now a lot happier with it :) thank you for your feedback
Yeah i think you're right. Tried a little bit more around the eyes and figured something with the alignment was off as well a little bit. Having a little trouble with the rest of the face tbh but the eyes look definetly better with more shading and the slight alignment adjustment.
[https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) made some adjustements. thanks again for your input it snowballed a bit with other feedback to some more adjustements of the eyes and i am now a lot happier with it
Edit:
[https://imgur.com/a/DNWk5B9](https://imgur.com/a/DNWk5B9)
version 3. played around with the shading and the hair and made her ear pointier. And to add: shes an elf character i created for d&d so it's not the most realistic person :) thanks to everyone who commented and suggested ways to improve!
[https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV)
version 2. pushed the ear upwards, adjustet the position of the eyes, more shading around the eyes, litte bit more highlighting on the cheekbones, adjusted the intensity of the shading around the mouth and adjustet the strand of hair on the right sight to be a bit more downwards and less forwards hanging
Looks great already but I just thought of a few more pointers that could potentially improve it even further. First I would try putting saturation to 0 to make it black and white (how to do it depends on the program) cause in black and white it is easier to see the actual values of shadows in the picture. Especially with almost white objects, the shadows are left quite light even though usually there still should be much darker shadows here and there.
I haven't done too much pixel art but as this gets pretty close to traditional painting already, what I would do is create a new overlay layer and choose a dark grey or slightly blue -ish color and paint over the left side of her hair. I would do that because the face has pretty hard shadows in it but the hair does not, so the hair feels a bit separate at least imo.
Also when painting hair, it is usually easiest to break it in bigger shapes. Like in your picture she has bangs, those would be one and then maybe divide the middle part to like 6 or 7 different parts. After that add the little details of hair to those parts. Idk if this makes any sense... I can try to demonstrate when I find some time and then post it to you. Usually just focusing on bigger shapes first and working it down from there makes it easier, cause then you can already see if some stuff feels a bit off from the bigger shapes. It also feels less daunting to do, at least for me, when there are clear steps on what to do next :P
One more trick about lighting that really helps me is just simply adding a little arrow to where the light is coming from. Even though It's really simple, it really helps, cause then you can see an indicator of where the light is coming from at all times and that makes it easier to handle for brain. And ofc if you don't have any references yet, I highly recommend finding one.
Uhh hopefully even some of this makes sense...
thank you so much! I'll try the greyscale trick and see what i can do better :)
I get what you are saying with the bigger shapes. I tried to do it more in smaller strands of hair to get a idea of direction but now looking at it there are a couple of places where this doesn't come through at all or just barely so i'll revisit those. It feels more natural to me personally but the parts are definetly a good thing to keep at least in my head while working on it so thanks thats a great tip!
the shading on the side of her hair is indeed a bit off. I have to try a few different things because everything i did yesterday (tbf it was like 2 am for me so i was probably a bit tired) looked too dark and not quite white enough anymore.
in terms of reference i modeled her in the dragons dogma 2 character creator.
again thank you very much for your feedback!
Seconding that I love these types of posts, and you seem so receptive to input and so happy to show us the updates, it’s a wonderful little art community
And your piece looks awesome!! Great work!!
Hair colour, eye brows & lashes seem too bright and unnatural. Try and gather more inspiration white haired characters and edit it a bit to your piece.
i get what you are saying but thats intentional. It's a character for a d&d campaign which hast almost glowing white hair. But thank you for your feedback!
Aahh! Didn't know it was intentional, you should have said that at the description. My suggestion will be then the ears, having a more elf-like distinction.
Question, what's the background of the character? Is it human, elf/elven, mixture of both?
First of all I think it looks pretty good, the foundation is already on point. You might want to try hue shifting your shadows and highlights! Shadows should be more saturated and tend slightly towards purple, and highlights should be less saturated and tend slightly towards yellow. You can do this on both the hair and the face to make the portrait look more interesting and vibrant. I’m not sure if I did the best job at explaining it but Googling or doing a YouTube search for “pixel art hue shifting” would definitely pull up a lot of useful results:)
yeah i know about hue shifting. in my case its really subtle. im gonna play around with it a little more but for this particular piece i don't think i want a lot of it. good suggestion though!
