GR#092 - Sheepwalk - Game Art

[pgil]

Whoops. I edited as you were posting...
I changed the shepherd to look more like the flat-shaded dog portrait.  I agree the dog in the truck still needs work.  I always look at references, but it usually takes me a few tries to get anatomy right. 

I think part of the problem is I wanted to show his tail wagging, and that requires a really awkward pose.

edit:

Better?

edit: also worked on the title screen some more:

[Facet]

Great, much more cohesive and just more attractive besides; very pleasant colour scheme and better priorities .

I'd perhaps simplify the trees in the truck screen down to single shapes; they pull focus from the dog a bit. Again in the titles I'd brighten the trees up a bit but keep that simple shape, it makes for a nice contrast. If you gave them the same impressionistic treatment as the characters it might get a bit same-y.

Little things that could do with some lovin'; the sheep's faces are a bit vague and creepy in that the eyes are situated in the predator position; straight ahead, binocular as oppose to opposite sides. There's still a few stray pixels on the farmer and also the eyes of the dog portrait are a bit mysteron , although I'd re-do the whole thing more in line with your more recent, reinvigorated stylistic approach because it's pretty darn nice.   

[pgil]

 OK.  The title/ending stuff is looking better. They still need work, but I'm taking a little break from them. I want to work on the in-game graphics a little.  Right now I feel like they're kind of bland. Any suggestions on color/readability?  Anything stand out as looking weird? I'm already aware that large patches of trees look kind of awful.

[pgil]

Haven't had much time to work on this, but I cleaned it up a little:


Could still use c+c on the tiles. I added a few variations to the trees that are just put in randomly. I'm not sure if it's enough though:

[Facet]

The in-game stuff is quite distinctive with that blueish grass if pretty spartan. It does strike me that contrast is quite low overall, in particular the trees are higher contrast/detail (and therefore more eye-catching) than fences and such which are more important to game-play. The fences and grass have pretty similar value & saturation. Globally things are quite flat; I have a penchant for tons of shadows so I mocked up an example. I also tried alternating the foliage colours a bit similarly to the titles but I guess you'd have to tone that effect down some if you liked it, and I also simplified the barn and truck a bit. and I couldn't resist drawing a sheep .

[pgil]

I like those new colors. I might use them.
The shadows look really good, but I'd have to rewrite big parts of my engine to support it.
The varying tree color is a good idea.  I might try it out, if I can get it to work in an auto-tiled environment. The dirt looks much more organic too. I'll have to try something like that.

Your sheep looks good, but too realistic.  I'm trying to keep them less cute, more cartoony/stupid looking... Sort of a Gary Larson thing.  The "smart" things-- dogs and people-- can be more realistic  

edit: Here's how the levels look now.  I like the new colors. I don't know if the detail on the barn's front wall makes it look too "dirty"? I should probably up the saturation on the colored buttons and gates too.

There are also 2 variations on each tree and gravel tile, picked randomly when the level is drawn.  There's still a strong "grid" to it, but that's hard to eliminate when I can't choose tiles manually. The only solution I see is to either eliminate all the detail (so that your eye can't pick out a repeating pattern), or create lots more variations of each piece.

[Facet]

Sweet, trees look much better with that larger globular highlight, as does the more organic dirt, they don't look too bad for tiling imo, but more variation might look better. I don't think the barn is too messy.

How about just darkening the shadows and making them larger, elliptical in the case of the trees. The bank of the water tiles could also do a bit more work, perhaps some dirt sides for a proper plane change.

I didn't think you'd go for so realistic an interpretation of the sheep, I just wanted to demonstrate spacing the eyes and giving the nostrils a 'V' shape but got carried away a bit The wolf is barely readable in the latest titles, why give him a bit more space?