[WAR II] Pixel Art

[SassySnivy]

Banner here

WAR II: Pixel Art

Welcome, all, to the second incarnation of PXR's annual summer WAR competition! Here, you will all be fighting each other to death to determine who the top pixel artist is in PXR! Who will reign?

Each week for four weeks, you will be given a prompt upon which you'll need to create a pixel masterpiece. The challenges will start out easy, but will get more and more challenging as the weeks pass. Do you have what it takes to keep going?

Scoring Rubric

Each week, your entries will be scored according to this rubric. Note that each week, the rubric will change depending on the theme...so keep your eyes peeled!

Scoring (Final Week)

First Impression: 15 points

What's the very first impression you get when you see this at a glance? Fantastic? A little messy? Since pixel art a lot of the time focuses on what the result looks like when zoomed out, this is very important! In a way, you could say that this utilizes all of the scoring criteria below and kinda bundles it up into one score!

Quality: 10 points

Upon breaking it down, how clean and crisp and just good over all does it look? Did you execute techniques effectively, such as making sure your colors had contrast, keeping the lines clean, use proper anti-aliasing, etc?

Originality: 5 points

How much thought did you put into the concept, or even the execution behind making the sprite? Getting points here isn't just about the idea behind what you entered! If you found an interesting way to execute certain pixel art techniques, found an innovative way to use colors, and the like, that counts for creativity points, too!

Relativity: 5 points

How closely did your entry match the theme? Unless you noticeably deviate from the theme, you will most likely always get a perfect 5 here.

---

WAR II Pixel Art: Rules

1. ALWAYS save as PNG for the sake of this thread. If you send your entry as a JPEG, I'll most likely give you a heads-up...since it honestly would not be cool to get a low score just because the image is gunky.
   
2. All artwork needs to be made by YOU. No direct art theft, and no collaborated works.
3. Your entry must NOT have been made beforehand! All entries need to be created in response specifically to the week's WAR prompt.
4. Please refrain from resizing your entries in any way. There's no need to do so, unless you also provide the original version.
5. You can only send in ONE entry per week. You can always post your WIP as you're working on, and you can always change your entry at ANY time...as long as it's before the cut-off date!
6. The Spriting Encyclopedia has some interesting, noteworthy content and sources, so check it out!
7. Feel free to ask ANY question that concerns you in this thread! You never know; someone else may be wondering the same thing.
8. I GIVE OUT FREE CRITIQUES BEFORE THE JUDGING PERIOD! :D This is one big reason why I encourage you guys to make your WIPs public if you want to. While I won't rate your entry before the judging period, I will definitely give you some free pointers and whatnot. All you have to do is ask me! <3

---

Point Distribution

The first-place winner of a week in this part of WAR will receive THREE points for their team.

The second-place winner of a week in this part of WAR will receive TWO points for their team.

And finally, the third-place winner of a week in this part of WAR will receive ONE point for their team.

---

Week Four!

...Something new! A lot of you all probably saw this coming. You have to make a sprite completely on your own, or "from scratch" as a lot of people like to call it. NO splicing, editing, etc for this week's entry!

What do I want you to make, though? This is the fun part. Do you remember the first week of the Drawn Art section of WAR, where people had to create a Fakemon of a brand new type? I want you guys to pick one out of ANY of those Fakemon to sprite this week. They are as follows:
@Mad Max's Dottle
@JamestheTyphlosion's Zerkonra
Nekomata's Lumebus
@lorii's Diovbot
Suicune's Fire's Binode
@MoogleSam's Origapaper
@Lady Darkrina's Skeleruin
@Velocity's Lunup OR Werunar
Morzone's Solvista
PTGigi's Astropter
The Frost Dragon's Magikcthulu

If any of the artists of these Fakemon don't want their Fake to be sprited for WAR, please do let me know. I will take it down as one of the options to use in a heartbeat! I want to respect all artist's boundaries to the best of my ability.

And yes, you can make one of the Fakemon you entered if you did enter one! But that's your call.

IT MUST BE NO LARGER THAN 93x93 PIXELS, and you MUST NOT USE ANY MORE COLORS THAN 15. You can make this in any style that you wish!

And most importantly, try to have fun with this! 8D

Form:

[b]WAR Team:[/b]  [Team X]


[b]Entry:[/b]  [Image here]


[b]Fakemon selected:[/b]

You will have until July 4, 2015 at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time!!!



Once the results for that round are up, the new theme will be posted up in its place and the cycle will continue.

This section of WAR is going to take a slightly different turn this year around, so stay on your toes![/center]

Previous Week Themes

Week 1

Spoiler:

All you have to do is simply recolor a sprite! There's a bit of a catch, though: I'm looking for creativity here! Quality doesn't matter as much! This is to get you guys all warmed-up. :D
You can recolor any Pokemon, so long as it's a sprite from the main Gen III, Gen IV, or Gen V games. Please do NOT use fan-made sprites based off of the Gen VI Pokemon. Doing this keeps things simple. :> If you do, you will be asked to change your entry.

It is advised that you don't alter the shading, though some creative exceptions are allowed; for instance, if you want to add a more complex pattern and/or want to add some really slight texturing. Please be wary, however, that you will not get extra points for this.
It's also advised that you don't dramatically change the line art of the Pokemon you're recoloring.

If the Pokemon you're recoloring has a pattern somewhere on its body; YES, you CAN erase it, replace it, anything! You can even ADD patterns to your recolors; I encourage at least trying this out. Coming up with something original and cool and something that just works is what I'm looking for. (And I haven't been disappointed so far!)

Week 2

Spoiler:

Did you think you were going to do a fusion this week? If so, you were so wrong! This week you get to create a pixel-over of any of Sugimori's official Global Link / Dream World artwork for any forme of any Pokemon!

There are only two limitations: first off, don't deviate too much from the Pokemon's design. It's alright to deviate some lineart-wise, but just don't go crazy and make your Pokesona out of it or anything. You can use either the Pokemon's regular or shiny colors...or both! You won't get any bonus points for coming up with both, though.

You can find EVERY Pokemon's official Global Link artwork here! As you can see the shading is very minimal with this style, hence why I'm using them to test out everyone's shading skills! Make them look good. :D

Oh, and it also CANNOT exceed 200 x 200 pixels!!!

As for the shading, do anything that you'd like! Use a different position for your light source, add some texture, use your own signature shading style...whatever! This week, I want to see how well you guys can shade.

Week 3

Spoiler:

This week we're going to do something that we did last year: a silhouette challenge! But what is a silhouette challenge, you ask?

First, take ANY old Pokemon sprite you can find. It can be from ANY generation.

Color the entire thing in black (or you can reduce it all to one outline, but I find it easier to work from a silhouette).

FLIP THE IMAGE. This is probably the MOST IMPORTANT STEP OF ALL, and you MUST DO IT. Make sure that you only rotate it by 90-degree increments; 90 degrees, 180 degrees, or 270 degrees; in other words; don't rotate it so that it skews/distorts the pixels. It needs to be even. But why? Simple: when we see Hariyama's silhouette just as is, we still see Hariyama. However...flip it 90, 180, or 270 degrees and the right side of your brain will take over! That isn't Hariyama anymore...what is that thing?
Well, it can be absolutely ANYTHING. Only your imagination--and the pixel limit--is the limit.

Wait. Pixel limit? YES. You cannot add or take away even a single pixel from the outside borders of the silhouette. ANYTHING INSIDE OF THE SPRITE IS FAIR GAME. But you cannot change anything on the outside of it! You need to exercise your creativity and figure out how you need to do it.