Guydude in his room of averageosity. [WIP, C&C]

[Ambivorous]

This should be pretty straight forward.
I'm going for a new style that is quick and easy to draw and apply, minimalistic, and yet still aesthetically pleasing. The idea is typical, old school JRPG-based; floor tiles are 16x12px and things have a height based on a multiple of 4px.

So far this is what I have:

The .psd file. (Noooo idea if that'll work; I've never uploaded things that aren't pictures before, I think. It's a Google Docs link, so find the download button at the top left.)

The main problems I'm having here are my choice of colours (I haven't really worked on the palette yet because of this) and adding textures (especially wood). Oh, and some perspectives are off, but the more I look at/work on them the more jumbled my brain gets.

Nooooww then: parkay flooring; that black thing on the desk is supposed to be a laptop; the black thing next to the desk is a bass amp (facing away though, what can you do); and the picture is supposed to be a strelitzia (though it's just a placeholder really). Oh and it's a window frame on the left there (door frame and knob on the right).

Plz hulp~

EDIT x2 COMBO:

Lightened up the place and edited a little. More adjustments!


I'm fairly happy with the latest adjustments, so I'll just assume no one has any objections and continue onto another scene.

[PypeBros]

the cupboard reads almost like an entrance from a hall. It could help if you had a common base line like "horizontal surface are always lighter than vertical surfaces".
Also, you might want to re-organise the layout of the room such that it shows interesting surfaces. Swapping the bed with the desktop/ampli, for instance, would make drawers/chair/buttons/laptop screen visible (and possibly interactive).

(not much to say about the pixel techniques, I'm afraid. They're all good to my eyes.)

[Ambivorous]

Thanks for the advice, Pype!

Well, the reason I went with the darker colour on top is because that cupboard is as tall as the room, so I figured not much light could get to its top. That said, you are absolutely correct, as it is now it doesn't work well.
So I've done one lighter version (all top surfaces are all brighter than side surfaces, and side surfaces touching the screen edge are even darker, by the by) which definitely makes it more readable. I also made a darker version to imply that the cupboard is touching the "ceiling."



That girl is one of the characters I am going to use, so critiques on her would be appreciated. Here is her concept image:



As for the reorganising, I'll make sure to keep that in mind for the next scene (this one was more of a test in any case)!