AuthorTopic: Moar castles, moar clouds!  (Read 8013 times)

Offline cels

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Re: Moar castles, moar clouds!

Reply #10 on: April 07, 2015, 05:47:02 pm
Thanks a lot for your help, guys :)

There's two situations I really struggle to deal with when I'm getting feedback. The first situation is when someone offers a critique I don't understand or agree with at all, and I don't want to seem rude or unappreciative. The second situation is when someone does a great edit and I just want to copy pixel by pixel, because I can't really think of how I would do it different, much less improve upon it. And this case falls firmly into the second situation. Those were some really great edits!


Question: Does it make sense for the shadows to cast a shadow on the road? Or would the shadow be nearly invisible given the lack of strong, direct sunlight on the ground?


@jahasaja: As much as I love old school pixel art castles with moving flags, I'm afraid that feels a bit too cheerful for this piece. I'm going for a sense of foreboding, you see :)

@Drazelic: Good call, I think. I removed the house from the bottom left corner and replaced it with a more simple one. Maybe this one is too big and eyecatching as well? Is the composition better with a bit more dark space in the bottom left?

@Decroded and Cyangmou: The details you added are amazing, and it's cool that you went in different directions with the colours. I will keep working on the details and the AA on the statues and castle.  I'll play around with the colours, I haven't quite settled on those yet.
- The closest statue is actually supposed to be missing an arm. But it's hard to really show that the statue is broken, without just making it look weird. I wonder if my choice is to either have more statues visibly broken (e.g. broken in half) or simply let all statues be whole, in order not to confuse the viewer. Really interesting that you saw him holding the sword that way. A cool interpretation that I didn't intend. I may go with the sword-idea if I can't make it very clear that the arm is broken.
- I'm surprised by the way you've rendered the "mage" in the robes. Because I wanted him to hold a staff with his left arm and be facing the viewer, but now it looks like he's holding it with his right arm and facing away from us. I left him untouched in this edit, but I guess I will need to pixel it better.
- I really like the use of window lights to guide the eye and make a sort of line towards the castle. Very cool.



I really spent a lot of time looking at your edits, but if there's some points I've missed, feel free to let me know. It's not necessarily something I have disagreed with, it may be I simply didn't notice it. But like I said, I'm still working on the details and the AA on the statues and the castle.

« Last Edit: April 07, 2015, 05:53:06 pm by cels »

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Moar castles, moar clouds!

Reply #11 on: April 07, 2015, 06:20:54 pm
castle shading worked imop best in sahjasa's edit (very dark frontplane, little biut brightened sideplanes)

THe mountains had a much nicer line and flow in your earlier attempt.

In terms of adding detail I'd consider doing it at the statues and tone everyting back down like in your earlier version(s)
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