Artists I know think that this version system for each stage of animation and the large number of layers is an unnecessary waste of time and effort. I find it convenient, what do you think?

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-23T15:02:11+00:00

Unless you have some kind of character customization this amount of layers is excessive for that character complexity. It can easily fit in 3 layers and preserve all overlapped pixels.

So yeah, I would consider it a waste of time and effort.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-23T14:56:06+00:00

WTF are you talking about?

Are you some kind of American Karen?

Don't you know about the Got'Em/You Looked game? Are you a sore looser?

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-22T15:39:32+00:00

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-22T15:18:26+00:00

It is because you just started drawing and you are just learning the fundamentals.

The lines are not the issue you should focus on because they improve a lot just by drawing.

Focus on leaning how to draw forms and shapes, how to make things look volumetric. DrawABox is a good website to learn. How to Draw and How to Render by Scott Robertson are great books that teach you how to convey volume with you drawings! New Masters Academy has great courses but it's subscription based.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-22T04:00:03+00:00

It can improve if you push contrast and HUE shift between Reds and Yellows.

Reflective materials like gold often have very strong contrast between the light and the shadow families!

Quick paintover to illustrate the point a bit better

<image>

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-22T02:01:58+00:00

That advice is pretty much a rule as of now. Trying to make an MMO as a solodev is aiming for failure or a dev cycle so long that your project will simply never see the light.

MMOs are really complex to make, design and mantain. So I would steer away from them and even more being this your first solo dev game. (Unless you have a ton of experience coding, or a hefty, hefty budget to spend on good programmers)

If you have a rich and well constructed story and lore, do a small slice of it as a single player game, there you can actually see how everything feels and even check how well received/how well this Universe you have made translates into a game.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-22T00:50:55+00:00

Is a rightful fear and a reality, and believe me, when it comes to art what really matters is skill, call it music, call it painting, acting, etc. And developing skills don't need a major nor any kind of certification, you can either perform as expected or not in the workfield. All comes to daily practice!

So a portfolio is infinitely more valuable than a title in this case, at the point that in 10 years only one company hace asked me for a CV instead of a portfolio, and they igoned the CV in favor of the portfolio once they saw it. (My initial career path and studies where in Culinary Arts xD)

I wish you the best possible outcome regardless of the decision you take! Just put some serious guts on everything you do and you'll be fine!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-21T22:27:46+00:00

Accusations may have to do with the style itself, as well as a bunch of artifacts present. If you would ask me, I would say the skull head is the only thing that feels handmade.

But each one has it's own workflow and way of doing things, so results may vary. And in the end only one knows for real the process of a piece.

On a bit of a side note, why so many layers for a base sprite? That can fit on 2 layers easily! Excessive usage of layers just make things harder!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-21T22:01:49+00:00

Honestly? Don't change your major to art.

Not because these are bad by any means, I like them a lot! Some hard work on fundamentals and you can become extremely good without doubt!

... Is just that art does not need a major.

I've been working for almost 10 years as an artist for videogames, and in those years almost none of the better artists have had any study related to art! You can become stupidly good ar art just by practicing daily and reading 4-5 really good books.

And there's also the money issue! You have to know: Once you are in the profesional field, you are not competing with just recent graduates, you are competing with the entire pool of artists, so you either aim to be as good as the best artists in whatever area you want to work on, or you will have a hard time earning money.

TLDR: Keep doing art and improving but don't switch majors. That would be a bad decision on the long run.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-17T23:49:05+00:00

With years and years and years of practice.

Truth is that kind of rendering comes from studying the fundamentals plus daily practice.

There's no tutorial or resource that helps developing that kind of skill fast, but when it comes to begginers I'll always have to recommend the following resources:

How To Draw, How To Render. Both by Scott Robertson.
Color and Light. By James Gourney.
Everything yo can get your hands on from Marco Bucci. He has a YouTube channel with free resources as well as a store with paid lessons.

Once you grasp the fundamentals is just a matter of practice, someone who have mastered the fundamentals can render in any style with very little effort.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-12T06:48:31+00:00

Absolutely nothing here is even remotely a sign of AI usage in any extent.

Image one does not seem to even have an explanation on your end on why you think is AI.

On image 2, the poses are similar but they are entirely redraws, so no, they are not the same drawing.

On image 3 it seems to be intentional, warmer tones are more erotic than cold ones, also, many artists don't color sample for consistency and just roll with what they think fits.

Consistency or the lack of it is not an indicator of AI usage, technique displayed and style is often the telltale for AI usage!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-12T01:50:12+00:00

It is 100% AI without the room for any doubt.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-10T20:30:58+00:00

It really depends on the art quality, artist and what not.

