1. Most Mene items use either 5 or 6 shades! Please utilize the 5-6 shade palettes in this post for your creations!
2. Always be aware of what type of fabric you are using as that will determine how much of each shade should be applied.
3. For most cases, if you work in a 6 shade palette, use the darkest shade only for lines and the lightest shade only for highlights. The rest of the outfit should use only the four middle shades.
4. Dusk, Leaf, Plum, and Atlantis are the hardest mene palettes to use because they use multiple colors rather than shades of the same color.
5.
Don't recolor your work - it will be easier for me to recolor items because they are already cut when I do them.
6. While I use one layer, using multiple layers might be easier for you!
7. If you are starting out, Kawaii Hannah's Basic Pixel Tutorial is the best!
Kawaii Hannah Tutorials
8. When pixelling, I find it easiest to talk about shades as numbers: Shade 1, Shade 2. I will always talk about them from lightest to darkest...lightest being shade one and darkest as shade 6. For example:
9. Don't be afraid to take critique as it's the only way we ever improve!
10. Don't be afraid to make an item and it be deemed a "no." You aren't going to finish every item successfully. What doesn't kill us makes us that much stronger!
11. Don't be afraid to ask for help! Ping the Mentors! Ask your friends!!!
12. This is a great tool when making items...it is the shade progression of the palettes used here on mene made by
Xuvrette :
13. These palettes are used more and more these days...this isn't as fancy as palette progression as the one Xuvvie made, but I use this all the time:
14. One tip I like to think about is to get the shape correct before adding the shading! It's hard to erase your shading each time you change the shape!
15. I call these the Phoenix Jubilee Palettes:
16. This is called "bright purple" and has been used in a couple items:
17. This is called "Petrol"...it's a darker teal:
18. This is called "Mina Pink"....it came about during Valentine's Day 2013 because I was trying to make items in pink and hated all the pink palettes. So I created my own pink palette and dubbed it "Mina Pink" and the name just kind of stuck: