[WIP] Game Art

[melbow]

I've exhausted my talents, as I am a programmer and only rarely have dabbled in pixel art, so any comments or criticisms would be of great use.

I have the most issues with color. I am finding it hard to find colors that have enough contrast with the bird and still look good. I'm not as concerned with composition because I'll be moving things around anyways when making the game.



Things I like that I did: The trees, the bird, the mushrooms, and the grass.

I'm open to any ideas, even crazy ones.

EDIT:
A little about my project... This will play like a platformer, but I don't want to restrict myself to using a tileset and want things to be a little more organic. In conjuction, I don't really mind having a large number of colors in the art either, but I am not really skilled enough to where it would make a difference if I used a lot more colors. I would love it if I could make the whole thing look kind of wooden and toy-ish.

In this image, the water wheel would be turning and the bird can interact with it. Water will be flowing onto it from the right, but I have not drawn that yet.

[Manupix]

Looks nice already =)

We'd need more info for useful critique. Like what's moving and what's only bg? What's the game about, what's the player supposed to do, etc.
I guess the bird is the main sprite, the wheel would turn (but where's the water?).
Sprites should be contrasted from bg by color contrast and saturation, and consistent outlines.

The wheel has outlines everywhere except the vanes: why is that?
The bird outlines are not contrasted enough to make it stand out. Variously colored outlines are difficult to do right, I'd go for a single dark color at this point.
The wheel colors might be warmer and more saturated.
The bird pixeling isn't great; it's not stylized enough compared to everything else.
The grass is too noisy.
The very stylized trees are nice; they look like wooden toy trees which works rather well with the overall feel of the piece. That's a direction you might lean toward more consciously. Go crazy with colors.

There isn't an obvious light source; only the trees seem lit from the side. I'd go for top-down light and shade accordingly; it's the easiest light-source for games because it allows mirroring.
Stuff needs to cast shadows on the wall: shutters and platform, maybe wheel.

[melbow]

Thanks for your feedback Manupix! It's exactly the stuff I need to get on track. I added a little more description in the topic.
I pictured the light source being top right but I agree it's inconsistent if not non-existent at this time. I'll work on it tonight.

[melbow]

I didn't do much because I actually got hit by a car today and my arm is aching, but I really wanted to get something done, so I worked on the grass and bird. The grass is much less noisy and only is longer in places that would be hard to mow, so next to the fence and under the trees. The bird is better, but I am going to see if I can't match the styling of the tree a little more next revision.


I also need to work out how to do shading on the water wheel when it is spinning... Should I make it more ambient and static or would I need to actually animate the shading for it to look correct? I'm trying to get away with as little detail as possible because I've never really done pixel animation before and I know it will take me forever.

[Manupix]

That's a very minimal change. More contrast is good, but I'm afraid you'll have to redo this bird from scratch anyway.
First thing to clarify: is it a real bird in a toy-like setting, or is everything supposed to look toy-like?
Then how is it going to be animated, what actions are planned?

Contrary to most of the bg, you're fighting against the pixels in this bird, instead of using them to your advantage. Outlines are jaggy, natural pixel angles are ignored.
I'd recommend to research options at this point then experiment with some (of course not all pieces in this link are relevant, but some definitely are).

Something I didn't think of about the wheel is the problem of size vs anim.
It's going to require a large number of frames to look smooth at this size, and lines will look bad at all angles other than the present one. Can you downsize it significantly?
It can be done anyway =)

Previous grass was better. When I said noisy, I meant that the bright pixels looked random instead of defining blades of grass clearly. Keep a few blades only but make them clearer and a bit larger if needed.

[melbow]

So I started over completely on the bird as you suggested. I have been struggling for a while but finally got inspired by some cute little owl pictures. This is what I came up with. I think it's MUCH better.

[YellowLime]

I didn't do much because I actually got hit by a car today

Oh my sh*t. Thankfully, it seems you didn't get badly hurt. Get well soon!

If you want things to look more toyish, add glossiness and saturation
Take the Nitrome games as example.
Just make sure the player can differentiate the background from the elements.

[melbow]

Oh my sh*t. Thankfully, it seems you didn't get badly hurt. Get well soon!

Thank you for your concern. I'm alright -- just some bruising, aching, and tenderness -- nothing permanent.
I wouldn't have mentioned in but I wanted Manupix to know I was really taking his advice to heart and was not slacking, but aching.

And thank you for your suggestion YellowLime, I checked out some of those games and while some look a little shiny, I didn't get a huge toy vibe. I think the animations were too smooth and it's too hard to give that effect with a tiny image. I may just go for the "they are toys" approach, where it is known that they are toys (because you tell the player), but via the powers of imagination, have come to life and appear to be real (or as real as my pixel art can get).

