Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: DuskBard on April 05, 2011, 10:48:15 am

Title: [C+C] Little Plant
Post by: DuskBard on April 05, 2011, 10:48:15 am
Hi :D
First of all: by the fact that I'm a very very "young" beginner I wanted ,since the beginning, to give a direction to my efforts so I made up an idea for a possible project of a game which, by working on it, will allow myself to cover all aspects of pixels and creating a world, eventually, through all my personal development. The first thing that I thought to work on, for many will sound obvious, are plants and general vegetation so, this is for sure my first serious attempt in doing something nice -and serious- in pixel art.


(http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5425/bhmk.png)
The subject is a little plant with berries.
The first thing that came in my mind is the kind of atmosphere and "shapes" that I want and that I have in my mind, in less words:the style of things.
Even if they look nice or even gorgeous, certain bushes used in many jrpg-rpg don't look exactly realistic,more like "leaves balls", so I wanted to try to do something a bit more realistic and I thought at some of the little plants that grow in woods ecc. A graphic style which inspires me pretty much is the one in Ultima VIII:Pagan which is realistic but still contains certain particular traits that doesn't make it 100% realistic leading to a very "colorful" world- even if I wouldn't use the same kind of palette which is a bit too "bright" for my tastes.

A particular note goes to the leaves. I wanted leaves a bit detailed so, by the fact that I'm a real beginner, I went on the internet looking for pixel-plants of every genre and sort till when I felt on an amazing tileset ripped from the fantastic Alundra-which I deeply love- and I've noticed the bushes which have pretty nice leaves and palette as well. I started practicing by observing at how they have been done and then I tried to use the same concept and technique. I also love the palette because the colors are bright but not too much even if, still, I would like to use a palette a bit darker but for the moment I'll stick with this one while practicing.
This is the little bush-plant from Alundra:
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9136/fghjw.png)

For the "trunk" I used three colors that I thought by myself. Black for the shadow-not being a very big plant- dark brown for the trunk itself and a dark green still for the trunk but with the idea of a lighter shading and with the bark a bit "eaten" by mold.

On the plant you can also notice a little ivy-like creeper that I added just for fun, having the idea of a plant that lives in a marsh-like environment or at least one very wet.

I wanted the berries with a bright coloration in the way that they kinda "attract" attention if they would be seen in the game environment.

I used a plain grey as background because I find myself very nice with it when it comes on seeing and perceiving very clearly the colors.

I've also preferred to don't put any shadow for the moment, especially the one casted by the plant itself, just to give a bit more time on the understanding of how to work and create a bit of harmony within colors. Later I'll add also the shadows...or at least I'll try...

As I say: be mercyless with your commets xP