08-05-2011, 01:26 PM
As requested by several contestants, I asked the judges to give C+C if they had the time.
I've had some feedback from st0ven, and I cannot express how much I am grateful of the attention he's given to TUGS.
Anyway, here it is:
I also have to thank Jeremy for dedicating his time to TUGS, I really appreciate it!
I've had some feedback from st0ven, and I cannot express how much I am grateful of the attention he's given to TUGS.
Anyway, here it is:
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
st0ven's C+C
Beginner
Intermediate
Expert
This is really nice! But there is a problem. This is not a "beginner" level sprite. This is at least of intermediate quality. Almost unfair to judge it against the rest
Well executed, good palette use. There's some fundamental issues with certain volumes (arms look flat and claw isn't properly lit for its shape) but it reads well and is quite clean. Interesting concept as well
Nice colors and decent form. It looks a bit cropped though, I think it could have stood to have been slightly reduced in size to fit the entire crab in there. Also it looks unbalanced having just one claw. Decent pixel technique displayed. I would prefer this almost didn't have a background associated with it unless it were more finely detailed.
This image is nice and the frog anatomy is decent. My largest issue with it is that it's quite visibly rough looking even at 1x. Some cleaner technique and sharper attention to detail could have pushed this piece higher in the ranking.
So off the bat my first impression is that its over shaded. There are too many intermediate values being used in a gradient fashion which is fluffing the detail when I think it would benefit with some sharper transitions. The detail on the tail and face/eye is quite nice though and its an unusual creature for sure.
I think this is a neat take on what a fish creature should be. It’s a man, it’s a mermaid, it’s a cardboard box. Technique wise its clearly quite well done, certainly one of the cleaner entires, but I think the whole box body thing is making it very confusing to understand just how this creature works anatomically, which winds up making the sprite as a whole look a bit like a hodgepodge of its features.
This thing has some interesting character to it. The animation is a little static however and some of the detail doesn’t look as sharp as it could, but its very interesting to look at.
Why didn’t this piece place higher for me? Basically because the sprite is largely dependent on its animation, and the animation looks very 'snake' like (if you can imagine how the snake moved in that oldschool game). Your fish creature is segmented, but in every new frame, the previous segment moves into the exact same position as where the preceding segment was located. This essentially tells the eye that nothing's moved in that segment, even though the fish is moving as a whole. Its almost like a slink effect and it looks very unnatural and not at all smooth. I can recognize that some good effort was put forth though but this animation i think was pretty ambitious and might have required at least twice as many frames as it currently contains.
Its clean its fun, it’s a little simple though and rather monochromatic. Try shifting to a different hue as your values get lighter for some interesting new lighting effect. PS you don’t nee dto show me your palette 
neat creature but the colors here are just a hard read on the eyes. If you would have chose perhaps a tan color for example instead of the greens, it would have been easier on the eyes and a more attractive palette combination. In general im a strong advocate of avoiding usage of blue and green together in any situation.
Its quite simple but to scale it looks mildly clean. What concerns me is its lack of any apparent eyes. It looks blind. Try not to pillow shade your values and mind how to form basic circular shapes with shading. It lacks volume.
It’s a neat concept for sure, I really like it actually… but its really rough and needs some serious clean up attention. Hone your precision technique and you could do quite well.
I think your rather limited palette choice isnt helping your cause in this case. I was looking for more of a complete, whole sprite captured within the confines of the frame. Your mega angler fish isnt the showcase of the work and I would prefer it to be. if you would have centered it on the screen by itself and dropped the green background from it i think it would have been a much stronger entry, given a little extra attention to some detail. As it stands the body is largely a solid color fill.
sorry man but you have to finish your pieces moreso than this if you want critique.
I get the horseshoe crab joke aspect, its kindof cute in that sense, but it’s a very 'safe' piece with very limited volume in the creature at all. Im not bothered by it being greyscaled but because its so simply done it doesn’t quite measure up to the rest of the entries. For what its worth the eyes do give the guy a little bit of character.
Intermediate
Nice composition and well executed. A bit simplistic on some of the aquatic bg imagery but overall very good piece.
Decent composition, humorous material. The sea floor color is slightly jarring (mainly how flat it appears) but doesn’t significantly impact the piece.
Liking the circular take on the water surface in the bg, it would have been more interesting if the throne seat would have followed the same perspective, sort of in a sea worm's eye kindof way. Would have made composition much stronger, otherwise looks a little flat/linear.
