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I made one looping animation with 8 colors and it looked worse than my 40 color piece
Last week I made a little looping GIF of a coffee cup for a sticker pack, and I capped myself at 8 colors so I could learn how to use dithering properly. What came out was this muddy, weird thing that honestly looked worse than a busy 40 color piece I did back in March. I spent two nights redoing the same 12 frames and every version got flatter and duller. Turns out dithering is a skill I just don't have yet, and limiting colors doesn't magically fix bad shading decisions. Anyone got a tutorial that actually helped them get clean dithering, or did you just grind through it like I'm trying to do?
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grace_white20d ago
Dithering is not some separate skill you have to master before you can make good pixel art. That's the part I don't agree with. The muddy look you got probably came from the shading, not the dithering itself, because no amount of fancy pixel patterns will save a light source that doesn't make sense. Eight colors is actually really forgiving if you pick them well and use contrast on purpose instead of trying to fake a smooth gradient. I'd go the other way and say start with 4 or 5 colors on something tiny, like a single object at 32x32, and force yourself to make it read with just blocks before you touch dithering at all. The grind is real but it works way better when you're grinding on the right problem, and I bet your issue is values, not dots.
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