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[morfius]

Hi, I am making a pixel banner for someones forums, and I have begun shading the mountains, however, I am not entirely content and would look some advice. What I think it lacks is contrast and depth i.e. it could do with more bumps and grooves to give it a much sharper rocky look.





I hope someone can give me some advice on how to do this.

Thanks for any help

[morfius]

Has anyone got any suggestions?

Sorry for the bump

[M.E.]

Hello Morfius,

The first thing that I would like to offer is that you start coloring the whole
thing first before you attempt to make a structure/texture on it.
Please start with removing the rectangular shape you have at the moment
it feels very unrealistic.
Select your light source. At the moment I think you want it on the top
left. Use the direction of the light source and your darkest color to
make a basis. Once you feel comfortable with the direction of the
shadow you can fill in the other areas with a middle tone.
Then you use a darker color between the darkest and the middle tone
to make some details here and there.
The highlights can be used at the end.
When you want grass in front of the mountains I suggest to use
a couple of different greens to make kind of planes between the foreground
and the background.

Good luck.

Best regards from

M.E.

[candiru]

Maybe you will find this thread helpful

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3511.0

My tip: you should try to visualize what you want the picture to look like in the end. The way you started shading it (especially the 2nd picture) it is too busy, with small bright and dark splotches all over.
Decide on the lightsource, make the dark and light areas bigger, add some color tints - e.g. make the shadows purplish and the highlights yellowish, maybe add a second layer in the distance to add depth (see http://www.wetcanvas.com/ArtSchool/Landscapes/LearningFromPhotos/Sunsets/Atmospheric/index.html). At some point you may want to clean up the lines.

P.S. Start by doing what M.E. said, color the whole picture first without texturing and shading, use only a few colors (highlights, midtones, shadows). Then once you're happy with this base, you can start adding details.

[yosh64]

hey

I've been waiting for further progress before posting... I think it's hard to give advise or whatever, when you don't know how it all looks as a whole, so I dunno.

cya

[morfius]

Thanks guys for the tips, i'll be sure to use them to restart this piece when I have some time.