GR#131 - Gold Mining Town - Sideview

[Mush]

Art for a game concept I'm working on. Will update as I go.

1x for edits:
http://i.imgur.com/inD0d2c.png
http://i.imgur.com/oYuZiWc.png

[Mush]

I saw these clouds as I was hiking today and stared at them for a couple of hours. 






Next update: finish building and tree.

[Mush]

Going to try to make my character design not so boring.

Next update: finish tree, mountain, clouds, and sky .

[Facet]

Love the hiking-clouds

You hadn't really described what you're aiming for here, but the clouds say summers day while the rest looks a bit washed out/overcast; I'd ramp up saturation/contrast towards the foreground, and think about cutting back on the detail further away and with stuff like the samey tree texture in lieu of more silhouette/shape variety. My version is laying things on a bit thick, but hopefully the point carries.

The ground looks like it's got some depth but chars & interactive elements are perched on the horizon? A little simplified fg stuff would look good for depth up front.

[Mush]

Wow! That's an awesome edit. I've been staring at my version for so long it just looked right to me, but now I see see how washed out it is 

Here's what I've come up with:


- Gave the piece more more depth and saturation à la the edit.
- Made the tree bigger

Question: is the mountain too detailed the way I have it now? In some refs I've looked at, mountains are very detailed even at a distance, but others not so much.

[Facet]

Looks sweet, a lot more engaging.

With all the new stuff up front I think the mountains are fine. The darker, flatter pines push them a way back and they should make for a nice vista when there's less going on in the fg; wouldn't hurt to try something broader, although can I tempt you to mass some of those pine fronds a bit instead? .

[Mush]

Do you mean rendering the tree with less details? So much time has been spent on that tree, you have no idea 
But I think I'll try some different approaches because its does look a bit 'out of place'.

Or were you talk about the second/third layer of trees?

Thanks for your edit by the way, it really helped.

[Facet]

No problem

I mean the front tree, yeah. I can see the work gone into it, it doesn't look bad, but to me so many small, individually rendered bits are working against the form a bit and could be nicely stylised to draw a bit less attention: a hot topic here it seems!

[Wanyo]

The tree might feel less out of place after you bring in more details around the foreground too because right now it's just sitting on a flat color.

[Mush]

hmm, maybe. I'll give it a try.



I guess one excuse to have such a detailed tree is to make it interactable in the game

[Wanyo]

I think the trees behind the cabin that you're starting to fill in help a lot too so it's not just "HEY I'M A LONELY TREE!!!"

[Mush]

Yeah I think you're right.


Cloud update:


http://i.imgur.com/WZutmE6.png


Still trying to figure out the color for the mountains. Nothing looks right to me 

[Ryumaru]

I believe the colors you had for the mountain before were much better. think less saturated and lighter in value. Perhaps the background trees could have slightly more saturation to further show the distance between them and the mountains.

[Voxxitronic]

Think of a layer of sky/atmosphere between the foreground and the mountain. Everything will be a little more blue the further away it gets. If you have to, color your mountains as if they were in the foreground first and then put a translucent layer of your sky's color over it and mess around with that.

[coffee]

Personally I like the new colours of the mountains a lot more. They are less dull and give a crisp air, mountain feeling. They are perhaps a bit too high saturated and a little too purple and if you compare it to the forest layer before it the colours melt a bit too much together looking like they are right next to eachother, like Voxxitronic and Ryumaru was talking about.

One more thing I would like to point out is that the chimney seem to be a bit out of angle if you compare it with the rest of the house. Perhaps it's because you've shaded it like it would be in the middle of it but the position is too much to the left, seeing it from this view. try moving it "back" in the picture and it will look more right.

else than that I think it's coming out really nice!

/coffee

[Mush]

[Mush]

Excuse the quick bump. Almost finished with this! To do: clean the trees, work on the grass, refine mountains.

[Crow]

I prefer the blue-ish colors for the montains. Right now, for a background object, the mountains have too much contrast.

[r1k]

ya, the mountains look like there is no atmoshpere between them and the viewer due to the high contrast and color.  It makes the mountains look like they are closer than they should, which makes it look wierd because if they were as close as the look they would be way bigger.

[Mush]

How's this?

[coffee]

They are perhaps a bit too high contrast still. Take a look at your foreground rocks, they are lacking the darker shade which the mountain don't, that makes no sense.
And it would be easier to make an edit if you didn't enlarge it before. If you want people to know it's supposed to be shown as *2 just type it out and people will be able to
make edits a lot more easier. Anyway, I think you can tone the mountains down even more.

Coming out nicely

/coffee

[Mush]

Thanks for the comments guys! Keep them coming 

Sorry for the 2x, I was using aseprite and just got used to the resolution. 1x looks so bad to me, but I may just be used to the former.

I just need to clean up the right side of the mountains + address any other critiques you guys throw at me before I call this done.


More blue + more bright + less contrast.



Also, now that I look at it, that tree should not be right in the middle of the canvas.

(Off topic question: what happened to the board's pixel-arty skin that was used about a year ago? Looks like a default skin to me now.)

[Phlakes]

I think there needs to be something between the trees and mountains (depth-wise), maybe just extending the lighter trees across the entire background. Since you've pushed the mountains back so far (which is good) and the dark trees are so close it feels like there's a huge empty space between them. It might cause some problems with priority, though,

[Mush]

I still see lots of stuff to improve, but I want to move on. I'm calling this done.

[Mush]

Thanks for the help everyone! I posted it to pixeljoint: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/79725.htm

And because I don't want to bump without any work to show, here's the sprite I've been working on:



1x: http://i.imgur.com/FvEK8rp.png

[jams0988]

Don't have a critique for you, but good job. The piece looked okay at first, and the work you put into it brought it up to looking great.
The mountains and the sky are looking so crisp! I can smell the clean air! =)

[Dusty]

Awesome, and I know it's finished but just thought I'd point out that one of the mountain peaks seems to have been skipped in the AA/refinement process. I really do love the mountains the most, they look so natural/sharp.

[Indigo]

End product looks great Mush!  I've been enjoying reading through the feedback and how you dealt with it