Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: JJ Naas on September 18, 2007, 06:58:49 am

Title: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: JJ Naas on September 18, 2007, 06:58:49 am
31 colours.. could the palette maybe be more exciting somehow? The bg needs to be yellow tho, that can't be changed.

Can you think of any more funky details to add? natural shapes, not man made structures.

(http://ungroup.net/jjntemp/digikuvia/mountmoi.png)    (http://ungroup.net/jjntemp/digikuvia/mountmoi2.png)
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: baccaman21 on September 18, 2007, 07:56:02 am
Clouds... definately clouds.
and a couple of swallows maybe... (google "willow pattern" and look at the bridge on those plates)

Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: CroM on September 18, 2007, 08:18:38 am
looks great,

you could add some lianes and some animals, maybe some smaller rocks


CroM
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: sharprm on September 18, 2007, 08:33:03 am
The trees don't look asian enough to me, maybe make them shorter, overhanging the ledges more. Try and find some references to work from, best i could find
was from google imageing jade mountain sculpture but that wasn't very good. Also could have bamboo forest.

Nice work. Color of rocks seems like flesh to me, maybe grey or brown would be better (unless its sunset i guess).
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: Orclaeder on September 18, 2007, 12:04:07 pm
I think the waterfall could be more clearly done and yes indeed, definatly clouds :y:
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: Jericho on September 19, 2007, 04:56:53 am
1.I think right now theres too much open green space. Maybe try adding more foliage so it looks like a forest rather than individual trees?
2.The mountaints deffinitely look a little fleshy (palette wise)
3.clouds! deffiniftely clouds as everyone suggests. Maybe have them swirling around the mountain a bit?

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b307/unknown__user/other/mountainex-1.gif)

quick edit to show some things
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: Zoggles on September 19, 2007, 05:03:10 am
I'll agree with the other comments about the mountain colour seeming too 'fleshy' and the foliage lacking a chinese feeling. I think also the rocks are a little too distinctively vertical and could use a bit more angular variation.

Oftentimes, you'll see a small pagoda on the side or top of mountains here, (if you ignore the modern day scenic obtrusions such as cell phone antennas, radio masts and weather/wind monitoring equipment)

As for the foliage, it tends to be incredibly dense and very rich green with a lot of fern-like vegetation, many trees tend to have fewer but long, thin and twisty branches with clumps of leaves on them.

Willow pattern is a reasonably good reference but more for chinese art style than actually reflecting nature. Giving the piece a more traditional chinese painting feel to it would be an interesting option and would certainly add to an 'oriental' intention for the piece (inked outlines loosely coloured with watercolours) but that's a complete style change.

A few quick image search links: 清山 (http://image.baidu.com/i?tn=baiduimage&ct=201326592&cl=2&lm=-1&pv=&word=%C7%E5%C9%BD&z=0)  方山 (http://image.baidu.com/i?tn=baiduimage&ct=201326592&cl=2&lm=-1&pv=&word=%B7%BD%C9%BD&z=0) 大黑山 (http://image.baidu.com/i?tn=baiduimage&ct=201326592&cl=2&lm=-1&pv=&word=%B4%F3%BA%DA%C9%BD&z=0) 泰山 (http://image.baidu.com/i?tn=baiduimage&ct=201326592&cl=2&lm=-1&pv=&word=%CC%A9%C9%BD&z=0)

-Z-


Addendum as the original image has been updated while typing this:

Mountain colour is better, but the greens of the foliage are now too vivid and don't have the lighting variation that the first piece had (which worked well i.m.o) They are also still to regular in their 'clumps' not even changing in size according to depth/distance. Clouds and mist around the top are almost a must, and the rough sketch of them looks good so far.  I feel the sky colour clashes a bit with the mountain though. Not sure on intended time of day, but skies (other than in places like 北京 or 上黑 tend to be very clear blue not 'dusty' as the current colour suggests to me.
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: JJ Naas on September 19, 2007, 08:58:21 am
Baccaman21: Hmm, Oh yes, the bridge could be more oriental looking. And birds, yes.. I'll try adding those.

CroM: Thanks.  I was actually thinking whether I should add smaller rocks or not..

Sharprm: I was trying a rock colour that'd go together with the bg yellow that unfortunately cannot be changed, because that's the colour of the bg that this image is gonna rest on top of later on.. Bamboo forest would be cool but maybe I'll just try to improve trees at this point.

Orcleader: Waterfall.. ok. I'll work on it. I'm tempted to add an extra colour in order to improve it.

Jericho: Thanks for the example. I'll try that. Foliage.. maybe patches of fallen leaves?

Zoggles: A pagoda might fit on top of the smaller mountain in the back.. thanks for the links, I'll study those.

---

I'll post an update tomorrow. 


Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: Lawrence on September 19, 2007, 10:04:15 am
I'd try to give the waterfall a bit of whitening, like in these (http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=waterfall) photos. I'm also feeling that the rock's palette could do with some more darker shades.
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: JJ Naas on September 20, 2007, 12:00:06 pm
Well, here's the latest version. I might still change the bridge and add a pagoda later. It was either birds or clouds, and I decided to have birds after all.

(http://ungroup.net/jjntemp/digikuvia/mountmoi2.png)
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: ptoing on September 20, 2007, 12:25:07 pm
If you wanna make it classic japanese/chinese looking you should deffo go for clouds. The clouds also give the scene a better sense of scale. Those birds look MASSIVE.
Title: Re: Chinese Mountain WIP
Post by: Lawrence on September 20, 2007, 02:31:52 pm
I still think the shadows on the mountains are too light. You've used 7 colours for the mountains but the brown/low sat brown ramp has 15 nicely spaced colours in it, some of which you are only using a few pixels elsewhere. Here's an edit (without altering the palette at all):

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j62/drain-body-confirmed/mountmoi2.png)

In the middle where the arrow is pointing, I've taken palette entries found in the yellow circles and used them to strengthen the mountain's shadows. In the circle on the left, you've used a grey in only 2 pixels! This is why I like mtPaint's palette feature because you can drag the entries around easily just by pressing shift, allowing you to optimise your colours easily. (There are also a few greens which are almost exactly the same by the way). If you slightly lower the saturation on the bridge's browns and alter their value so that they are spaced evenly within the main (15 colour) ramp, then they will look even better when you recycle them.

Also, where the '?' is, you've used a shade on one part of the mountain but not another.