[WIP] My first building

[Roach]

I've never ever drawn a building in my life. So this is really outside of my comfort zone. I decided to try to mix an old western saloon in with a pagoda.      I have no idea how to draw or texture shingles, (I tried to draw some but I think they look bad.) or texture wood. I haven't added any highlights or shadows yet. My light source will be coming form the left side "off the canvas" and facing a tad towards the building.

I also want this to be a background item, So I probably want to darken the colors.

Also either windows are too big or the door is too small. I haven't decided which yet.

[ovle]

very interesting idea) i bet this if first time anyone seeing pagoda-saloon. but if your goal is to learn - may be it's better to draw these things separately?)

does the clock make sense on it? it probably more fits to townhall or something. also it seems a bit too light/contrast with your wood.
you are right, the door is too small. may be you can make it more 'saloonish' rather than 'oriental'.
is the gray area at the bottom a shade of the 1st stage's roof, or a small elevation?

[Roach]

The clock was just an idea. I kind of wanted to try to fit a mid west clock tower in there. It's not complete by any means. Just there as an idea. Also yeah the gray part is a foundation for the pagoda. I just haven't added the implication of bricks yet. I'm currently working on making the door bigger.

[Roach]

Still working on it. Thought maybe a paper lantern instead of a clock. I have a long ways to go on this. I raised the height of the door as well.

Here's a version without the tori gate door design.

I can get a little more height on this one which I like, I will probably stick to this suggestion.

[Seefour]

hi!

I think the depth of this would benefit from adding highlight and shadow.  it seems you do have some occlusion here, but imo you could expand on that also.

Cheers!

[Roach]

@seefour
As stated in my post, I am refraining from adding shadows and highlights for now.

[Seiseki]

I think it needs a lot more contrast, try squinting your eyes as a test to see if the different parts stand out. It just blends together for me.

[Gil]

Are you pixeling these on a white background? The colors seem skewed and it's very typical of people working on backgrounds that are too bright. If so, never ever pixel on a white background, go for a neutral color (the new background colors here are specifically chosen for that purpose).

[Roach]

@gil Yea I made it on a white background, mainly because i didnt think I would be taking it this far. But I want to get past my fear of drawing buildings, so I'm trying.

I did a bit of work on some shading on the wood and partially the brick foundation. It's not nearly complete but its a start for something. I'm going to try to add some texture after I'm done shading.

[Cyangmou]

some things I wanted to point out:

1) as already mentioned: work on a gray background.
If you want to have more of a painterly approach and work from a photo reference to get your colors and values, or try to get a photograph with fitting colors and weather conditions, it can help a lot.
Another possibility would be to get a stylized piece of art, if you are after a certain style and aren't sure how to stylize colors.
For the edit I pasted a neutral 50% gray and for mine I used a realistic base overcast sky color.

2) The big and important point:
work on the shading of the big forms. Texturing is nice and especially if we start out, we try to overemphasize minor detail (bricks & textures) over major detail, like the big forms of the house.
The architecture of the house can be simplified down in a few primitive cubes and pyramids which cutted tops.
It's really important to indicate plane changes (like in the roof) with value changes.
For my edit I brightened up the roof where the plane gets an angle closer to the horizontal, this emphasizes that those planes are coming towards the viewer and add a sense of space.

3) also consider cast shadows to establish depth relationships between forms. I added cast shadows beneth the roof, to really emphasize depth there and give a clue how massive the roos is.
Actually if it'd be a realistic painting with overcast sky the shadow would be a lot more subtle, but I wanted to communicate the idea what's happening.

4) the lantern (?) is a sphere. It's a bad idea to draw everything stictly from the front and to leave out any perspective. If the lantern is a sphere and no disk, the lines are "wrapping" around it. The angle strongly depends on the horizon and size, but generally I'd suggest that you look up how the horizon is used in a perpectivical projection. Even if it's for a game, using some of these perspectivical effect can communicate towards the viewer a much better understanding of form.

[Roach]

@cyangmou Thank you very much for your post. It was very informative.
1. I have changed my background as suggested. I am thinking of a more of a desert setting on a sunny day. So I changed some ofthe colors to try to match that kind of match that setting.

2. I wasn't quite at this step yet on my last post, but your reference really helped me. I tried to focus on shading the bigger parts. I touched up the shadows of the roof, and parts of the wall.

3.I added a cast shadow of the entire building, I  know its not the best cast shadow, but I am willing to work on it.

4. I actually started out drawing the lantern with curved edges, but I thought it looked weird because I didn't color it at the time, and I got kind of frustrated with how it was looking. I tried to implement your suggestions.

Thank you for your feed back, your advice was very helpful. It looks like its really coming together now.

[Cyangmou]

the thing is you implemented the cast shadows as I did, but not at a part where it's missing and I left them out pretty intentionally to see if you understand what I mean.
Look at your art, and try to think where a cast shadow is missing.

Also I'd suggest you search on google a photograph or painting which captures the exact mood you want to go for and post it here, since with that it'd be a lot easier to criticize colors.

[Roach]

If you are talking about the wooden posts, I was leaving those out on purpose because I wasn't sure if those were the colors I was going to keep. I added cast shadows to them as well now. I tried looking for other spots for cast shadows. I added some to the brick foundation, some to the windows, completely shaded the saloon sign, and added some shadows to the lantern.


Here is an image which captures the mood I'm going for.
Spoiler

[Cyangmou]

was mainly talking about the bricks, but great that you overthought and added it =)

There are 2 things you might want to check in your reference:

a) the color of the cast shadow. In your painting the cast shadow moves just towards a darker value. However light behaves differently and the shadow surely has another color.

b) the reds on the roof.
Your color scheme features mainly blue and orange and both are muted - realistically so to speak.
Your red is extremely highly saturated and I'd say it's "cartoony"
I am sure if you look for references of western towns and find red painted wood it's a lot less saturated and darker.
On the other hand I am not too fond that red fits in the overall color scheme. A bright orange might do a better job. Muted greenblue, a blueish gray or other colors might work better for this particular kind of environment.

[Roach]

I've tried to recolor the roofs, and change the color of the cast shadows to try and better fit the reference. I'm not quite sure if I did it right still. I need work on picking the proper colors for the proper setting obviously, but this is as close to what I think I can get.
Spoiler

Perhaps the orange roof is a bit too saturated still, maybe they are all still too saturated. I think the muted green blue is my favorite out of them. Also perhaps the roof looks so cartoonish is because of the lack of detail, and shading compared to the rest of the building. I see the same thing with the bricks as well.