More Clouds, pixel style

Still working on this clouds project. Pixel art cloudscape based on photo reference. The first image is overlaid with a rough CRT TV / Monitor effect I bodged together, the second is the clean pixels. I recent read the new Bitmap Brothers Universe book where the design team have gone to great ends to reproduce pixel artwork from classic games like Speedball 2 and The Chaos Engine as it would look with your old Atari / Amiga / Megadrive / etc. hooked up to a dodgy old 14" CRT TV.

My gut instinct has always been to display pixel art as cleanly as possible, something that is sometimes a headache (if you're viewing this page on a small tablet or phone, chances are these images won't reproduce cleanly...). Sometimes I'll even pass on re-releases of classic games if I can't display the art with clean pixels, completely unflitered. This book has got me thinking about other ways to present pixel art, and is a timely reminder that the technical aspects of the artwork in many old games and scene demos were optimised for displaying on CRT displays.

Starting 2017 with some more pictures of clouds

Following on from my last post, here's the last few studies I came up with over the Christmas period. Moving on from the digital paintings I tried my hand at some drawings and graphic art with the same subject matter of clouds and wide open spaces.

The above image is my first attempt at breaking down the silhouettes and volumes of clouds and the quality of light. For step 1 on the left I picked 4 tonal values and by eye attempted to reproduce a photo using these limitations, aiming for accuracy. The end result unfortunately looks like a photo put through a Photoshop filter, despite being drawn by hand. My solution was step 2 on the right where I simplified everything, concentrating on composition influenced by, but not reproducing, the original image. A big improvement to my eyes!

I followed this up with the following set of studies:

I was looking for a middle ground between the accurate reproduction of the outlines of the photo and a more stylised approach. I never got to a point with this image where I was satisfied but I did like the final steps use of line work against large blocks of colour.

So these two steps of studies led to the image at the op of this post and the one that ends it - playing line work and solid volumes off against each other with a bit of care and attention paid to atmospherics without distracting from the underlying drawings.

Checking Out - Ending 2016 with some pictures of clouds

At the end of the year I usually round things off with a bunch of photo studies of landscapes, cloudscapes, wide open spaces in general. It's incredibly relaxing as there are no big decisions to be made about theme, colour palette or composition - I just put together a collection of reference photos and work through them.

I worked on these four at a time, switching between them when I find myself treading water and noodling around instead of making real changes and refinements. These are my favourite four out of eight.