just starting out, here are my first three tiles (C+C please!)

[Glak]

I have a grass tile, a rock tile, and a weed tile.  There are absolutely no restrictions because this is for a PC game that I am making.  I decided to go with pixel art because I believe that it suits my nature.  The tiles are your standard 2:1 isometric (diametric actually).  I decided to go with 44 wide and 21 tall because it felt like the right compromise between detail and tractability.  Everything in the game will be scaled up 3x so the tiles will be 132 by 63.



I have had a lot of trouble making grass tiles over the ages and I have never had one that I was satisfied with.  There is a little bit of color shifting, something that I learned about reading the archives on this forum.  I'm actually kind of happy with this one, but I am quite open to feedback of course.  I would love to be able to make it move with the wind in various directions, because my game will feature wind that influences the spread of fire.  I might just have to show the wind by the movements of clouds and blowing leaves.



This is meant to be a rock.  I'm not too happy with the color shifting here.  I think that the outline is decent, dark enough that the rock has definition, but not dark enough that it becomes part of the foreground.  I am probably going to put black outlines around the characters and use dark colored outlines for significant terrain features.



This is my best attempt at a plant.  I wanted to do a bush or a flower but it came out as a leafy thing, with a reddish hue on the upper surface of the leaves.  It is pretty horrible but I have to admit that it is the best plant that I have ever made.

So here is a mockup.  The two characters are to show proportions only.  They are not my work at all.  I saw that you have pretty strict rules here so I went over them with some pixels to try to obscure them.  If this is still unacceptable just tell me and I will take it down.



Thanks for reading.  If you have any criticism please give it.  I would really like to improve.

[Lukkas]

I like it. Very nice first start.

The grass is actually pretty nice I think. It could maybe use one darker shade, just sprinkled towards the roots of your grass clumps. Otherwise, I think it's quite nice.

one thing you will want to do is make variations of that grass tile. Right now, when you combine your grass tiles, it looks very obvious that it's one tile being repeated over and over. The same shapes and artefacts are visible where the files come together, and this looks unpleasant. The best way to resolve it is to make variations of the same tile, and draw them in such a way that they connect interchangeably.

An easy way to accomplish this is covered here. http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=9865.msg107103#msg107103

I realise your tiles are isometric, unlike those in vierbit's example, but the same concept applies.

As for your rock and foliage, they are nice starts. I think your flower will look more like a flower with a simple palette shift. The orange doesn't read very well against the yellows of the grass. Also, make it rise from the grass further. That will make it read more like a flower.

The rock looks nice enough right now, assuming your game is going with a more flat-shaded, cartoon-y feel, but I would recommend dithering your highlights on the rock, or perhaps adding new shades. Right now, it lacks shadow. It could actually look really nice with some purple shadows, as it would complement the yellow-highlight grass quite well, but that's a big stylistic choice you'd had to stick with in shadowing everything else.

Great job overall, and I'm quite eager to see your improvements.

[Glak]

Thanks.  It is great to get feedback!  I really think that it helps me improve.

So I tried to add an extra shade to the grass and I couldn't get it to look good.



Improving the rock went a lot better.  I turned the three shades into four.  I increased the color shifting so that the shadow is more purple and the highlights are less so.  I kind of like having the shadow be a little bit purple.  I don't want to make the shadows a deep purple.  I lowered the saturation a bit too, at least for the highlight and dark shadow.



I will try to make some plants tomorrow.  Attempting to make them is kind of intimidating.

As always criticism is appreciated.

[Glak]

I made a bush.  It seems to lean a little to the right, not sure how to fix that.  I tried to think of form (chunks of leaves) and how the light would hit/make a shadow on the ground.

I used different shades of green for the bush (bluer) to make it so that they wouldn't merge into the grass (which is yellower), with the exception of the highlight color which they share.  I was just checking out what the midtone for the bush would look like if I used the darkest color from the grass, a color which is lighter than the current midtone for the bush.  I'm starting to think that it would look better if I used both, the lighter one more near the top, the darker one near the bottom.

I am not too satisfied with the border.  I tried the dark blue but that was too strong, the dark teal is ok I guess.



I made a mockup to get a better idea how they look in game.  The final game will be 10x10 tiles.

[Olothontor]

These look pretty great, but I might suggest more contrast; that's something I was told to pick up quick when I first got here, and dabbling with it has served me well. For instance, the darkest grass color could be blueish, while the hilight color could be yellow. Just an example.

Also the shadows underneath of your trees seem really extreme, lighten them up a bit!

[Glak]

I wasn't sure how to lighten up the shadows without making them look wrong.

so I've been working on a bush, a birch, and a larch.  Here is what they will look like in my game.  Again the person is not going to be in my game.  He is just there for a sense of proportion



I am somewhat happy with this, but I suspect that with a few edits it could be better.  I have found that teal was a really useful color and strangely enough it was better than the other colors that I tried for my birch's outline.  I don't really like using teal so much, especially for the birch.  It should be gray I think.  I did a good job making it so that the trees don't obscure the characters behind them, though I might need to trim my larch a bit.

So, any ideas on how I can improve these tiles?

[Tidbit]

hey now...I really really like that! Especially those rocks, i love it when people can sprite a good rock, they can be very hard to make them look right.
Your grass tiles are also very well done, though you may want to make another grass tile, so that theres less obvious tiling. Its not that obvious now, but making another grass tile would be a good idea imo.
I can't comment on the character, since its obviously not done .

[ld2i]

I really like it so far.  One thing that I would point out, which has already been pointed out though, is the tiling of the grass.  There are some parts where it seems that the shadow forms straight lines creating a "grid" of sorts (to quote Tsugumo's term) which doesn't blend well.  The detail on the grass is great though, I like how the individual blades seem distinct.  You could build on that to remove the grid.

Another thing I see is the trees, when two trees are placed next to each other, the seem to blend.  There's nothing making the leaves/branches of one tree distinct from the other.  Perhaps a more contrasting outline of sorts might work, but I wouldn't be sure.

Anywho, all for now, great job so far 

[Glak]

I'm going to work on the tree so more.  I'm going to see if I can darken the outline.  I had it dark earlier but it was too dark but I'll see what I can do.  Maybe if I combine with with breaking up the clumps of leaves a little more it will work.

As for the grass tiles, yes it creates a clear grid.  I've been debating but I kind of think that I want that.  My game is going to have a bit of a chess theme and so the characters will be wearing hats that give them powers related to being rooks, bishops, or knights.  In keeping with that theme my original graphics were just solid colored squares.  Also the game seems to have evolved into a puzzle/tactics game, with characters being locked to the grid and moving so many squares per turn.  If I change the grass graphics to get rid of the grid I would need to add in black grid lines so that the grid would be visible to the player.

So I'm going to get to work on my pixels and take the wonderful advice that everyone here has given me (shadows, outlines, etc...) and see if I can improve.  I am going to be super, super busy for the next six weeks so I might not be able to work on it much but eventually I will be back