Pseudonymphs Pixel Art Collab

[Kubby]

http://i.imgur.com/dAyqMit.png

OK, so here's what we begin with. A little house, rather simple, surrounded by a sea of green. If you wish to collaborate on the thing, make sure you follow some guidelines.

1. Here's something very important - many tools will be off-limit, as we want to limit the color palette to minimum. This means no tools that automatically add auto-aliasing. Basically, use a pencil tool and not a brush tool (manually added autoaliasing is fine.)

2. Something even more important - since every pixel is important, keep it a .png. And make sure the image hoster you choose doesn't mangle the image with compression either. (The forum attachment system does do that unfortunately.)

3.Let's try and keep the theme semi-coherent and semi-serious. Please don't draw dickbutts :)

EDIT.: 4. Since it's a collaborative thingy, try not to do too much in one iteration. There's fun in watching the thing grow step by step and it leaves area for the rest of us.

5. You can expect your stuff to be modified or replaced later on. That's the nature of change. I hope the group unity will allow us to treat other contributions with respect, though.

EDIT 2.:Oooops, did I, scare you away or something with my semi-decent house? Don't worry, I get the feeling. I feel similarly when I stumble upon the great pixelart. Here, have some tutorials thrown your way:
http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/isometric_pixelart_tutorial_setup_photoshop_for_pi xelart.php
https://design.tutsplus.com/series/isometric-pixel-art--cms-732

If you instead don't know what to draw, do not worry. Here, have a list of objects that can be added. Note, it does not include everything you can add. It's just some things I've got off the top of my head.
Another house/building (You can also modify the one I've made - make it longer, more complex)
Some trees, bushes or other vegetation
A fence
A car or other vehicle
A path leading from the house or running next to it
A character next to the house
A pond/sea
Some rocks
A swimming pool
etc.

[Moonjik]

Did I do it right?

https://s24.postimg.org/c9zbil8r9/d_Ayq_Mit_copy.png

[Kubby]

Yes, yes, that's great! I mean, there's always space for improvement, but you know, you're not expected to think of things if you've never pixelarted before. This should be a fun learning experience :)

http://i.imgur.com/aG4lRZH.png

Let's go through what I've done here:
1. I've made the outline lighter to make it look softer. I've also cleaned it up, getting rid of double outline pixels and water pixels outside of the outline. It's kinda like selecting a character in PS to transplant them to a different background - you want to make sure it looks perfect, sometimes even coming up close and removing the imperfections.

2. I've shaded the ground around the pond. That makes it look like pond is filling up some kind of dip, and adds depth to the scene. Note that it's not a perfectly smooth shade. It's because the ground itself is not exactly smooth.

3. I've added some texture to the water. Just like a bunch of sloped lines makes a plain gradient more interesting (for example, look at all the group sigs you've made ;) ), a texture will convey that this pond is filled with water that is never going to be perfectly still.

You can examine the differences up close here:
http://prntscr.com/dxrav2

[Klonoa]

What are you using to make these differences? Photoshop? MS Paint?

[Kubby]

What are you using to make these differences? Photoshop? MS Paint?

I'm personally using GIMP, since post-XP MS Paint kinda sucks (that and layer system is nice), but any program will do. Just remember, whatever program you use, don't use tools that inflate the color palette without your control.

[Moonjik]

Here's a tree I did. Slightly more detailed than my lake but the outlines are still rough

https://s27.postimg.org/6dm3xvtv7/a_G4l_RZH.png

[Kubby]

https://s29.postimg.org/f5u8wmy7r/Pixelart_Collab.png

Bonus points to those that can recognise the model. It's actually a pretty iconic car in some areas.

Now, some feedback for the tree: (I'm sure those are things that you can fix. I believe in you :) )

1. Note how everything is kinda drawn from above. Not completely from the top, but from above. (If you want some more details, it's an isometric projection.) Since a tree has a roundish trunk and a roundish crown, you might want them a bit of curve, to reflect that roundishness.

2. Shading. One more way to convey roundishness (or well, shape) is to shade the thing, to lighten it where the light shines on it and darken it where a shadow should be. If you look at the house or the pond, you'll see that the sun shines from south-east here, roughly. With that in mind, the trunk would be lighter on the right, and darker on the left. Shading the crown might be harder, but for a puffy tree like that, you could shade it like a bunch of spheres merged together. If you're feeling adventurous, you might add a leave-like texture on top of shading.

3. This tree is moderately big (if you did not plan it to be big, place it next to the house and see. Trees of this size tend to have roots protruding from the ground. It may be worth it to add them.

4. Nice touch on the grass near the base. The details like this make the picture come alive.

Here's the feedback drawn very roughly over the zoomed in tree: http://prntscr.com/dy9bnj

[Epic Doctor X]

I'd love to join in on this, but unfortunately since I'm a mac user finding a proper editing tool for free that works on a pixel level is turning out to be extremely difficult :/

[Kubby]

I'd love to join in on this, but unfortunately since I'm a mac user finding a proper editing tool for free that works on a pixel level is turning out to be extremely difficult :/

GIMP can work on a pixel level quite nicely (thought most features aren't really needed), and has an OSX build. Here, try it out: https://www.gimp.org/downloads/