6. Complex stuff

So yeah, so far i've only showed you some pretty simple shapes, and by now, you must be HUNGERING for more. So, let's get started on it... Firstly, a sphere with a hemispherical extrusion towards the viewer. We start out by making two circles; one for the main sphere, and one for the extrusion.



Easy start, right? But now we need to shade it. Firstly, we shade it like two serparate spheres...



Then, we do something about that horrible black outline, particularily in the center, so it looks like a single object, instead of two...



And as a final touch, we add a shadow, which is caused by the extrusion.



This might seem trivial, but mind you, i've just shown you how to combine simple shapes, in order to make complex shapes.

Now, using our above object for inspiration, let us make... A mace. Y'know, those heavy blunt weapons, used to smash skulls. Let's finish up the head, by adding more of those knobs, in a circle around its center, all shaded like hemispheres...



Also notice how i've darkened the bottom entirely, due to the shadows cast by the knobs. Now, just because we feel like it, let's add some rims to the head.



I've made them brighter, so they appear more on top of the head, while still following the same shading pattern as the head beneath them. And while we're at it, let's add a small spike to the top of the head...



Eh? Doesn't look like a pleasant mace to get hit by. Now, we should make the rod that the head is attached to. 28 pixels in length should suffice, because we're going to add a handle later.



But a plain cylinder is pretty boring, right? So, let's add some rims to that as well, to keep in style with the head as well.



There. Now, let's shade the whole damn thing.



But wait, those rims don't really stand out, do they? To make them do that, we should add some shadow beneath them...



Right, looks pretty decent now. However, a macehead of that size would surely cast some shadow on the handle, so let's make it do that...



It's not a big difference, but it's there. Now, it's time for us to add the handle. We start out by making an extra bar, which is 12 pixels long...



And then, we add a handguard, as well as that bottom thingy that i can't remember what's called...



After which we add some shading...



And once again, a plain cylinder is boring to look at, so we add a spiral pattern to the handle itself, as well as a little bit of random detail to the handguard...



And finally, we add the shadow that the upper handguard casts.



And we're done! Whew, that sure took some time, huh? That's another part of pixel art: You need to be patient. If you rush things, they will look fugly. Or rather, they won't look as good as they could do.