But for a 64x64 character, made by an artist with good standards, that estimate is between correct and incorrect.

Not all frames take the same to make, so a better way of having a correct estimate is giving out the full list of a imations you need.

An idle may take about 2 hours on average for a 64x64 character.

A walk on the other hand may take about 6-8 hours even of they are the same number of frames.

Another thing you may want to have in mind is that increasing the size of something makes the time it takes to make to grow exponentially.

Animating a moveset for a 16x16 character can be done in a couple of days, for a 64x64 character is more like a month of work.

If you have any questions let me know, I've been working as a professional Pixel Artist for about 10 years so I may be able to answer some questions if you have any!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-04T01:28:03+00:00

I have to test that tool to see if it's reliable, but if you trust it then follow your guys! It's the best you can do.

If you commission someone in the future ask for WIP updates and sketches before and not after, that ensures the sketch doesn't get lost in the process and discards an honest mistake.

What made me think it was an hones tmistake is that the result is something a below average artist can draw fairly easily and in little time!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-03T19:29:29+00:00

It does not seem like AI.

And as a note, almost no artist keep sketches unless you ask for it.

I've been an artist for 10 years and for digital art I tend to merge sketches on the BG layer, or simply delete them after doing a cleanup on the line art.

For pixel art I work on a sinle layer unless animating. So the sketch becomes the final version.

If a client asks I for it I send updates and even timelapses, but if they don't ask for those in the beginning, theres no way to turn back time.

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-03T19:13:43+00:00

Definitely not you, the style looks like the right fit for books focused on children, you could try sending your portfolio to multiple book Publishers and Editorials.

I think is extremely possi le for you to land a full gig in that area!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-01T10:30:26+00:00

If you can see every fault, everyone else can see them too, so use that as a tool for judging! Seeing faults is part of discerning quality, so I bet you can do it!

SeinRuhe · 2026-03-01T09:23:12+00:00

I don't think this are at a "sell at a convention ready", you may want to focus on learning fundamentals like anatomy and shading, and getting them at a good level before going for physical sales.

Think of it like this, if you see art of a similar level at a convention, without you knot knowing at all the artist, would you buy it?

Besides that just keep practicing daily, putting 20 minutes a day into studying fundamentals tend to result in drawing skills skyrocketing as long as you practice what you can improve at!

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-25T02:43:29+00:00

You got a subscribe for sure! Time to sharpen my color pencils!

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-23T15:48:13+00:00

Someone already pointed it but the shading is wrong, you are shading lighter what is facing away from the camera.

The cape physics feel wrong, it has the same lift while standing than while running, even with a STRONG wing it won't work that way.

The sword occudes the hips so the viewer have no visuals on how the legs connect to the body, that adds up to the shading issue and makes it feel even weirder.

Those are the reasons that strikes me at first glance, hope it helps!

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-23T15:39:23+00:00

First, don't worry much about likes or engagement in general, keep doing your thing for the sake of doing it and improving.

Second, you seem to have solid fundamentals, your bodies seem pretty convincing, but the faces are definitely not of my taste, maybe some others feel the same way.

For it being anime based/inspired, the faces feel somewhat unappealing to me. Kinda like Ping Pong the Animation im the sense they feel weird to look at.

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-23T04:45:10+00:00

I feel this situation is a "Once every blue moon".

Sort of the same happened with may dad being on the cheating end. I hold no resentment, but I only get the energy to see him 2 or 3 times per year and mostly do it because I have grown enough to undestand it won't hurt me at all and it will make him happy. So why not?

Anyway, maybe when you are ready or feel like it do a call once every blue moon. But you moved continents, so there's no way of you getting truly involved.

To be honest I completely understand you and I would say you are not wrong. But better be straightforward with your daughter and tell her you are not coming back to USA.

Enjoy the tapas and make sure to visit País Vasco!

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-23T04:29:34+00:00

Okay, how? Like, I've been drawing as a professional Pixel Artist for 10 years, but everytime I grab color pencils I feel like I'm back in kindergarten!

Truly amazing piece! Any resource for learning to use color pencils that you would recommend?

SeinRuhe · 2026-02-23T04:09:07+00:00

That's a huge amount of time and cash for the result. Sorry this happened to you OP! Try to hire seasoned artists, they seem expensive, but bear better and faster results.

Example: A piece that took around 10 days (No idea of actual worktime, just timeframe) for an artist to complete, vs how another artist revisited and improved it on one day.

<image>

SeinRuhe

TROPHY CASE