[WIP] Terrible Hills

[madartiststan]

Ok, dudes. I'm making a little spring scene and I'm completely botched. It looks really jacked up to me and disturbing. So crit it very hard.



PLEASE! 

[MrNormS]

Way too many shades of green.  I also suggest going outside and have good hard look at what things actually look like.  Look at the colours of things like grass, and think about texture.  Also, though many cartoons and kids' drawings might have you believe that the sun is this huge yellow blotch in the sky, it is not.  I should also hope that you don't go outside and stare at the sun; perhaps a little browsing on flickr might help on that one.  Look at the real world and also go look at the colours in other peoples' works.  Make sure you look at the colours relative to each other and not just on their own.

[Sherman Gill]

What is with newbies and drawing hills with the sun over them? It makes shading 100x more difficult then a sprite or small object.

Okay.
-Too little contrast.
-There should be some hue variation. Also, that's a really bad green for anything, except maybe some man-made things or gems.
-Sun is too large, and too yellow. And not bright enough. Of course, this isn't really important, since using symbolism in art is perfectly fine (Except for most cases that involve anatomy).


My advice is either A) colors some line work from the line art thread or B) create a small object or sprite. If you draw a sprite make either a monster or a human with enough armor to get rid of all need for proper anatomy-drawing skills. Make sure you define a light source (Where light is coming from) before you start shading it.


Edit: That took me more than 10 minutes to write? Wow.
Also, dang you Spartacus! Er... MrNormS.

[madartiststan]

Ok, thanks. I'll try a darker green. And the sun isn't going to be in the final copy. I just drew it to get an idea of where I want my light sorurce to be. But, everything you've all said was very helpful. I'm at school right now and I'll edit it when I get home. 

[Crow]

You should go a little bigger for our tournament Sera ;> All I have to say

[madartiststan]

Thanks for the crits. I'm much more satisfied about how this is going now. And Crow 128x64 is just as hot as anything else. 

[Larwick]

Do not dither for the moment. If atall, for this piece. That's my suggestion. 

[madartiststan]

Not really sure as to how I should shade it otherwise? 

[Sherman Gill]

Fill in non dithered areas, and then dither those to smooth the transition.
I believe the general 'law'. I just kinda go crazy when I dither.

[madartiststan]

So Sherman you're suggesting to add more shades or use the existing shades back to back to leave no open spaces? 

[Sherman Gill]

No! Neither of those!
Okay, lemme try again: Don't dither it until you have all the shading 'blocked out', meaning no dithering on the object until you have the shadows defined.

[MrNormS]

I'm not sure what you're aiming for but it still looks like you're in four year old mode.  Shading a green blob isn't really helpful in learning anything.

[khorin]

What happened to your other one?

[philipptr]

Tried to make a very very fast edit, with following changes:
- changed the greens a bit (more contrast, a small hue shift)
- reshaped the hills and tried to seperate them a bit more
- removed any dithering (1.would have taken longer 2. imo you should start dithering when you're happy with the shading)
- reshaded the hills
- added some colour for the sky
- added one buffer color for antialiasing
- removed darkest green since I didn't need it for this approach at shading
- removed sun (didn't fit into my background / doesn't work with this horizontal stripe thing)

I hope it helps a bit. Its still far from perfect but like I said it was a very very fast edit

[Rydin]

This is a major improvement, great work philipptr!
I would say the next thing you should do is some selective dithering--don't go all out, but have some as compared to none...I would suggest some dithering between brightest and next brightest at least, and some dithering on the right most hill between the dark shade and the middle one.
If you were feeling up to it, I'd say that you could increase the depth by using grey-er, less saturated greens on the farthest back mountain, and maybe add little clouds close to the horizon and maybe a bigger one up higher.
Like I said earlier, this is amazing compared to what it started as, and if you go further, it would be even more so.

Keep pixelling!

[fil_razorback]

Er...I think he isn't the one who started, is he ?

[Rydin]

Oh my god! My bad  ....
I'm so very sorry madartiststan; let me try to undo my damage...

You are on the right track with the low color count, but they should maybe be a bit more dynamic--in other words, each color should hold more weight.  Your middle green is good, but you could change out one of the slightly darker greens for a more dramatically darker green. Since grass is soft, you don't want the highlight to be too bright, you are doing good there.
Depending on how deep or shallow you want the picture to look, it's all going to depend on how you separate each hill.  If you want a very vast looking landscape, like what philipptr's edit is going for, you are going to want each hill to be separated with strong dark greens and highlights; but if you are going for a more immediate look to the hills, you are on the right track by keeping each hill close together.
Regardless to the depth you are trying to get though, I would suggest a more gradient sky, because the one bright blue is causing a more "overcast" effect than sky...if nothing else, maybe make the sky a bit more dark and rich.
As for the sun; I wouldn't remove it, as philiptr did, but rather, I'd move it to be behind horizon, half showing--I've never realistically saw a sun in the corner of the picture, but I have seen them on the horizon.

As the piece stands, it's faulty in a few places, but hopefully this and what others said can guide you to make it a bit more solid.  Either way, keep pixelling!

[madartiststan]

Thanks everyone for the crits. And here's a NEW edit. I tried to go more in the direction Phillip was going in. 



I think it's looking better.