[WIP] Sprites for old-style logical game

[Vampir]

First, hello to all
Second, sorry for my bad english ...

So, I must make retro-style graphics for my simple logical game. I have chosen simple gameboy-like palette because using advanced palette will be too hard for me. Yes, my drawing skills are about zero .

This is my palette:


Here is what I currently drawed:



It must be looking like dark cavern, but my skills makes me to draw only simple ground with grass Unfortunatelly I have no ideas how to draw cavern tiles, background and environment.

And take a look at car and tank... Are this graphics lame and dirty? How can I make this picture to be more interesting?

[adamisgr8]

Personally, I like the tank and car.

But I have never seen grass growing in a cave XD

Maybe research some other game which has cave tiles and see how they did it.

[Vampir]

Haha you are right about glowing grass ) It is a serious mistake. Now I'm trying to make more dark cavern environment with dirty stones and old dark grass:


But damn... now car is glowing. And I must make something with arc in upper part of screen, for example - to add some volume, spikes e.t.c.
Is my second attemp better then 1st or I'm on wrong way?
And yes, now I will try to learn drawing techniques from another games.

[adamisgr8]

Improvement!

But, as you said, the cars are too light. Change pallete? I don't know what to say with this subject.

However the bit in the sky looks sliiiiightly weird, It looks like a dirt rainbow XD. How about making it a solid colour at the top and dither it downwards instead of dithering at the top then dithering at the bottom.

[Vampir]

Thank you for answering
So, dirty rainbow (haha ) was removed - now there is ground. Also car is darker now (with 1 new color in palette). And now I need to fill darkness in the middle with something... or I don't?



Oh... I'm sad. I can't see life and originality in my picture. I need to find a way to make this picture more interesting. But how? Maybe I must redraw it all completely?

[Sinistral Erim]

Try a huge rock pattern background with maybe some entrances/windows to some other part of the cavern? There are thousands of fun things in caves: stalagmites, spires, crystals....

Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4WXPVTtz9M or  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxScPIywYwo or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc_Foj8HIxs&feature=related

[Vampir]

So many thing to look and try... I'm going to work for few days. Thank you, Sinistral Erim.
Also cavern's ceiling is flat, it must to be more volumetric  . This is my task #2.

[Vampir]

So... Now I'm trying to redraw all.


Now ground looks more volumetric and has no grass. Also I added crystals to the bottom. Possible, my biggest trouble is repeatability. Critique, please

[Mathias]

Too much dang noise and dither. "Repeatability" will remain an issue until you create variation tiles. So create some.

[Vampir]

I don't know how to resolve problems of dithering and noise for now, so I'm going to read tutorials. Looks like I need a lot of practice before making another attempts.