Pixel Art Weekly Contest Entry - Cthulhu

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to complete an entry for @jonny-clearwater's weekly pixel art contest. The past couple weeks I've started creating pixel art for the theme of the week, but I always seem to run out of time before I finish my piece to my likings. But alas! I was able to complete an entry for this week, and it's only Wednesday :)

I also wanted to capture some of my progress and methods of creating this creature. For those of you who are experts at making pixel art, you will probably cringe at my tedious ways. When I have time, I prefer doing things the long way. I don't like taking shortcuts in art. There's beauty in the process.

I made a few different prototypes for the Cthulhu pixel art. I initially was just going to do black and white but I felt like I needed some sort of pop of color. Red is my favorite color, and I felt like it ties in well with this weeks theme. At first for the original png pixel art I had a red border, but after animating it, I ended up taking out the red border, preferring a more simplified background.

I didn't want the Cthulhu to have too much movement. I prefer the subtle animations, especially when it's a looped gif. After animating the tentacle sways and bobbing, I thought maybe a blink would be nice.

I had some difficulties making the closed eyes look more masculine and angry. I couldn't figure out how exactly to make it look the way I envisioned it. After playing around for awhile messing with the smudge tool, I finally decided to just let it be. Nonetheless I'm very happy with how my cthulhu turned out! What do you think?

If you want to enter into Jonny's pixel art contest, you can find the post with the rules here! Oh! And if you happen to enter as well, mention that I sent you ;)