Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Pixel Art Feature Chest => Topic started by: Mush on July 11, 2013, 05:05:28 am

Title: GR#131 - Gold Mining Town - Sideview
Post by: Mush on July 11, 2013, 05:05:28 am
(http://i.imgur.com/Vkpj6BH.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/3UnC2wF.png)


Art for a game concept I'm working on. Will update as I go.

1x for edits:
http://i.imgur.com/inD0d2c.png
http://i.imgur.com/oYuZiWc.png
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 11, 2013, 08:33:12 am
I saw these clouds as I was hiking today and stared at them for a couple of hours. 


(http://i.imgur.com/6IAVnNs.png)



Next update: finish building and tree.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 14, 2013, 08:28:33 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/TD46irD.png)

Going to try to make my character design not so boring.

Next update: finish tree, mountain, clouds, and sky .
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Facet on July 14, 2013, 10:38:10 pm
Love the hiking-clouds :y:

You hadn't really described what you're aiming for here, but the clouds say summers day while the rest looks a bit washed out/overcast; I'd ramp up saturation/contrast towards the foreground, and think about cutting back on the detail further away and with stuff like the samey tree texture in lieu of more silhouette/shape variety. My version is laying things on a bit thick, but hopefully the point carries.

The ground looks like it's got some depth but chars & interactive elements are perched on the horizon? A little simplified fg stuff would look good for depth up front.

(http://i.imgur.com/Hb2MnFR.png)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 15, 2013, 06:08:16 pm
Wow! That's an awesome edit. I've been staring at my version for so long it just looked right to me, but now I see see how washed out it is  :-[

Here's what I've come up with:
(http://i.imgur.com/Lx96V2n.png)

- Gave the piece more more depth and saturation à la the edit.
- Made the tree bigger

Question: is the mountain too detailed the way I have it now? In some refs I've looked at, mountains are very detailed even at a distance, but others not so much.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Facet on July 15, 2013, 09:25:51 pm
Looks sweet, a lot more engaging.

With all the new stuff up front I think the mountains are fine. The darker, flatter pines push them a way back and they should make for a nice vista when there's less going on in the fg; wouldn't hurt to try something broader, although can I tempt you to mass some of those pine fronds a bit instead? :P.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 15, 2013, 09:35:33 pm
Do you mean rendering the tree with less details? So much time has been spent on that tree, you have no idea  :blind:
But I think I'll try some different approaches because its does look a bit 'out of place'.

Or were you talk about the second/third layer of trees?

Thanks for your edit by the way, it really helped.

Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Facet on July 15, 2013, 10:02:26 pm
No problem :)

I mean the front tree, yeah. I can see the work gone into it, it doesn't look bad, but to me so many small, individually rendered bits are working against the form a bit and could be nicely stylised to draw a bit less attention: a hot topic here it seems!
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Wanyo on July 16, 2013, 02:37:30 pm
The tree might feel less out of place after you bring in more details around the foreground too because right now it's just sitting on a flat color.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 17, 2013, 06:35:37 am
hmm, maybe. I'll give it a try.

(http://i.imgur.com/YNyTX9Z.png)

I guess one excuse to have such a detailed tree is to make it interactable in the game
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Wanyo on July 17, 2013, 02:54:14 pm
I think the trees behind the cabin that you're starting to fill in help a lot too so it's not just "HEY I'M A LONELY TREE!!!" :D
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 17, 2013, 08:57:09 pm
Yeah I think you're right.


Cloud update:
(http://i.imgur.com/WZutmE6.png)

http://i.imgur.com/WZutmE6.png


Still trying to figure out the color for the mountains. Nothing looks right to me  :-\
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Ryumaru on July 17, 2013, 11:32:07 pm
I believe the colors you had for the mountain before were much better. think less saturated and lighter in value. Perhaps the background trees could have slightly more saturation to further show the distance between them and the mountains.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Voxxitronic on July 19, 2013, 05:22:20 pm
Think of a layer of sky/atmosphere between the foreground and the mountain. Everything will be a little more blue the further away it gets. If you have to, color your mountains as if they were in the foreground first and then put a translucent layer of your sky's color over it and mess around with that.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: coffee on July 20, 2013, 10:24:02 pm
Personally I like the new colours of the mountains a lot more. They are less dull and give a crisp air, mountain feeling. They are perhaps a bit too high saturated and a little too purple and if you compare it to the forest layer before it the colours melt a bit too much together looking like they are right next to eachother, like Voxxitronic and Ryumaru was talking about.

