Bamboo Forest

[Impossible Realms]

I've been working on some graphics for a high-bit project of mine. The furthest layer of the background (the night sky) does have some dirty tools used (a gradient and some air brushing), but all the rest of the image was made entirely in pixel art, so I figured it'd be alright to post the mockup here.



Feedback greatly appreciated, as this is one of my first attempts at doing a background!

[eishiya]

The bamboo looks more like strange poles than bamboo. In most of the stalks, the segments are way too close together. The segment separators in bamboo don't stick out quite so sharply, either. Here's some reference. Notice how it's more of a gradual widening. Here's another, here the transition is sharper, but again, notice how it's not a ring around the stalks. It's a gradual widening, and it has a seam in the middle.
Artists often exaggerate the seams like this, making the wide areas more prominent (but still with a smooth transition) and making the seams more defined.

Lastly, it all feels rather busy. Try to have the further stalks fade into the ambient colour more, and have lower contrast/fewer colours.

[MysteryMeat]

It may also help you to look at actual photos of bamboo. Bamboo's a plant, and that means occasionally sprigs of it will pop up along the length. It's a good way to break up monotony and make the design of the bamboo look properly organic!
Also, it does flower off at the top like a tree. Important to note!


Look at this picture and try to take some cues from how the bamboo sticks grow here!

[Impossible Realms]

Hey, thanks for the feedback you guys! Made some changes and have now uploaded the most recent version (EDIT: accidentally posted the wrong link at first, and so the image didn't show up. Whoops, should have previewed it first...):



(Apologies for this taking so long, summer is sadly a time of year I typically don't have much free time, oddly enough) This version makes the gaps between the bumps on the trunks wider and smoothed them out like eishiya recommended, though I'm not quite sure if it should be smoothed out further (though the changes already made do make it look nicer IMHO). Also added a few leaves here and there to the closest layer of the background and made the further layers gradually fade into the background. I'm also still debating whether I should make some of the stalks bend slightly or not.

But yeah, thanks a lot for the feedback, I found it helpful, and once again, criticism is greatly appreciated!

[eishiya]

I would increase the distance between segments even more. If you look at the ref, you'll find that the distance between segments is several times the diameter of the stem.

On the distant/thinnest stalks, the seams stick out too much, even though it's just one pixel. In those, I think it would look better to have a completely flat silhouette, and to only show the seams with colours.

On the left sides of the nearer stalks, the seam looks too prominent because it appears to stick out more, since the seam is all lit while the rest of the stem isn't. Shading those sticky-out parts so that they're closer in style to the stems should help.