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By gawrone

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gawrone
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29 Mar, 2019 @ 11:34am

9 May, 2022 @ 5:48am

172	Unique Visitors
12	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Alice in Pixelland Profile Design

Pixel Tree Profile Design

Steam Guides Used

Software and Resources

Fabric Patterns Profile Design

Comments

Alice in Pixelland Profile Design

work in progress

Pixel Tree Profile Design

While previous profile theme concentrated around emoticon art, this design's medium of choice is pixel art. The crow is present as usual.

At first there was an idea for an entire profile as one, singular image. Thematically it had to be something long and vertical. It also needed parts which are much thinner than the rest, to make use of showcases like Favorite Guide, Favorite Group and Workshop Showcase. The tree was one of the first obvious choices, but I do have few others for the future, or if someone will give me a commision to make a similar design.

The limitations established by the desire to use as much showcases as possible, to combine into one image, decided about the technique for me. I had to make a pixelart with pixels as large as an emoticon, I had to use only perfect square, single color emoticons in emoticon art showcases and, for the pixelart palette, use only colors existing in those square emoticons. I could not even imagine a more creative environment with super-tight restrictions, that enforce creative ideas and only allow for delicate breaking of the rules. For instance, there is only one additional color of pixel - pink-white - that do not have a corresponding emoticon, but it is used only in the Artwork Showcase, and the crow is just a hole in the art - it is the Steam Showcase default color. Why the rows of pixels in the right bars of Arwork and Screenshot showcases are separated? Becasue adding teal emoticons into the Bio resulted in those separations, and I had to make the whole image consistent. Now it looks like a deliberate choice instead of a glitch forced by Steam design.

There are nine teal small squares on the left of the bio, that corresponds with nine square showcases (6 large and 3 small). This tiny detail is also something that is partially forced by Steam design and partially a choice of how to utilise those limitations. The total count of showcases is in fact 10 (it is 11 if you include Avatar and Bio as another), but the Favorite Game was added only to balance the Review Showcase top bar, and make an even composition of separators between groups of 3 squares. The choice of the game is also not accidental. Fallout 1 is one of my favorite games of all time, and the colors fit the tree perfectly. I guess luck is also a factor in profile designing.

The choice of The Last Door is another non-accidental thing, and not only becasue this game is amazing, for a nostalgic gamer, for a horror fan, for a musician and for a pixel artist. This is a game with the largest pixels that I ever saw (I counted 100 pixels of horizontal resolution) and I consider it one of most beautiful games and a true masterpiece. Since my profile was forced to be made of extra large pixels, making that connection was inevitable. The thing in the review showcase is an item from the game - a record - that can be played on gramophone in the first act. I made that to at least have any connection to the game, in a review of that game. But also it is a musical item (this still have to be profile about me somehow), and this item was possible to make by Steam emoticons. Another win-win situation and a nice accent that balances the entire composition.

Steam Guides Used

Software and Resources

To animate Jeremiah Devitt I used The Last Door Season One Complete Assets Pack[opengameart.org].

To make all three emoticon arts I used Steam Tools Mosaticon[steam.tools].

To design the entire tree, cut it into parts and make animations I used
https://store.steampowered.com/app/431730/Aseprite/

Fabric Patterns Profile Design

I was thinking about a theme that will somehow corespond to making emoticon arts. The rook had to stay becasue it's my IRL nickname. For the rest I wanted some form of a handicraft, but the Idea about fabric patters was an accident.

Weaving fabric somehow reminds me some aspects of mosaic making. It is also methodic and time consuming in some cases. My favorite design of fabric is houndstooth. It is also one of the oldest, check The Gerum Cloak[www.asleta.se]. SInce it's name is related to an animal I got another idea of connecting the fabric pattern theme with my love of animals. I actually like animals more than people.

So there are four patterns with animal related names I used: herringbone, birdseye, houndstooth and sharkskin. All of them are still used in clothing design. There is also puppystooth pattern which is only a smaller variation of houndstooth, and a pattern called crowsfoot. I decided not to use it becasue the name does not clearly stick to one pattern (it is a variation of barleycorn, and it sometimes gets confused with puppystooth, herringbone, chevron), and it would stand out as much stronger related to my rook/crow, and I wanted to have equality. And there was place for four only (the profile was designed before five Workshop Items).

I wanted to have an animated avatar. Reduced Steam avatar to a part of the name and made my own animated avatar Crow below. First showcase also combines with the bio above (text with graphic that imitates text, with a title of the showcase). It was difficult to make all lines equally distanced from eachother. "Cutting off" circles required lots of try and error.

Workshop showcase is a presentation of the theme - close up photographs of fabric with all four patterns. The order of them is not random. Tried many different ideas to get a good looking composition. All four following showcases are ordered in the same way, but the order of making them was different.

My first idea was to make them all with emoticons. Houndstooth was first, becasue it is most difficult, but made with emoticons it had too large single elements. I wanted them all to be equal. I decided to make houndstooth with ASCII and match everything to this technique.

I needed to use game review showcase, becasue I needed four (Artwork and Workshop was already used). The game KNIGHTS had a diamond check pattern, and color was not too much different. Since houndstooth is a form of a check pattern, this choice was perfect.

Wanted to write something in all of them. In this one I made a simple note about the game, so nobody would ever report me, for using review against its purpouse.

The empty spaces around is an aesthetical choice, but it was also a technical limitation. That way a review, when opened, will not disrupt. Cutted last rows, so I also cutted first to have symmetry, and kept that consistent through all those four showcases.

Since I wanted to have at least one emoticon art, chosed only one pattern (birdseye) that will look good, when made with emoticons (and still similar to other showcases), and used it as showcase... that informs about emoticon arts.

Sharkskin was the easiest pattern to make, but it was difficult to make it look good on both win7 and win10.

Herringbone was the only pattern I could use in screenshot, because of vertical breaks of the pattern. Last one was utilised as gap between 1st and 2nd screenshot. I made a screenshot of the sharkskin pattern and manipulated it in paint. Just had to count everything, to have equal number of pixels for each column, and it actually was possible to fit it in the same width as other showcases made with ASCII.

Group avatar is Albrecht Dürer's "Wing of a European Roller" 1512, made black & white (check it out in color).

Workshop item was made in gimp using a photo of an old Singer sewing machine.

Guide picture is Albrecht Dürer's "Greyhound" 1501.