AuthorTopic: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA  (Read 3016 times)

Offline Adam

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Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

on: October 14, 2018, 07:27:26 pm
Hi!
I'm working on some art for a Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures design in EGA. This picture is one of the five in the title sequence, and I'd be happy to read your thoughts on the composition, the rendering (though nothing further away than the protagonists is cleaned up yet) or anything about the piece.

Nice. Now do the whole thing with the EGA palette!

Offline Ma3vis

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #1 on: October 15, 2018, 03:56:09 pm
Critiques:

-w/e the purple and metal loop in the foreground is, it's unreadable and hard to interpret
-the male protagonist's hat is a bit rounded
*if it's a medieval helmet with chain mail underneath, it needs better indications
*if it's a Victorian era (?) bloodborne/hellsing style, the hat needs a wider brim
-the male protagonist's front leg is also broken

the sword and female look quite nice far as i can tell. but much of the other objects such as the cave background still looks very rough in draft so it's hard to give much more thoughts on it

Offline Adam

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #2 on: October 17, 2018, 06:36:06 pm
Thank you for your reply!

-w/e the purple and metal loop in the foreground is, it's unreadable and hard to interpret
It is supposed to be a shortsword, with the purple part being its crossguard. I recolored the guard to brown, but I guess it does not enhance readablity.
-the male protagonist's hat is a bit rounded
*if it's a medieval helmet with chain mail underneath, it needs better indications
*if it's a Victorian era (?) bloodborne/hellsing style, the hat needs a wider brim
Your first guess gets it right. Added some visual clues to give it a bit more definition.
-the male protagonist's front leg is also broken
I am not seeing what you mean. Could you specify where?
the sword and female look quite nice far as i can tell. but much of the other objects such as the cave background still looks very rough in draft so it's hard to give much more thoughts on it
Made some cleanup on the left side, what do you think about it now?



I am not sure I should indicate chainmail on the drows far away with dithering. Any thoughts about it?
Nice. Now do the whole thing with the EGA palette!

Offline eriophora

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #3 on: October 19, 2018, 02:11:54 am
I feel like you're missing out on a lot of opportunity in general to make this scene more dynamic. Try adding even more shadows, more exaggerated lighting, and perhaps try mixing and dithering colours to add more variety. Here is a quick edit where I emphasized shadows and the mage woman's light.

Offline Kiana

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #4 on: October 19, 2018, 02:55:32 am
Compositionally, you have multiple elements fighting for attention, i.e. there’s no clear visual hierarchy for what you want the viewer to be looking at. It’s a bit more obvious looking at the piece in monochrome:



Currently, the (near) dead center of the picture and the very bottom right have about equal visual weight, with the light of the background and the slightly higher contrast on the left side (thanks to the dark silhouettes bordering the light) causing the eye to sweep mostly horizontally and dart between the two high contrast points. The composition is also relatively symmetrical. (It may be worth noting that the horizontalness and evenness could imply calmness or staticness - but the color scheme seems to speak otherwise.) It’s kind of hard to describe all of this in text, so if I’m not being clear, let me know.

Naturally, the viewer will look at areas of high contrast first and then the flow and contrast of the rest of the piece will dictate what they look at next. You usually either want to “trap” the viewer’s eye in a visually interesting path which loops, or guide them to the point where the next action will take place (if in a video or animated format).

May I ask what the focal point is intended to be, and your intention for the picture, so that it’s easier to suggest how you can get your intentions for the piece across?
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Offline Adam

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #5 on: October 24, 2018, 05:36:27 am
Thank you for your replies!

@eriophora
I'll definiately include your suggestions, thanks!

@Kiana
The calmness of the composition you mentioned truly shows on the grayscale image! I've already lerned something.
Honestly I was not thinking about the focus of the image while sketching it out. The target audience is the FRUA community, the image should communicate that the game takes them back to the well known lava cave under Dracandros' tower, and they will encounter the drow there again.

I like the look of the grayscale image, and -after considering what you have written- thought of using it to concentrate the focus on the party to enhance the danger in their situation. Unfortunately EGA is not a palette that shines when it comes to grayscale, but I thought some colder blue colors would also deemphasize the parts I'm trying to defocus:



What do you think?
Nice. Now do the whole thing with the EGA palette!

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #6 on: October 24, 2018, 03:57:38 pm
honestly that just makes it look all trippy and psychadelic.

That's not a bad thing, but it does make your overall composition a lot harder to read now.

I don't think you're gonna be able to fix this just with color changes.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Adam

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #7 on: October 24, 2018, 08:20:22 pm
You might be right, though I think the trippiness is more due to the blue clashing with the red, maybe even the chromostereopsis effect caused by them.

I still think that desaturation deemphasizes and could be used to shift the focus.

How about true grayscale:


I also lifted the drider to tilt the left side ambushers and break the horizontal composition a bit.
Nice. Now do the whole thing with the EGA palette!

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Drow ambush in lava cave EGA

Reply #8 on: October 24, 2018, 10:41:40 pm


I got this playing around with the colors some. Aseprite doesn't seem to come packaged with an ega color pack so this is most assuredly not accurate, but just swapping these colors highlights a few problem areas.

Notably, you've got a bunch of noise and strange color artefacts along the cave roof that make it hard to read, including some leftover examples of that blue/purple you've used for the foreground details. There's like four or five different colors being used just for the cave background, and it makes it feel pretty noisy.

The yellow you were using before really clashed with the wizard chick's glowing lights also, and the red was a bit distrating around the edges.

I highly reccomend you do another pass on the backdrop, simplify it so it's not fighting for attention with the shadowy figures of the drow and the characters in the foreground like it was.

Hopefully this helps some.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |