This gif hit me like a bus. I was aware that there must've been an inspirational source to this, but i still was totally like "yeah, great picture, awesome", but now i have the feeling this is just a scan followed by a conversion. If someone knows how that works and if there is still "artist work" needed to make it look like this, please explain to me. I am dared to tag this 'scan'.

ahahaha Mermaid strikes hard, good job!

...I'm also curious to see what kind of tools could have been used in the process.

C64 folks, come here, we want SCANdals !

I admit it looked fishy, but in the end I was hit by the Mermaid bus too.

bam!

A solid 2 point for trying some colours ideas.

@CONS (to fuel the "how that works"):
I'm quoting Digger >

"Now, the trick is how do you squeeze thousands (if not million) colours palette into 11 colours (hires/multi char mode) and still preserve the high quality of the original image. It took me a lot of hours (besides coding my own pixel editor and displayer) to tidy up pixels and make the details looking good. Haven't added anything from myself as I wasn't supposed to – have asked the author for permission to USE his work but nor REMIX."

source: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/forums/?roomid=13&topicid=84365&showallposts=1

More fuel:
I'm quoting Celtic >

I would like to state that most 98% of the pics i do are wirejobs/converts etc.etc. I still spend hours and hours on them refining, adding pixels, removing pixels, etc. but i wanted it out there so i dont get accused for anything in the future.

and lastly: besides 4 or 5 extremely gifted pixellers like mermaid and i think STE , I think loads of people use this method. I am wondering who would like to claim or state that they never do this r have done it.

source: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/forums/?roomid=13&topicid=84365&showallposts=1

there are some more graphicians on the c64 who do proper pixelworks from scratch for sure.

Unfortunately i'm not even surprised. The same story as at ZX Spectrum gfx scene. There is so much methods to create the low end platform graphics - from pure nocopy painted straight-from-artist-head to pure automatatic image conversions. In my opinion judging depends from the compo rules and the nature of original image. If compo rules doesn't restrict the conversions - then ok, it's a question of participant's conscience. But several hardcore nocopy artists avoiding to participate in such compos. And the last - if the original photo taken by the same author and it well converted i think it can be stated as art.

Just read Dane words... So it is art of programming

@diver: Dane's words? Would like to read them too. Or did you mix it up with Digger's or Celtic's reaction?

"If compo rules doesn't restrict the conversions - then ok"

Talking about this, I wonder why organizers would NOT restrict copies, why are they, wittingly, OK to allow this in a compo. I don't get this very point.

Sander, oh, sorry, it is Digger words. Just looks like Dane talking about that pic.

Thanks Mermaid for the .gif
It allows us to see the real work made by conversion tool... errm... the graphist...

and to Anarkhya for having pointed the interesting discussion on CSDB

@Frogg:
Mermaid's idea actually, anyway, this discussion goes on and will probably continue for a while.

And, as someone already mentioned, discussing it makes the scene feel alive, which might be the most important point