This work sort of grew on me the more I looked at it the more interesting it became. I zoom in and theres a lot of messy dithering happening, but when viewed to scale everything blends together pretty well and it makes for a pretty solid image. I almost feel like it was one of the best uses of the entire palette as well. If some of the detail on this piece were a bit cleaner and sharper i think this could have been one of my top two picks. One last comment. That animation number did nothing for me. It would require actual object animation for me to be impressed for the sake of scoring
Interesting piece that is very clean, but is looking a bit empty in the background, and slightly unfinished as a result. Still the details are well executed. If this were more thoroughly illustrated… well I feel like im saying that a lot, but its true, lots of potential on this piece 
This piece feels fairly well executed but using that green palette choice for the skin and having her on the surface makes her feel very martian to me. Discounting that (I know the palette was challenging to work with), the composition is ok its an interesting piece to look at but some of the details feel pretty loose in comparison to its competition.
This piece is a little hard for me to read. I enjoy the shark like creature starig at me but otherwise it’s a bit hard to tell whats happening. I don’t know if this is what the ocean floor would look like drunk vs perhaps more of a hallucinogen would. One thing im not a fan of in this piece was treating the jelly fish to be big blocky and retro. It takes a lot of skill to pull something like that off and i think it would have to repeat more elsewhere than just the jelly fish for it to fit in. Otherwise it just makes them feel out of place when considering the rest of the environment.
Well where to start. I think what this piece is is a decent piece to build on. My biggest issue with it is that it is looking rather monochromatic which flattens out the entire piece and it makes it hard to read some important fundamentals like depth of field. you have a lot of this circular texture effect happening and in certain areas i like it, but in the lower right portion of the screen it feels unfocused and a bit overkill to me. Your shelf in the bg should not be that dark. Generally speaking, use your darks on objects you want to pull closer to the foreground.
sorry man but you have to finish your pieces moreso than this if you want critique.
Expert
Just a very interesting, clean piece that is really stylish and looks like it could be a mainstream hit title. The pixel technique is more on the basic side of the entries but its composition and cleanliness more than make up for it. The only thing that’s missing for me is just a bit more indication of the underwater nature of the scene with some light distortion perhaps but the color palette is phenomenal and it all just works.
Overall image is very appealing, the monstrous size of pisces is striking, looks very ferocious with some pirhanna elements to it. I can only assume hes fighting Cancer, and I really enjoy the bio blasting effect happening its very eye catching, wishing the character was a bit more obvious (though i enjoy his color scheme). The background is interesting but it looks way over exposed and takes focus away from the main staged battle. Also the roughness and unfinished nature of the pirhanna make the piece suffer. The technical pixel work that was done on the surrounding rock is really nice, but when zoomed out the decision to use brighter colors near the perimeter of the rock make it appear as if its unfinished or cut out from another source. IMO these colors should probably be darker to pull it away from that very intense light source in the distance, because as it stands the whole piece looks too light.
This piece could have easily been my favorite hands down. The color tension between the sublime blue hues and the intense oranges are very interesting and it keeps drawing my eye towards it. The background scene is quite well done and it seems quite a lot of care and effort was taken to pixel it. My problem is that id enjoy the piece MORE if it was just a stand alone background. The anatomy and level of polish on the scorpion is a bit disappointing considering the environment its staged in, and i really cant tell what that diver is supposed to represent (my guess was aquarius?) half of this was very well executed but it feels that the other half was unfinished and it pulls the overal quality of the piece down. (did i mention im still looking over the background on this one? so nice!)
I had a very tough time placing this one 4th because I think theres a lot of great stuff happening here. Its big, the characters are nicely illustrated, my eye draws mainly towards leo and he looks quite powerful and majestic. The singular light source makes Virgo look like a bit of an after thought unfortunately, and the level of darkness gives the impression they are fighting in the abyss. I realize that at the bottom of the sea light is largely abscent, so perhaps some more sources of biolumination could have helped fill out the lighting. WIthout more evidence of an environment one could argue this could have been done in space or in a cave. Also after staring at it for a minute im really thrown off by how flat leo's leg was shaded and the more i look at it the more it bothers me. One last note, i have no idea what that background piece is in the upper left.