[DannyRyuu]

Hey man, great work.
That owl is a great improvement, I would only suggest to either make the trees more detailed or the fence and the owl easier.
It looks kinda like 2 people worked on one piece (i'd suggest making the trees more detailed).
Other than that you have a very unique style!

[melbow]

Ah, I just realized I never answered all your questions Manupix.

First thing to clarify: is it a real bird in a toy-like setting, or is everything supposed to look toy-like?
Then how is it going to be animated, what actions are planned?

I originally was trying to make it look more stylized and wooden/toyish. I seem to have gradually gone against that, partly because I can't seem to get my old tree to look right lit from above, and partly because the owl looks so much better now and doesn't really look wooden/toyish to me. If you have any recommendations on how to get the original tree looking lit from above, yet maintaining it's elegant simplicity, I'd absolutely love to hear it.

Something I didn't think of about the wheel is the problem of size vs anim.
It's going to require a large number of frames to look smooth at this size, and lines will look bad at all angles other than the present one. Can you downsize it significantly?
It can be done anyway =)

Unfortunately I cannot downsize it. The bird must interact with it. I've removed the water wheel from my recent images because I'm going to rework it to try to come up with something that works better at odd angles.

Previous grass was better. When I said noisy, I meant that the bright pixels looked random instead of defining blades of grass clearly. Keep a few blades only but make them clearer and a bit larger if needed.

Thank you for this! It put me on the right track and I now love my grass.


I reworked the grass. The tree became a kind of bushy tree with more detail. Fence shading was improved. And I randomly added: a bucket, a ladder, and another bird. I tried to make the bird look more toyish/wooden, partly because that's where my original concept laid, and partly for practice.

Sorry for changing the scene up so much. My approach is kind of scatter shot until I finally get what I am going for.

[BatElite]

I played around a bit with the colours.
I think you should use more contrast. Also, the trees and blue bird look mostly flat.

[melbow]

Oh wow, I love the colors on the wood! I don't feel the same crazy attraction to the rest, but this has opened my eyes. I see potential for more contrast, especially the bird(s).
Also I see you fixed the light source on my mushrooms.  thanks

[melbow]

Massive revisions... I liked my old wood texture, but I wanted to keep my old trees' style, so I redid the fence (and the trees to try to add top-down lighting).
The new blue bird was too distracting, so I removed it for now.
I tried adding more contrast elsewhere, especially on the owl, to make the foreground stand out.

I'm a little nervous that the owl still doesn't stand out enough from the background...

[Fizzick]

 

[melbow]

Well that definitely makes the foreground stand out more, but I was trying to avoid desaturating the background so much because it makes me think the house is far away and desaturated due to fog, which it is not supposed to be. I do believe in this current drawing there is not a better way of making the background not intrude so much though.

I think I'm going to take a break from this specific piece and come at my game concept with a fresh start. This drawing, although 1000x better thanks to everyone who has commented, isn't quite what I had planned.

I have learned a whole crap ton doing these revisions and will definitely be applying this knowledge to the next version. #1 goal: contrast!

[Facet]

I've exhausted my talents, as I am a programmer and only rarely have dabbled in pixel art, so any comments or criticisms would be of great use.

You seem to have a good eye for it anyway!

I've missed the boat again, but I already made some notes so I’ll post ‘em, may be relevant to the new plan:

Really liked the dark clock & beams, I know they could be a little strong for the background but finding a way to make them work could be worth it; just more highly coloured characters might do it, but the idea of a toy-like feel brought to mind a sorta diorama effect that I think some 2D Kirby game did before, (can’t remember off-hand, more recently in Little Big Planet anyway).

Just casting close shadows of the foreground stuff (on multiply bending or similar) could push them off the background and emphasise that miniature feel, the strings and stuff are pretty cute too.



I think I might have seen some toy trees made on a lathe like a stack of cones, the current does bring to mind a slightly mechanical drill or bottle-brush feel.

I made this diagram for various side-scroller contrast strategies and stuff a little while back:

[r1k]

As facets diagram mentions, you can also make the foreground pop by making it brighter.  Might have overdone it here, changes the feel of the peice a little

[melbow]

I love those shadows Facet. It does the job of outlining without outlining. I worry though that as the scene gets more complex, and the background gains elements and depth (read: multi-layer background) then background elements would need to cast shadows like that too to be consistent and the whole thing falls apart.

And thank you for your compliment. I think I'm alright at determining what is "good" because I've been around art/artists a lot, but making something good is a whole different story. It's all trial and error right now -- meaning it takes me forever.

I'll be sure to post what I come up with next on this forum, because you guys are awesome and incredibly helpful.