Hello! I just discovered your Tumblr and artwork today and it's all very amazing! I really love the Pikachu on the DS art you made. You may not answer questions like this but I was wondering what you did to make the colors look that way? (aa but what if you don't remember how you drew it because you did say it was old art??)
Though I made that over 5 years ago (woof….) I do still remember the circumstances for it! It was drawn for a vexel contest, and since it’s not common knowledge what vexels are, the contest organizers compiled a bunch of tutorials here, which you should check out!
Anyway, it’s actually pretty simple. It’s easiest to grab a stock image (i used stock photos of a 3ds and a plastic pikachu toy at the time, though the latter picture no longer exists) and a premade palette, and to use the lasso tool (or what have you) to go over pertinent shapes in the image. So if you were drawing a person, you’d first do large blocks of colour for skin, hair, and the various clothing pieces, and then smaller blocks of colour for shadows and highlights.
Now, if you’re like me and find yourself squinting at images trying to figure out where light stops and shadows begin, there’s a way of lowering the details of shadows enough that there’s clear differentiation between each level of darkness, making it very easy to trace–but I don’t remember how to do that anymore lmao, though I’m sure you could find it if you googled vexel tutorials. But they look good in flat style too. For example, I grabbed this pic of pikachu from pokken tournament off pikachu’s page on bulbapedia:
And was able to turn it into this without much effort, using a palette from here. There’s no depth, but it still looks alright. In this case, I’d need a larger palette to add the shadows properly anyway, but I assure you, once you know the method for discerning the shadows from each other, it’s really super easy to put them in the image.
Again, since this art can require the use of other photos, make sure to use stock images and the like so as to avoid trodding on toes haha. And if you’re not sure if you can use a pic, as always, ask permission. Hope that was helpful!