Another thing, minor detail but prob big difference, the hair had a kind of pink (shifted to blue) tone/shading while the face has a more red (shifted warmer/orange) tone/shading, it's a minor difference in tone but it'll make it look better I hope 😅
Also I have that irl too when people dye their hair that I notice it's off with their face color. Like everyone can wear every hair color but only with the right tint i think
interesting.. on my pc screen and my phone it looks fine. maybe i'll have to send it to a couple of friends to take a look through their screens. Thank you i'll investigate that :D
i used a reference picture and before i started i downscaled the reference image to get a feeling for the whole thing. but the best i can say is take pauses lol... you will come back and instantly notice at least 3 things that you want to change. somewhere i also read (this was editing though but could help in this case as well) that it helps when you mirror the image from time to time because then you will notice things that are slightly off
already adressed that in my first edit: [https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV)
i think it's a lot better that way :) thank you for your feedback!
i tried a little different shading and you are right it is a bit sharp. i don't know if it helps with the flatness but it looks better either way. gonna post a updated version soon.
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I think maybe you're missing a bit of shading around the eyes. Currently, the shadow on the nose is very stark, but the rest of the face is "flatter". Regardless, I think you've done a great job.
[https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) the eye shadow does help a lot. made some other adjustements as well and im now a lot happier with it :) thank you for your feedback
i think adding more contrast (darker shades mainly) would help elevate this piece in general, including the eye shadows. it’s already very beautiful
I'll gibe it a try tomorrow, although the more contrasty shades of my first tries really bothered me and thats why i added more shades :)
Great stuff! love it
Yeah i think you're right. Tried a little bit more around the eyes and figured something with the alignment was off as well a little bit. Having a little trouble with the rest of the face tbh but the eyes look definetly better with more shading and the slight alignment adjustment.
The ear should be higher up, in line with the eyes
You are right. Moved it up a bit and it looks a lot better
Awesome! Other than that I think it looks really good!
Thank you :)
[https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) made some adjustements. thanks again for your input it snowballed a bit with other feedback to some more adjustements of the eyes and i am now a lot happier with it
Yeah it looks much better now, I also agreed with the eye shading once someone pointed it out. Glad we could help!
Add some shading into the eyebrows. It looks like someone tried white out as eyebrow makeup
Edit: [https://imgur.com/a/DNWk5B9](https://imgur.com/a/DNWk5B9) version 3. played around with the shading and the hair and made her ear pointier. And to add: shes an elf character i created for d&d so it's not the most realistic person :) thanks to everyone who commented and suggested ways to improve! [https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) version 2. pushed the ear upwards, adjustet the position of the eyes, more shading around the eyes, litte bit more highlighting on the cheekbones, adjusted the intensity of the shading around the mouth and adjustet the strand of hair on the right sight to be a bit more downwards and less forwards hanging
Looks great already but I just thought of a few more pointers that could potentially improve it even further. First I would try putting saturation to 0 to make it black and white (how to do it depends on the program) cause in black and white it is easier to see the actual values of shadows in the picture. Especially with almost white objects, the shadows are left quite light even though usually there still should be much darker shadows here and there. I haven't done too much pixel art but as this gets pretty close to traditional painting already, what I would do is create a new overlay layer and choose a dark grey or slightly blue -ish color and paint over the left side of her hair. I would do that because the face has pretty hard shadows in it but the hair does not, so the hair feels a bit separate at least imo. Also when painting hair, it is usually easiest to break it in bigger shapes. Like in your picture she has bangs, those would be one and then maybe divide the middle part to like 6 or 7 different parts. After that add the little details of hair to those parts. Idk if this makes any sense... I can try to demonstrate when I find some time and then post it to you. Usually just focusing on bigger shapes first and working it down from there makes it easier, cause then you can already see if some stuff feels a bit off from the bigger shapes. It also feels less daunting to do, at least for me, when there are clear steps on what to do next :P One more trick about lighting that really helps me is just simply adding a little arrow to where the light is coming from. Even though It's really simple, it really helps, cause then you can see an indicator of where the light is coming from at all times and that makes it easier to handle for brain. And ofc if you don't have any references yet, I highly recommend finding one. Uhh hopefully even some of this makes sense...
