Pix3m, I kinda mean to go with the general feel of weapons....Yes, I am going for that simplistic, realism feel. I'm not a big fan of crazy designs atm. That being said, I feel as though the bows don't vary enough irl. I appreciate the links you sent me, I really dig those bow designs, never would've thought of stuff like that. I feel as though the other weapons vary enough for visual recognition, that the gamer can differentiate them without having to do the mouse over for information, unlike the bows.
I actually like to hear these comments.
I think its fine if you're into over-the-top WOW style, brightly coloured weapons and cuddly toy looking characters.
Personally I'm feeling a bit saturated with alot of designs I'm seeing these days, seems like everyone is trying to out-do each other which is understandable from a marketing perspective.
For example I loved Diablo 1&2's balance of earthy hues with selective use of primaries.
The same could not be said for Diablo 3's art style. Most people like it, I however do not.
Just a warning (not directly aimed at you) this reasoning should never be used as an excuse to be lazy though, you should still strive to improve your designs and your art style.
Here's something simple I did a while ago as a style test.
This was intended to be very simple with a subtly stylised realism.
I was happy with it then though now I can clearly see how I could use better technique to make it visually more interesting without sacrificing the simplistic theme.
The idea was to start with something basic and then work my way up to more higher advanced and fancier designs made from rarer materials etc. as you progress through the game, but still trending to avoid overuse of bright colours.
Bow designs is an interesting topic I'd like to come back to later.
I'm no expert on that but I've been wanting to have a go at it myself for my own projects.
Perhaps check out a bunch of different RPG's and find examples of what you like the look of and try to combine some designs.
Enough game theory.
Feel free to PM on game theory if you don't want to blab on about it here, I'm always up for a chat on the topic.
Saturation, got it.
Not quite I don't think. I was saying to work from grey in the Color Picker and play around with increasing Saturation with various Hues.
Here's a screenshot of Photoshop's Color Picker.
Note the H,S,B radio buttons. I personally like working in H mode most of the time as is selected here.
In this way I have clicked on the left to pick pure grey, then clicked inside the S box (not the radio button!) used my mouse wheel to scroll up the value and see the effect is has.
In this way I've been able to give a subtle decent blue-metal tint.
...I'm legally colorblind
Ah crap...well that could make things diffiult
What colours do you have a problem with?
After seeing the examples, I noticed they go with black outlines. I'm guessing when you say darker, you mean a dark dark purple/black color? I'm happy it is a solid example without aliasing, I think alaising takes away from pixel art (is also much harder to do) and makes people second guess the fact that one did every pixel by hand.
OVER-antialising, along with too many gradients and fear of contrasting clusters (re:
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=15566.0) definitely ruins pixel art.
But I find it hard to see any justification in the statement that anti-aliasing done selectively takes away from pixel art.
Regarding outlining, maybe check out my very simple example here:
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=15733.0I also touch briefly (since my knowledge is extremely limited) on clusters, low colour count and selective anti-alising there.
Its not necessary to stick to the same method but its definitely a good place to start.
There's more we can talk about in your designs but my advice at this stage is just to edit what you have here based on all this information and post again.
Don't be afraid to experiment!!
