Originally Posted by ZeTo

SHOOK WHERE YOU AT, FELLA NEEDS CNC.

Originally Posted by shook

HERE I AM

Was instantly lured in by the prospect of pixels, oddly enough. I wonder what that says about my mental state. :U

ANYWAYS, feedback: Those are some quite nice first things, but a few things spring to mind.

For the sword, the handle is waaaaaaaaaaaay too short for the rest of it, which is the main thing that glazes my donuts ever so slightly. The other thing being that the outline is a bit too... How do i even put it, uninteresting? Not really a good term for it, but what i mean is that it essentially consists of unbroken(!!) straight lines and a singular circle.
Shading is acceptable, especially given that it's ridiculously hard to actually apply shading to such small things. However, i personally think that there's a bit too much noise on the blade, it looks more like rock than metal.
Also, the colour yellow is a tricky one, because it very easily appears too bright or too dark, given its similarity to white. That's not to say you shouldn't use it though, just pay a bit of extra attention to getting the luminance of that colour right.

So, not to be condescending or anything, but here's how i'd do the same thing:



I've lengthened the handle, shifted down the sides of the cross-guard (to break up the outline a bit), highlighted the junction between blade and cross-guard (because swords are VERY RARELY seamless there), added a scant few details and redid the shading somewhat. Most notably, i removed the noise from the blade, and added a bit of shine. This is just one way of doing it, however, so please do experiment! Even now though, i think the blade is too short, and the pommel a smidge too big. I'll let you play around with that though.

The axe does most of those things better, but i can see you need to practice smooth curves a bit. There's not much to say about that in particular, it's just about practicing. Also, again, the handle looks disproportionally small to the rest of the weapon, you'd have to be a super strong midget (dorf??) to wield such a weapon.
The axehead itself looks nice, but it's attached in a rather flimsy and unbalanced manner, which, translated to dick speak, means "it would snap off that thin rod really quickly". This can be solved by moving the axehead closer to the shaft, and possibly by making the bit that attaches it a bit thicker.
Also, that crossbar(?) just below the axehead strikes me as odd. If it's a decorative ring, i think it would be less wide, and not have a perfectly rectangular outline. You'd be surprised at how big a change you can make by removing two corner pixels, so give it a try!
Shading isn't really applicable when you get down to single-pixel thickness, BUT! A tip about sharp things: Make them shiny. Like, a relatively large blot of coherent shine at the edge, where it'd make most sense. Also, when you get down to this scale, you can also vary the colour of the outline slightly to help with shading. Like, make it not completely black, but a dark version of the nearest applicable colour on the lit side, and have it be black (or just darker) on the unlit side. Now, i'm a dumbshit, so i actually rarely do this, but this is down to personal preference. Most pixel artists agree that it's a good idea to do this, ESPECIALLY on small sprites.

The next axe is, as far as i can see, completely without outline. Although a possible stylistic choice, it means you have to be REALLY aware of the surrounding colours in order to make things stand out. Also, SHADING, GOOD SIR. In this case, it's mostly about darkening one side while leaving the other bright. Try practicing this, get a feel for the volumetric shape of your object. I assure you, shading gets a LOT easier once you get this feel, since it means you can just basically wing it and have it look right, as opposed to haplessly spraying pixels and praying for the best (which i know i did at one point, eugh).
Another thing is that the cyan decorations seem rather random upon closer inspection. You should generally be careful with random details, since it often ends up looking messy. However, it is entirely possible to mask random details as being deliberate (i do this all the time hurf herf), so... Practice that, eh? :U

AND FINALLY, the face. Anatomy is acceptable, so i won't get into that (well except the mouth, it looks off somehow, and the nose looks like it's in profile as opposed to viewed frontally). What gets me is the outline around the chin. It changes direction rather abruptly, which makes it appear less smooth. Try making the change more gradual, and maybe introduce some slight variations to it, since there really aren't many straight lines on a human face.
Also, the ears are too rectangular. Try looking at your own ears in the mirror, taking hints from reality is always a good thing to do. Oh, and the rectangular eyes, but that looks somewhat like a stylistic choice.

So yeah, that's about it, really. I hope it helps, and keep up the good work!