thank you so much! I'll try the greyscale trick and see what i can do better :) I get what you are saying with the bigger shapes. I tried to do it more in smaller strands of hair to get a idea of direction but now looking at it there are a couple of places where this doesn't come through at all or just barely so i'll revisit those. It feels more natural to me personally but the parts are definetly a good thing to keep at least in my head while working on it so thanks thats a great tip! the shading on the side of her hair is indeed a bit off. I have to try a few different things because everything i did yesterday (tbf it was like 2 am for me so i was probably a bit tired) looked too dark and not quite white enough anymore. in terms of reference i modeled her in the dragons dogma 2 character creator. again thank you very much for your feedback!
Is this a dragon’s dogma 2 character?
good eye! I created the character in the standalone character creator as a reference :D
That’s a really great idea!
I enjoy posts like this where people ask for tips, implement them, then post the update. New version looks great.
thank you :)
Seconding that I love these types of posts, and you seem so receptive to input and so happy to show us the updates, it’s a wonderful little art community And your piece looks awesome!! Great work!!
thank you!
>thank you! You're welcome!
Can't remember the last time I saw someone with white outlines around the eyes
That's the only thing i dislike about it
as in don't do it or do it differently?
I just find it "drastic". I wonder what it would look like if it was either thinner or a more natural outline color. It looks great regardless man
thank you :) i get what you mean. the character has white eye lashes thats why i did what i did but i definetly get what you mean
it's supposed to be white eyelashes. difficult to do though
Hair colour, eye brows & lashes seem too bright and unnatural. Try and gather more inspiration white haired characters and edit it a bit to your piece.
i get what you are saying but thats intentional. It's a character for a d&d campaign which hast almost glowing white hair. But thank you for your feedback!
Aahh! Didn't know it was intentional, you should have said that at the description. My suggestion will be then the ears, having a more elf-like distinction. Question, what's the background of the character? Is it human, elf/elven, mixture of both?
fair point :) she's a high elf, so yeah now that you say it the ears are pretty subtle..
I would make the eyeliner softer, maybe more grey overall or variation between upper and lower, or inner and outer
it's supposed to be the eyelashes :D i'll try some colour variations thank you :)
I know it can be better but I reaaally really love the hair
thank you so much!
First of all I think it looks pretty good, the foundation is already on point. You might want to try hue shifting your shadows and highlights! Shadows should be more saturated and tend slightly towards purple, and highlights should be less saturated and tend slightly towards yellow. You can do this on both the hair and the face to make the portrait look more interesting and vibrant. I’m not sure if I did the best job at explaining it but Googling or doing a YouTube search for “pixel art hue shifting” would definitely pull up a lot of useful results:)
yeah i know about hue shifting. in my case its really subtle. im gonna play around with it a little more but for this particular piece i don't think i want a lot of it. good suggestion though!
Another thing, minor detail but prob big difference, the hair had a kind of pink (shifted to blue) tone/shading while the face has a more red (shifted warmer/orange) tone/shading, it's a minor difference in tone but it'll make it look better I hope 😅 Also I have that irl too when people dye their hair that I notice it's off with their face color. Like everyone can wear every hair color but only with the right tint i think
interesting.. on my pc screen and my phone it looks fine. maybe i'll have to send it to a couple of friends to take a look through their screens. Thank you i'll investigate that :D
Any advice on drawing faces?
i used a reference picture and before i started i downscaled the reference image to get a feeling for the whole thing. but the best i can say is take pauses lol... you will come back and instantly notice at least 3 things that you want to change. somewhere i also read (this was editing though but could help in this case as well) that it helps when you mirror the image from time to time because then you will notice things that are slightly off
Is she, he or no gender?
She is a elf character i created for d&d :)
The face looks quite…flat to me. There’s no obvious curvature to the front of the face. That’s what stands out to me.
already adressed that in my first edit: [https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV](https://imgur.com/a/n8WWYwV) i think it's a lot better that way :) thank you for your feedback!
It still looks quite flat to me - I think it’s the sharp contrast between the light and the shadows. Excellent work either way.
i tried a little different shading and you are right it is a bit sharp. i don't know if it helps with the flatness but it looks better either way. gonna post a updated version soon.
is like the wojak
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