Avatar and banner project [WIP]

[Shrike]

So a friend of mine asked me to pixel him a avatar and a banner. The av is almost done, but i'm stuck mostly on the banner.

I'm really terrible at drawing large-scale pixelart, and i need to get better before i finish this piece.
So, here goes:


i was thinking a dirt road and like tall grass, but i cant draw either of those. 
The driver guy isnt drawn by me, thats just there for scale. ill draw my own one the background is done.
The avatar is pretty much done, just have to pixel a driver.


C&C on the sky in both would be appriciated as well!
i really need some help! 0__0

[Agent green]

I have never done large pixel art, but mabye try splitting it up into smaller bits so then it is lots of small pixel art?

Banner reminds me of a game i used to play when i was young, Wacky Races.

[JonathanOfDrain]

Sorry to say but this isn't pixel art. Looks like you copied something from a .jpeg and pasted it on your pixeled background. Also the clouds look flat and very sharp. Try rounding them out a bit and throwing some AA on them. Only needs a little.

[Jamie]

Sorry to say but this isn't pixel art. Looks like you copied something from a .jpeg and pasted it on your pixeled background. Also the clouds look flat and very sharp. Try rounding them out a bit and throwing some AA on them. Only needs a little.

The driver guy isnt drawn by me, thats just there for scale. ill draw my own one the background is done.

[Terley]

Id just like to add before I go to sleep, the sky usually becomes lighter towards the horizon. It's down to the distance the scattered light has to travel to us. Just look up why the sky is blue, usually follows it somewhere.

I wouldn't concern yourself with fancy dithering or being too neat, roughly jot everything in and slowly clean up parts bit by bit. If you simply break down the image into small parts to be worked on you won't have any consistancy with this. Just take it bit by bit, are you doing anything with the horizon? The clouds, get some reference pictures to push you in the right direction.

It'd seem a bit of a waste just having sky, grass, dirt road and kart racer.. Parts will be left really empty with no interest and just repeative texture.

Just throwing out a ms-paint over, may help..

[Shrike]

Wow, that helps a ton. Thanks. i always do the reverse thing w/ the sky... 

ill fill it up some more, give it more things to look at. Ill get to it later today.......

BTW, this is based off Kartrider.... www.kartrider.com
 

[Shrike]

fixed av. 

this one is almost done...
just have to add Dao. (Little guy in banner.)

[Shrike]

Ref pic for clouds.

Heres the banner layout so far:

Still have alot more to add... but i think its going in the right direction. the clouds arn't supposed to be uber realistic, just kind of happy.
i think i'm going to change the shadow direction... it kind of looks like the sun is setting right now.
What do you think of the progress so far?

[Aiko]

Your rock appears to have both light and shadow in the same direction. I've never been very good at backlighting but I threw together a quick demonstrative edit anyway. I added texture which if you're going for the cel-shaded style you don't have to include, but I think I have the light down.



I'd also tone down the grass, that's hurting my eyes...

[Shrike]

Thanks for pointing that out, didn't notice. But this is just very the basic layout, ill de-saturate the grass before this is done.


update. 
Haven't been working on it much, my life just exploded. 

[Aiko]

I like your trees - the leaves could use more defining but that looks like a solid start. Anyway, your light sources still aren't agreeing. For example look at the rock on the right; to be lit like that the light would have to be coming from above it and toward (or behind) the camera. Now look at the shadows the trees are casting. They're coming toward the camera, so the light would have to be further off, behind them. Your cart racing guy's shadow needs desaturating I think... though looking at that part, the light sources are confused there too. The sparks (I'm assuming those are sparks) coming off the cart would be a small light source in themselves, which would mean that the shadow of the cart/racer would be weaker around them if not gone altogether.

As always, hope it helps.

[ilkke]

Apparently the guy in the card is steering in the opposite direction, judging by his posture.
If you're about to replace him with another cart in another position, then I suggest you do that as soon as possible cause the later you do, the harder it will be to make it work.

[Rydin]

you seem to have some lighting issues.

your shadows are actually almost brighter than the grass that's lit!
also, based on the the character's lighting you've got there, the rocks and trees would have different planes highlighted. (as Aiko showed)

just a quick edit to show what i mean.

good luck. 

[Shrike]

Thanks all, it seems a have a lot to do. Ill get to it later today, expect and update.

[Shrike]

I bring this topic back from the dead...

with an update!
 



sorry for being so inactive... 

Anyway.
Changes:
fixed lightsource (Ish, still working on it.)
Desaturated grass.

Next update, i'll add mo' tree's in the background.

C&C is welcome!

EDIT
oops!
rocks are fixed.