Cloudy mountains.....

[spawn]

 
Getting back to pixel art I decided to make a lil scene of a destroyed city for the lulz, its still a WIP but I'm having an issue..
The clouds.. look like mountains... Well of course they are not near done, nor have they been detailed in the slightest, but I just don't want to finish a cloud then redo it, so..  Until I'm sure they won't look like mountains I cannot finish this. Any advice?
What I'm really wondering about is the placement of the clouds as well as any violations of perspective, BTW it is 16 colors I think.

[Mathias]

I could so critbarf this. For decades. Luckily, not in the mood.

Instead, I'll volunteer only one thing - darken the nearest face of the near building, she's sitting in. Light is currently falling on both sides equally, which kills sense of depth. Applying some shadow to the side of the building touching the canvas will also help keep our eyes inside the image and not lead us out of it.

[Jad]

THE DIAGONAL LINES in the bricks on the wall pointing away from us are creepily surreal. They should be vertical if you actually want to give a sense of realistic perspective

[spawn]

Alright I fixed the lighting I think And color reduced to 13 colors.. Im really unsure on how to start the clouds, Any advice? 

[spawn]

Alright I fixed the lighting I think And color reduced to 13 colors.. Im really unsure on how to start the clouds, Any advice? 

Also, I love surrealism. 

[thepezman]

Also, I love surrealism.  

And yet, I get much more of a sense of bad perspective than it looking surreal.  You wondered if there were any major violations in perspective, and as Jad mentioned the bricks would be it.  My advice would be to redo that entire side and make all the lines in between each brick at a straight vertical instead of the ~60 degree angle.  If you insist on the lighter face of the brickwork to remain as it is, there could be some ways of embracing unrealistic perspective views to make it seem intentional.  Maybe skew the edge of the tower to be at some angle that doesn't match up with either face (as well as the rear profile edge of the tower)

There are plenty of other perspective issues everywhere.  If you'd like a visual post pointing them out to get to know perspective drawing better let me know I could draw guidelines to help you out.


As for the clouds... I'm not much of an expert on those.  My advice though would be to follow what you have going on in the top middle chunk of cloud.  It's profile edge where cloud meets sky isn't using the super dark values (unlike the chunk to the left of it) the edge is chaotic and wispy instead of smoothed out (unlike the chunk to the left AND right of it)

Any other cloudy stuff that I might recommend is more easily communicated through an edit...but I don't have time for that at the moment :X

[Mathias]

The whole perspective mess results from there being no preliminary sketching/construction done. I assume not a single guidle line was drawn here to direct drawing the vanishing perspective correctly. It's almost a cubism effect.

[spawn]

Well, I didn't pay ANY attention to the perspective on this while I made it.. It was foolish of me, I did not realize the importance of perspective until this moment. I think I will scrap this quickly done messed up project and start with a new one. However, this time I will make drawing a perfect perspective my goal. Thank you for helping me, had you not have I may have made the same mistake again and again. 

[Mathias]

Right. What I think a lot of beginning artists don't realize is that the amazing creations of other artists, that they look up to, are the result of a lot of pre-sketching, planning, and construction that is never discernible in the end result. It all gets erased away or covered up as it's no longer needed. But it's there, trust me. Especially with stuff like perspective-heavy environments.