One more thing I would like to point out is that the chimney seem to be a bit out of angle if you compare it with the rest of the house. Perhaps it's because you've shaded it like it would be in the middle of it but the position is too much to the left, seeing it from this view. try moving it "back" in the picture and it will look more right.

else than that I think it's coming out really nice!

/coffee
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 25, 2013, 07:32:24 am
(http://i.imgur.com/wy3aAg8.png)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 25, 2013, 05:58:48 pm
Excuse the quick bump. Almost finished with this! To do: clean the trees, work on the grass, refine mountains.

(http://i.imgur.com/3ej4PAw.png)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Crow on July 26, 2013, 07:25:39 am
I prefer the blue-ish colors for the montains. Right now, for a background object, the mountains have too much contrast.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: r1k on July 26, 2013, 07:56:51 am
ya, the mountains look like there is no atmoshpere between them and the viewer due to the high contrast and color.  It makes the mountains look like they are closer than they should, which makes it look wierd because if they were as close as the look they would be way bigger.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 26, 2013, 08:08:14 am
How's this?

(http://i.imgur.com/L9H61Di.png)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: coffee on July 26, 2013, 09:52:48 am
They are perhaps a bit too high contrast still. Take a look at your foreground rocks, they are lacking the darker shade which the mountain don't, that makes no sense.
And it would be easier to make an edit if you didn't enlarge it before. If you want people to know it's supposed to be shown as *2 just type it out and people will be able to
make edits a lot more easier. Anyway, I think you can tone the mountains down even more.

Coming out nicely

/coffee
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 26, 2013, 06:59:35 pm
Thanks for the comments guys! Keep them coming  :y:

Sorry for the 2x, I was using aseprite and just got used to the resolution. 1x looks so bad to me, but I may just be used to the former.

I just need to clean up the right side of the mountains + address any other critiques you guys throw at me before I call this done.


More blue + more bright + less contrast.
(http://i.imgur.com/nIjQNAo.png)


Also, now that I look at it, that tree should not be right in the middle of the canvas.

(Off topic question: what happened to the board's pixel-arty skin that was used about a year ago? Looks like a default skin to me now.)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Phlakes on July 26, 2013, 07:04:35 pm
I think there needs to be something between the trees and mountains (depth-wise), maybe just extending the lighter trees across the entire background. Since you've pushed the mountains back so far (which is good) and the dark trees are so close it feels like there's a huge empty space between them. It might cause some problems with priority, though,
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 30, 2013, 12:00:57 am
I still see lots of stuff to improve, but I want to move on. I'm calling this done.

(http://i.imgur.com/8Hc9hHs.png)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Mush on July 30, 2013, 08:38:03 pm
Thanks for the help everyone! I posted it to pixeljoint: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/79725.htm

And because I don't want to bump without any work to show, here's the sprite I've been working on:

(http://i.imgur.com/TwUU1xO.png)

1x: http://i.imgur.com/FvEK8rp.png
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: jams0988 on July 30, 2013, 10:08:10 pm
Don't have a critique for you, but good job. The piece looked okay at first, and the work you put into it brought it up to looking great.
The mountains and the sky are looking so crisp! I can smell the clean air! =)
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Dusty on July 30, 2013, 10:29:22 pm
Awesome, and I know it's finished but just thought I'd point out that one of the mountain peaks seems to have been skipped in the AA/refinement process. I really do love the mountains the most, they look so natural/sharp.
Title: Re: Gold Mining Town
Post by: Indigo on July 31, 2013, 09:11:43 pm
End product looks great Mush!  I've been enjoying reading through the feedback and how you dealt with it :)