Forest Scene (WIP)

[AlcopopStar]

Lovely image and a lovely edit from Decroded.

One thing i'll mention in is the business of your rendering.

This is a hard issue to explain but you get this problem from a lot of early to mid 19th landscape artists. They had a tendency to render every detail on the scene with equal importance, this made lovely but in some ways incredibly uncanny and ugly works.  The human eye in fact sees a lot more like the impressionists would later paint similar scenes. Broad strokes, implied details, and sharper focus only on the focal points of the image.

Decrodeds edit is an improvement in this regard, even though its a bit rough look at the way he tackles the grass; drawing clusters and directions over each individual blade. Often all we need to read that something is there is a hint of light or shadow, a touch of texture. Decroded's tree benefits in a similar way, despite being ostensibly less rendered.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't render things. Just that you should treat the light in your image in a more holistic way.

I hope that makes sense.

[Decroded]

Agreed, especially on hinting.
sometimes less is more so and it's lots of fun to experiment when and where to add detail and where to leave it out etc.
This is something I found especially hard to achieve when my face was right up in the pixels so a second window of ur work at 200% or whatever really helps get an overview.

Experimenting with grass and fur are excellent ways to get started with this.
Perhaps someone has some good articles they can share about this because.

My edit was rougher than I would have liked to post (too much study to do) both in colours and line work (mouse painting sucks lol) but hopefully something can be gained from the overall vibe of it.

[breakfast]

Hi guys!

Thanks so much for taking the time to do that paintover & for the suggestions! You're both right, the textures are too frequent and the lighting is unclear. I wanted to make this piece full of textures and interesting things to look at since I blew it up to 4x it's original size for my website background, but about halfway through the piece I realized I was in waaaayyy too deep with all the texturing & lack of reference photos. I had already laid out so much it would have taken twice as long to go back through and delete it all. I tried to clear it up some (it was actually somehow MORE textured before, haha) but unless I wanted to restart the whole process it just made more sense to leave it as is, view it as a learning experience, and move on to the next piece. I'd already been working on this for months and needed to get my website re-released with the new background ASAP for the next business year.

I'm actually really fond of the more minimalist style of pixel art -- More clusters and less individually detailed pieces. It's something I (clearly) don't have much experience with and I would really like to get better at. I am about to start on the backgrounds for my personal game project, and I want to learn a lot during the process so I am going to post my progress on these forums. If you guys could help spread your wisdom in those posts I would be really grateful.

[Decroded]

You're welcome!
Your piece looks great anyway especially considering you're pretty new to pixel art 
Most importantly, you've learned and grown from the experience as that's what this place is all about.
Time lost attempting and failing at changes is knowledge gained.
Perhaps in 6 months you'll come back for another edit 

I am about to start on the backgrounds for my personal game project, and I want to learn a lot during the process so I am going to post my progress on these forums. If you guys could help spread your wisdom in those posts I would be really grateful.

Oooo I do love game backgrounds
Whenever you're ready to post, be sure to briefly share whatever details you have about the game.

Most importantly are things like:
- Gameplay
- Setting (cyberpunk, fantasy etc.)
- Character (it helps to know something about the hero)
- Desired resolution and grid size (or just open discussion about what's appropriate if not sure)
- Target platforms (mobile, PC)