Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: startselect on December 19, 2016, 11:37:06 am

Title: need help with towershield and large metal sheets in general
Post by: startselect on December 19, 2016, 11:37:06 am

I'm not happy with this towershield, it is supposed to be a large curved sheet of metal with 6 large studs on it.
I've included versions with and without the studs as I'm quite happy with them.
I tried dithering in the right version to try to achieve a more pronounced curvature but it just looks messy.
(http://i.imgur.com/gLrCjsE.png)
Any tips for this sprite specifically or large sheets of metal in general?

Title: Re: need help with towershield and large metal sheets in general
Post by: MysteryMeat on December 19, 2016, 01:40:34 pm

They look kind of disconnected, honestly! Instead of just some circles, try remaking those studs to instead be worked into the shading.

Title: Re: need help with towershield and large metal sheets in general
Post by: startselect on December 20, 2016, 11:16:27 am

I tried lightening the outline of the studs and making the left ones lighter and right ones darker to melt them more into the curvature of the shield. But I still have really no idea of how to make the curved metal sheet look better.
(http://i.imgur.com/wLCXX13.png)

Title: Re: need help with towershield and large metal sheets in general
Post by: Cyangmou on December 21, 2016, 02:14:26 am

design is nice, good job on that.

You are off with your color - you use a blue, while mos tof these shields rather were made out of low quality steel or iron. Iron has a reddish color to it and some natural warmth.

Then I would go with reflected light, because metal tends to be highly reflective. It'd help to get some references and try to paint after those.

DON'T USE DITHER FOR METAL! Just don't. Really.

(http://abload.de/img/2016_12_21_towershieltbuad.png)

Title: Re: need help with towershield and large metal sheets in general
Post by: startselect on December 21, 2016, 11:46:28 am

Thanks a lot for the tips!

I tried striping the sheet vertically like you did and I'm really pleased with the result! Tried some different versions of the striping and stud highlights, not sure which one I'll move forward with just yet.

The blueish metal color is more or less a placeholder for all metal materials in equipment for my game, a palette swapping shader changes the actual colors depending on what type of metal the equipment piece is made of. Only restriction is that it cannot be more than 4 colors. But I tried your iron shade with the second darkest color replaced by the third darkest and I really like it. That may very well be one of the material in the future  :)

(http://i.imgur.com/q6sHuFZ.png)