Menu Screen

[A2J2TIWARI]

Alright guys so I need little help with the background for Menu Screen for a game I am working on.

Here is the idea:


And here's what I have got so far:


Struggling with clouds at the moment as I am not sure how to make them.

The mountain and castle are at the left because the menu will come as an overlay and in the middle so to keep the focus on it is in the left.  Anyways, right now I am struggling with clouds as I am not sure how to make them. Also the style has to be kept cartoony to match the style of other sprites and work I have done - sorry can't show other work as I do not have the permission to show them yet..

The mountains are blue as I haven't changed the palette yet but I'll make them brown so that castle stands out.

[A2J2TIWARI]

How can I improve the look of scroll?

[Cyangmou]

scroll: first and foremonst - by improving contrast & coloring



try to capture the materials, even if you stylize try to keep it overall somewhat consistent.
If you are unsure about colors get photo references.
Regarding to color photo references are usually plain bad (if you try to colorpick colors out of the photograph), but they help you at least to get on the right track.
Afterall you anyways want to stick to the big color idea off your picture and you just try to get stuff right looking.

Spoiler: references

For the mountains and the grass
that's badly oversaturated. THe mountains don't have any perspective or depth and they rather look like cardboard on a stage

look up environment photographs and paintings and learn something about basic perspective and the overall impression will improve greatly.

[A2J2TIWARI]

There is a possibility that Scroll will not be added that's why I want to focus on making background as good as I can. Please push me, critique me, sue me, be mean or whatever it takes for help. I know my previous threads die because I had to put too much work on them but this time I promise it won't be that way!

[Fizzick]

Very nice. I would add more crumbly details to the paper if it's an old scroll.

[A2J2TIWARI]

Thanks Fizzick.



I am struggling with textures on the nearest mountains. Also I think I should change palette a little bit.



I tried to add little wear and tear. However the crumble effect that Fizzick talked about, I am not sure how that can be done.

[A2J2TIWARI]

Completely clueless about how to do mountains and what can be added to scroll to make it look better. I can't even find proper references.

In this update though, I detailed the trees, tried to add mountain texture to one in the right. I tried crumble and crumple effects but they didnt turn out well.

[Fizzick]

There is no specific way to 'do mountains'. Look at some pictures of the kind of mountains you want to emulate, and mimic the patterns you see there. Don't think 'mountains', think 'rock' 'snow' 'recesses' 'crags'. That's what helps me.

[A2J2TIWARI]

Continuing with this design. Oh and the colours are not final! Please keep that in mind.



Let me know if the updates are good or not.

[Ashbad]

Continuing with this design. Oh and the colours are not final! Please keep that in mind.



Let me know if the updates are good or not.

The mountain is starting to look less mountainous and more like a very detailed spearhead (by shape, that is.)  Perhaps try taking a step backwards in shape to an earlier edit:



with the same detail level as the new.

[Manupix]

Apart from the closer, lower range, these mountains don't need much more detail than this:



They really look like distant mountains seen through a lot of atmosphere; your later versions lose that depth feeling.
Also what Ashbad says about their shape.

Beware of that castle you're planning: I'd make it a simple silhouette using the same color (or colors: at most 2!) as the mountain, for the same reason.

Also if your plan is still to create versions with and without the scroll, I'd suggest to study the composition very carefully for it to work nicely on both versions. It would be far easier to create 2 different layouts.

That scroll is going to need more contrast to be pop out in front of the screen.

[A2J2TIWARI]

I have tried to improve the composition by learning about 'Rule of Thirds' and using it. I thought that the lake was taking away too much attention from the scroll and scene in general.

I am still stuck at textures though and I am going nowhere; it has become frustrating. If anyone of you can, please do a sample texture for me as I am not able to witness the textures in images or at least not able to get them right.

Also I changed the colours of scroll but I'll change them again for I am not happy with them.

[astraldata]

Not really sure what sort of problem you're having with textures. The ones I see so far work nicely for the most part other than floating pixels on the frontmost grass (and some of that grass seeming to be horizontal and floating somehow). Where are you wanting an example of a texture?