d4rk3lf sketchbook.

[Nishicorn]

Hello again, D4rk3lf.

I thought my suggestions, critique and advice might be a bit too theoretical, being just text, so I made you a 'reference picture' just to show what I mean - it doesn't mean to compete against your picture and it's not a fully-fledged picture anyway, just a tiny example, a quick mock-up, if you will.

I made it on my real Amiga 1200, so my moon became a bit distorted - something perfectly round on the real Amiga looks a bit oval-shaped on the PC side for some reason - I guess the pixels aren't -exactly- the same proportion (like completely square).

These are the things I wanted to point out with this reference picture, they're differences to your original moody wonder, that I wanted to offer you just in case you want to consider this kind of stuff.. so take it for whatever it's worth.

So basically the differences are:

- More common Amiga resolution (320x256, but I cut a bit off to make it 320x240 visually) - I don't know what your picture's resolution is, it seems like something like 420x240?)
- The moon is a bit brighter - after all, moon is supposed to be light, so it should look like light (looked much brighter on my CRT television, though, so my moon also looks kinda dimmer than I wanted)
- The branches are 'pointed/pointy', so they look a bit more 'realistic' perhaps. They're not perfect, but I just wanted to show how it could be more thin in the end easily.
- The moon is more round instead of squashed (could be a resolution thing?)
- The castle tries to look a bit more round (though now that I look at it, it ends up looking quite flat anyway)
- There is (or at least was on the TV) more contrast between the 'grass' and the 'tree portion' - hm, your 'tree portion' shape looks much better, mine looks weird and bloated)
- I tried to do a bit of that 'moonlight interfering the branch'-effect, but I think I failed (looks more impressove on the TV again..)
- I wanted the mountains to be a bit more steep
- A tiny star for detail
- Mountais have -slight- shading (this is basically a matter of taste, I didn't do a very good job anyway)
- I came up with a name for the picture (Standing Alone)
- I used blue-ish hues, so it looks more like a 'night picture' than 'screenshot from an old TV show' (: (but this is a matter of taste, of course)

I could've done a lot more with the pic, some anti-aliasing and 'glowing effect' for the moon, shading and clouds for the sky, hopefully a lot better shadow for the castle, more leaves, more details, shading the tree portion a bit more (it kinda needs more contrast, black in the middle might've worked), added more flowers and also color to every layer (more shades, I mean, to play with light and shadow and all that), shading the mountains a bit more and so on.

But I just wanted to create a quick mock-up so all my ramblings aren't just pure test, but there's something visual you can kind of scan and see if you like it or not.

Just for the record, your picture is still a moody masterpiece, my pic is just a hopefully helpful tool, should you choose to accept it. (:

Thanks for creating such great art, please keep going, I would love to see more!

[Nishicorn]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

..but couldn't make it anywhere to look fairly descent, because there was no youtube, and I was stupid enough not to think to go to some drawing school and learn some rules from teacher.

descent = a way down, the act or instance of 'descending'. A game called 'Descent' was released back in the day..

decent = good

Well, there was no youtube when I was learning, I never attended any school, I had no teacher, either. You can just self-learn this stuff, you know.. just keep pixeling, and what looks wrong, fix it, until the picture is perfect. Or as perfect as you care to make (all my graphics would still need a lot of work) ..

I also don't know any rules.

The way I do it, is first I try to get the shape right, and once that resembles something watchable, I try to get the colors right - and once those look like something, I start the shading, thinking about light sources, shadows, etc, and then dither my life away. Mmm, love that dither.

I think many people are self-taught in many things.. someone did teach me a bit of basic programming, so now I can make tiny 'storydemos', but other than that, once I learned how to use a tracker's basic functions, I continued dabbling with music until now I can use multiple trackers just based on experimentation and helpfiles (you do need those, though).

Once you know how to use Deluxe Paint, you can easily start using Brilliance - it just takes a bit of getting used to.

There's nothing that much to learn anyway, once you've done your shape and colors, the rest is basically just shading and dithering, and those you learn by doing them pretty quickly.

I think you might be using too big resolutions, requiring too much work.. if you use something like 320x200/240/256 or 160x240 (my favorite), then it's much less work and easier to focus on what you want to do.

I am right now planning a picture I have -no- idea if I can even do or how to do it, I just have a vague idea in my head. That's kinda scary.. but with luck, I might be able to make it look at least semi-watchable.. thankfully, low resolution pictures are easy to edit.

[d4rk3lf]

Wow..
I just saw this...
Thank you so much Nishicorn.

I just quickly read what you write..
But what I must point my finger at.. is that picture you did in post 19.
Of course I admire B/W art! Of course I think that most of the painting rules apply to B/W.
But what you did (no gray gradients, and just simply black OR white), is totally astonishing.. I am speechless man...
And the whole picture have great composition.. lightning... amazing atmosphere.. very organic...

