The document describes Abigail Long's process for creating pixel art character designs. It involves first creating a template by outlining a head, neck, and upper body. Facial features, clothing, and skin tones are then added. Additional layers are used to design hair, add shading and cross-hatching details, and adjust lighting. For the second design, the template is duplicated and modified to depict a mythological creature, in this case a harpy, by changing features and adding wings. Both designs undergo shading and coloring steps before being finalized.

1. Production Reflection
Abigail Long

2. Process
I start off with the head. Six pixels across, 9 pixels up, 2 pixels diagonal at the
bottom and 1 pixel diagonal at the top. Then for the neck (starting from the
bottom line at the left- 3 pixels down and 2 diagonal pixels down same for the
other side- the neck is 3 pixels wide (inside) and the head is 10 pixels wide.
Carrying on from the neck, I start the upper body. From the last pixel at the
neck (not counting diagonals) I go 2 pixels wide, 3 pixels diagonal, 12 pixels
down, and 2 pixels across. I mirror that on the other side. From the second
pixel at the bottom, I miss a space, go up one and go 1o up. Same with the
other side. I then link up the two lines from the bottom (9 pixels)
From the bottom left hand side (where there is a free space) I went one down
and then 14 pixels down, followed by 2 pixels to the left, 4 pixels down, 6 to the
left and 14 up. I copied that on the other side, and joined them up by putting a
pixel above both lines. That completes my template and can begin creating the
look.
Using the skin tone pallet, I pick the necessary skin Colour for my design
with the Colour picker.
Using the colour I picked, I outline any parts that I
want to show shin- which is normally the face, neck
and hands.

3. Process
I do the same with the shirt colour and the pants, Making sure that all the lines
are coloured where they need to be and not going over any already established
coloured lines.
I do the feet slightly different going outside and in the
lines until I have a unique design. Then I delete any
unnecessary black pixels.
After that I choose a lighter colour and fill In the entire thing. I
have to go over any diagonal pixels, otherwise the colour spills
outside of the template. After I’ve done that, I use the paint
bucket tool to fill in everything.
I add facial features next. The eyebrows are always the same colour as the hair,
the eyes are always six pixels with the bottom left two a different colour while the
rest are white. The nose is almost always two lines two pixels across, and the
characters are almost always smiling.
On a new layer I design the hair, as if I mess up somewhere, it’s much easier to
go back and fix it. Once I’m satisfied with the result I merge the layers.

4. Process
I fill I the hair in a lighter colour, just like everything else. Normally I just use
the pencil tool, as it’s a relatively small thing to colour in.
On another new layer (which I normally label as cross) I use the outline colour
and fill in the edges of certain areas for the design. I try to stick to the bottom of
the hair, the left side of the face, The bottom of the shirt, the sleeves for the
shirt, the top of the trousers as well as near the shoes, and the edge of the shoes
On yet another layer (named dark) I use the colour black and I outline
anything that I want to be darker. This is generally varied from design
to design, just wherever I feel is best. However, I always make sure the
area beneath the hair is darker and the top edge of the shirt. After I’m
happy, I change the opacity until it looks normal.
The next layer (light) Is similar, except I use white instead of black and there’s
always less white. Again, there are certain areas I always make sure are
lighter, like underneath the nose and eyes .

5. Process
This is generally what the design looks like at the end. However, I need two
designs, as one is supposed to represent a human, and one is supposed to be a
monster from Greek mythology.
Instead of making another template, I simply duplicate the character, As this
way I can keep the shading and cross work the same. I make the first layer
invisible so I can fully focus on the other design.
I go to google to get a reference image for my mythological creature
(Which in this instance , is a harpy.) it gives me something to work with
and the general feel to how the creature looks
I copy over the original face idea, Changing the hairstyles and the skin
colours to match what I think it should look like.

6. Process
I do the same with the body, everything except the arms, which I leave the same as I
need to do something with those later.
I colour in the face I try to keep any original shading the same so that I don’t have
to do it later, however I couldn’t do that with the hair, so I just coloured that.
I do the same with the body, shading in any areas that need to be re-shaded and
adding extra effects, like the lines on the legs.
Since this design is supposed to be a bird creature, there are no arms. Instead,
there are wings. I drew over the arms until I was happy with the design and then
coloured it in. I did this on both sides. After that, I shaded the wings using the
same techniques as before.
This is generally what the final design looks like. I went back to colour the hair and I
checked that everything was up to standard. Of course, every design will be
different as each one is a different mythological creature. Neither the human design
or the creature design of this particular model made it into the final product.