What to say. All the elements are there for sure, technically its all very competent, but theres a simplicity to the composition that has failed to capture my attention. The colors seem well picked but they don’t feel appropriate for an under water scene. It looks like what these creatures might look like if in the air in sunlight. I think more underwater hints of stuff happening in the background could help enhance the composition of the piece because otherwise it feels a bit empty. One more thing, the portraits of the twins i think actually hurt the piece more than anything. i cant stop looking at them vs the battle at hand. These portraits should really shine if you are to include them at all i would think.
This is probably one of the most ambitious piece of the lot. I think the suze ultimately hurts it unfortunately. I really enjoy aries and the centaur and particularly the water splashes around aries. Its clearly an unfinished piece however and I don’t think that the rest of the month would have been enough time to finish it. Iven if you were to push some of the details more with a bit more detail using some smaller brushes just to infer your detail it could have helped this piece feel much more complete. As it stands it feels too rough to understand whats happening in the scene. Im nto a huge fan of the color usage in certain areas. Theres lots of compartmentalized usage of oranges and reds in a sea of green. Again its hard to tell what that would have looked like as the piece is just unfinished in a very big way. I suggest in future pieces to scale down the size a bit more.
I enjoy the treatment of the water here and I really like the distortion on the arm as its submerged in the water (I hate to see it stay so orange however). The trees look like they could have had a cool stylish feel to them if they were finished. The white sky background is a bit inexcusable because it takes a lot of interest out of the image. even a color fill of a sky blue would have been better. I get the twins and what they are doing, but the lack of finishing or finesse on the weapon swipes are very distracting. Not sure if you intended to do this or not bug having the weapon swipes actually form out the gemeni symbol would have been really neat. The skeleton on the otherhand i have no idea who its supposed to be. I like the color of the gold and the inferred piles of it (without detailing out specific coins) but the lack of detail or finish on him is a real bummer.
This is kind of a shame because I look at this piece up close and I get it and I think there are some neat things happening and it’s a very different concept, very loose and interpretive and artsy. The major failure of execution here unfortunately is readability. Theres just a lack of any coherence of value to help the viewer even understand what is happening without zooming in. Also with this style of work, its hard to say if you really took the time to plan out some of your shapes or if you finished this piece in 30 minutes flat.
This could have been nice if it were finished but its entirely unfinished and not only that but I think that the detail and level of finish was entirely misplaced. You want your focal points of interest to receive the most detail and care and be less exact as you move away from those areas of interest. the eye does a good job of filling in the gaps. I feel as if you did all this nice work on the foreground elements and stopped/gave up because you realized how futile it would be to detail everything to that standard in the time allowed. I like what i see thats finished but unfortunately for me its not nearly finished enough :/ Its a shame because it seems like it could have been rather promising.
Im just completely depressed that I have to put this piece last. I can see exactly what this could have been building up to create. The colors used and the general composition that’s placed down is already interesting, if not , close to being one of the most eye catching pieces of the lot. Had this been finished and executed into the piece im imagining it could have been, i strongly believe it could have placed in the top 3. Unfortunately there arent even any finished characters to go with it. Im quite sad.
I also have to thank Jeremy for dedicating his time to TUGS, I really appreciate it!
Beginner
Intermediate
Expert
This animation is pretty fantastic. Nice colour choices, though some AA between the two lightest body colours would have been nice. The large light patch on the tail is a bit distracting, it draws attention away from the face which sould really be the focal point. Some of the shading is pretty unadventurous, like the plain red fins underneath; an edge highlight would have been nice. Great sense of depth, the teeth animation is mesmerising. For one final nitpick, a smaller pupil would make it waaay more alien/frightening.
Some of the forms could be more organic; the pose is rather stiff and I don't quite understand what the thing in its claw is. The colourscheme is nice, the pink pops against the water really well. Those edge highlights on the claws are cool too, though there's a bit of a missed opportunity for themin other places. Would be nice to see you rely a little less on lines to define everythin in the future (:
What a derpy li'l fellow. The mouth open/close would have made way more sense if you had pink single pixels (krill) going from left to right, would also give an illusion of movement. I like the water ripple animation on his head, worked pretty successfully. The teeth could use some stronger definition, and the outline is screamin for AA since you chose to use a white background.
Shading is pretty good overall, the outlined legs look seperated from the body though, and I feel that a bridging colour should have been used between orange and red. On another note, the contrast between sand dunes and sky is creating weird dominance issues due to their saturation. Where is his other claw? The texturing works well, especially on the "teeth" of the claw. Nice one ;D
A solid entry. Love the depth conveyed in the eyes. Some contrast issues: it's pretty washed out and it would be nice to see more hue shifting in every colour ramp.