Man, thank you so much for the tips.
--------

Btw... I have hard time trying to find pictures you are reffering too.. It's better if you can call it "second image from post n-number".

[Nishicorn]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Wow..
I just saw this...
Thank you so much Nishicorn.

Thank YOU for inspiring me and letting me try to help you. It's so much fun to do this kind of almost collaborational projects. I would love to collaborate one day..

I just quickly read what you write..
But what I must point my finger at.. is that picture you did in post 19.

Too much? I tend to have a lot to say, and as I have a nice, full N-key rollover keyboard and fast fingers, it's easy for me to type pages of text without breaking a sweat.

Ah, I didn't even realize the posts are numbered (: So you mean the 'Monochrome_Test'? I usually go by filenames, because I think that is the name of the picture, and I want to respect the artist by using the name they came up with. This Monochrome picture actually has many names, but that's a long story. It's OK to just call it 'Monochrome Test' (:

By the way, thank you for your kind words and great attitude again! I am always afraid I come off as annoying when I try to give information or my opinions or viewpoints to people, I am happy you are not angry at me. (:

Of course I admire B/W art! Of course I think that most of the painting rules apply to B/W.

I am glad to hear it.. there's so much interesting beauty if we just let ourselves see it. It's a bit sad how sometimes we can be locked to a certain narrow viewpoint and not appreciate beauty outside of it - for example, Amiga art good, Atari ST art bad - but I have found so much wonderful eyecandy even from the Spectrum artwork.

It always intriques me as to how an artist is able to 'surpass limitations' and still create beauty when they have almost nothing. It's easy to dazzle the eye and create alpha-fading lens flares when you have unlimited colors and GPUs and all. But it takes a real, honest expression of something beautiful inside you to create an impactful expression with very limited methods, like only two colors or low resolution or both.

Those Spectrum artists were geniuses in my opinion - but I also think the C64 artists were, too. 16 colors is not much, and yet so many eye-pleasing masterpieces have been created in a low resolution.

But what you did (no gray gradients, and just simply black OR white), is totally astonishing.. I am speechless man...

Thank you so much! It was actually pretty difficult and I struggled a lot with that picture, but I wanted to create a nature picture as I love sceneries like that.. it could've been improved, and it's not perfect - the middle part of the lake is just white, as I didn't know how to do anything there that wouldn't ruin the 'light effect', and I didn't quite know how to draw 'waves' so it looks a bit amateurish in that regard as well.

However, I really appreciate your kindness and appreciation, thank you! You are a true artist, and very humble. I think you can create even more impressive artworks than you already have. In my opinion, you already have the most important part, the only thing that you can still hone is the 'technical side', you know, dithering techniques and different resolutions and such.

Also, although taking a screenshot works, the tools block part of the picture, and the picture might seem a bit distorted. It's better to save as IFF and then convert to GIF or PNG, maybe double-size the picture (without interpolation) and then upload it.

And the whole picture have great composition.. lightning... amazing atmosphere.. very organic...

Wow! I knew you are a great artist, but I didn't realize you are also a great reviewer and commentator! If only everyone could always get this kind of thoughtful and meaningful comments for their artwork instead of the usual "nice" or "that's nice".

When it comes to atmosphere, you are the master, though.. I just happen to know some technical stuff through my experience with tinkering with so many pixels. However, when it comes to monochrome stuff, I am still a beginner, but in some way it's easier because you don't have to worry about colors or such, you just always use the same color.

Have you tried making monochrome art yet?

}Man, thank you so much for the tips.

"Entity". But you are very welcome, thank YOU for the wonderful comments that made my day!

Btw... I have hard time trying to find pictures you are reffering too.. It's better if you can call it "second image from post n-number".

Ah, sorry, I didn't realize.

The atmospheric Forest picture I refer to:

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...3&d=1576794118

By the way, this forest picture reminds me of a 'demo' I am making that has a similar aesthetic (though your picture works, mine is somewhat lacking - it's still work in progress and very unfinished, though, but I think your picture helped me realize what's wrong with mine, so thank you - your picture also has much deeper and more interesting atmosphere)

My "Old Tree" picture:

https://i.postimg.cc/X7vVRGxV/Oldtree.png

The amazing "Screen 01" I referred to:

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...4&d=1582402111

And the awesome planet picture:

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1583795245

I hope this kind of URL pasting works.

Were there other images I referred to that you wanted to know about? Other than those, I think I referred mostly to the attachments I included in the post(s).

This kind of exemplifies my point about giving your picture a NAME - that way, it can never be confused.. (:

[Dj Dishcloth]

I love this thread, d4rk3lf you do some good DPaint`s, I particularly like your take on SoTB2.