Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Zia on January 08, 2016, 06:25:46 am
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Image is meant to be viewed at 2x.
(http://i.imgur.com/QZ3P9QR.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/5MvnspA.png)
Backgrounds have chronically been my weakness. I'm not really sure what I should be putting in here, especially in the sky area. I've been studying clouds, but they don't quite "click" yet. The pine trees in the back are VERY work in progress, though the foreground tree trunks are relatively polished.
Additionally, I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the forest floor texturing, but I'm also not sure how else to go about it. I couldn't find many examples of forest floor, since this perspective seems to be a little rare?
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The question you're asking, as it stands, is a null question, because the perspective of your piece as is dictates that there won't be any visible sky in the final piece at ALL. You seem to be suffering from the belief that 'a background has to have a ground plane and a sky plane or else it isn't finished' or something, but this is only true if your horizon line is in the right place! Right now, you seem to be trying to force a horizon line about halfway down your page, but that's CLEARLY impossible because the character on the tree contradicts this. They're ABOVE the horizon line, so that means they're technically in the skyplane, so you should be looking at them from BELOW- but instead you've drawn the character as seen from above!
Remember, the horizon line is eye level. Everything in the picture underneath the horizon line is beneath eye level, meaning you're higher up in elevation than it, but everything in the picture ABOVE the horizon line is HIGHER than eye level, meaning you're LOWER in elevation than it.
I mean, you could also say the character's height is the size of a skyscraper, but that's clearly not what you're going for here.
My suggestion: ditch the idea of a sky and just put a low-importance background of a bunch of trees in vague misty shadow behind the current scene, using the same perspective you've been using for everything here. The work in the foreground is excellent and you'd have to completely trash all of that if you want to make a scene incorporating a skyscape.
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First off, what is the light situation? The shading of the tree trunks and fence suggests that it's direct light rather than an overcast sky but it's hard to tell. I kinda get the impression that you didn't have a clear idea to start off with.
Second, what season is it? What is the climate? Unless it is supposed to be some kind of abnormal weather conditions, the grass and leaves shouldn't be quite so lush and green. In fact there probably shouldn't be any leaves at all. If you want to keep them they should atleast be more desaturated and yellowish.
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Drazelic: man, perspective is consistently my achille's heel and something I definitely need to work on. It's easy to see after someone points it out to me, but I'm blind to it far too often while working on my own! That was an incredibly helpful post, and I'll be incorporating those ideas for certain. Thank you so much!
kullenberg: the grey is actually just my neutral background color that I work with; it's not meant to represent an overcast sky. It's just empty right now. There's currently no "sky" of any sort - I was going to have direct sunlight in the final product. I had pictured this as the first snowfall of a season, unexpectedly early, and not the height of winter. I can understand the critique, but I like what I'm going for and am going to stick with it. The contrast of the leaves and the snow appeals to me.
EDIT:
After some edits, this is what we have thus far!
(http://i.imgur.com/gaLg1Iw.png)