GR#121 - Cartoon RPG - Gameart

[Free Camera]

Something that I'm working on. It's a city-tile set. At the moment I'm adding more city-like objects so it's a wip. My goal is to:
1.) make small readable tiles as close to 16x16 as possible, for that old school rpg feel
2.) emulate the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon.

The challenge for me with this tileset is that rather than keep it flat, I want various elevated planes of terrain. I'm not sure if I'm communicating the planes as best as I could at the moment and I could use some feedback.





Much thanks!

[NaCl]

Try giving visual cues as to what is the base of a cliff. For instance, some grass sprigs coming up in front of the base cliff tiles.

Try using more shadows, and darkening the shadows you do have. Right now the shadows are very timid. Remember that light is coming from the top left and make shadowed versions of certain tiles. You can do all this at virtually no cost, because you just need to make shadow versions of tiles you've already made with colors you already have.

Consider the light source when constructing maps. For instance, the house in your mockup has a wing that comes off the right side of the house. If the wing was on the left, it could cast a shadow on the other part of the house and clarify it's shape better. The second story could cast a shadow on the roof of the first floor.

[Seiseki]

Lovely style but a lot of the tiles get abruptly cut off at the bottom.

And yes, you really need to play around more with depth and shadow to make it easier to make out shapes, walls and height differences and see where you can walk.

The character and a lot of the tiles seem to have the wrong angle.
You should show more of the top side, like make the signs 1 pixel thicker at the top, since with this perspective you're looking down from above and not straight in front.

[EDIT:]



Attempted a rough edit, just experimenting really, lighting is not very consistent.
But notice the thickness of the signs, the shading of the rocks.

[Free Camera]

He's blinking! Cute! Constructive advice from the both off you. I'll polish things up shortly.

[Free Camera]

Update: Darkened some shadows, added a transition between the cliff and the grass, added some new tiles. Overall just worked at it.



I'm going to keep adding more tiles, maybe work on the house to ground transition. Shadows still need work.

[PypeBros]

grass at the base of the rocks works well. Bushes could use something similar around their trunk.

Imho, you're using a tint much too dark for the shadowed grass. A single tint would imho work better that the current "gradient transition", btw, which sits in opposition to the rest of the art (flat-shaded trees, etc).

Lightsource on the isolated rocks seems to be different from the rest of the piece, too.

[Facet]

Looks very bright & cheery is that Ness? (Earthbound)

The biggest & easiest way to demonstrate plane change is simple value difference; a good contrast there makes floors/walls instantly recognisable.

I dunno if you want to furnish smaller elements (bushes, characters) with the same sense of volume; readability can be a problem in low-res and the dude is stylin' as is, but I felt like making a more presentable diagram for linkage in the future anyway. If you search the forum there's lots more like it and further extrapolation. Either way drop shadows under those elements would help lots.

[Seiseki]

You should remove the shadow/outline for the grass at the base of the cliff wall.
Also, the fence is nice, but could use some thickness just like the signs

[Free Camera]

working on things now. Applying your suggestions! 

The character isn't ness, but he sure looks like him.

[Free Camera]

So, an update-
-small changes (rocks, fence)
-short trees changed. A new tree added.
-shadows are no longer diagonal but go out straight to the side




how is this looking? is the grass shadow too dark?