Style, composition, swaggah: great. If only it were more refined.
I like the head. You should use more hue variation and contrast in your colour ramps, and the gradient-style shading you have going on creates banding all over. Something original would have been nice (:
As st0ven said, this has a real Snake vibe. The pink text isn't helping anything, and I feel that everything is over too quickly to see the quality of the pixelling (Which is good, incidentally). The bubbles don't match the clean style. I'd suggest evaluating whether or not animation is *really* needed.
I'm not sure what it's meant to be, but it's clean, simple and I like it. It's very blue though, some red trim would look nice.
Some interesting texturing there. Keep in mind that you don't need to detail each and every part that much. There's no part that draws the eye more than another. Your colour choices are pretty good apart from that, and plesiosaurs are always cool (;
Using five colours was pretty ambitious, but I agree that having just the fish would have been better. See how gameboy games managed to convey depth and weight with only four.
Great concept, would have been great to see it actually realised.
The shading on this has that gradient problem - shading from top right doesn't conform to the actual shape of the shell
You've made this hard on yourself. There's only one decent-sized area to actually shade.
Intermediate
You've managed to hide the restrictions super well, kudos. Shapes are all well defined and you haven't compromised with colour ramps as far as I can see. Great use of black. The black coral (?) at the front doesn't do anything for me, and you could have maybe used the yellow to highlight the prongs of the trident. For the sand, rather than so much dither I'd have personally preferred the shading style you used on the blue/teal/grey shape on the throne.
These are some cool lines. One of the best uses of the fugly purple I've seen, in shading the outlines of the nautilus thing. The black line creating the edge between the two sides of the boat is unneeded, and it's screaming for some water details. I wanna see this finished (:
Nice fine detailing on the scales of the fishy things, the light rays work well too though it's unfortunate that one is going right through the face. The use of the two greens together is interesting, would have been nice to see that explored further. Nice jellyfish.
Another good use of black. The ghost pirates are shaded well, it would have been clearer to have the diver use yellow in his skin, to differentiate. The swirly sea details are unneeded, I think they detract from the piece as a whole.
The drunkovision is really innovative. The different elements do seem a bit detatched though.
Nice moody atmosphere and texturing. However, all the green, yellow and purple stand out too much. Dither doesn't fit the rays of light.
Purple is probably the worst colour in that palette, and you kinda overused it. It pays to take saturation and hue into account as well as just value when creating colour ramps. It almost seems like an inverted-colour picture.
It's very cluttered, and the fact that no part of it is finished means that it's hard to focus anywhere. I think you were a bit abmitious, and something simpler would have been better.
Just too unfinshed sorry. Would have been interesting to see how you interpreted the cockpit view.
Expert
Absolute pleasure to look at. I've always had a soft spot for the green ramp in that palette too. Great priority of sprites to background, however some of the background elements are a little soft. Judging by the minimap, those red orbs at least are tactile things so they should have outlines. So yeah, great work.
Beautiful environment. Nothing to say technically, but it seems as if only the left side of the piece is underwater. Scorpion's position is a bit awkward I think. Finish I:<
The Aquarius sprite has loads of character. Compositionally fantastic. The rockfaces lack your usual colour sense; I'm really not a fan of the greys. There's a lot of dither in the background and on the big fish, some scale texturing especially would work better. At least this one'll be finished (right? (; )
You have great pixelling skills but there's no way in hell that this is a mockup. The bubbles are also hard to see, so it's not clear they're underwater either. Your colours are quite Fool-ish.
Your colours are incredible, though there are a bunch of 'em. This piece makes me feel sad because I can tell from the ears and horns that it would be unbelievably great if finished.
Your colours are very light and airy-fairy, not too suited to an underwater scene. I think part of the problem with the colours is that they are all pretty midtoneish. I dunno what it is, just feels like it need *more*.
Your water looks a little much like blue ground to me. Your style is great, the trees are sick.
Another one that makes me feel sad 'cos of the evidence of your skills I can see.
I wanna see more of your work, and what this would have become. Very interesting. Your horse anatomy is a little weird.
Ugh, another one that I can see would have been great. Brilliant sense of depth in the background.
![[Image: x1aIZ2e.gif]](/image.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fx1aIZ2e.gif&hash=97db2b9d8ee12084506a352f3a8c7f84)
YOU HAVE TO FEEL WHAT YOU DRAW, FEEL
![[Image: shrine.gif]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/344477/shrine.gif)