Let's get it started, eh?

[crab2selout.png]

Here's something I finished up the other day. It's sort of a pimp/prince guy I want to use for a platform/puzzle game I'm thinking of.


I made a little mockup as well. I'm not really looking for any crits on the mockup as it was mostly a test to come up with a style and colour scheme that looked good. Comments on the mockup are welcome though.

[Evan]

Both pieces are good, but in my honest opinion, they don't seem to go together. I mean, you have the pimp guy, pink suit, green trim. Then you have this castle with bricks and jumps and keys, and it just doesn't fit. I mean, I can't imagine a game where the premise is "Oh no, my hoes done escaped into that castle. Bettah go get 'em."

Granted that's probably not your idea, but that's what it sort of looks like.

Also, for a platforming game, he looks a little bit tall. The fact that he is the exact size of the tunnel he's walking through kind of bugs me. Mind you I am a bit calaustrophobic, but it still makes me a bit uncomfortable.

But remember, they are both good graphics.

[Godslayer]

Hmm. I'd say he'd have to be pretty pimped out to stand like that all the time, no?

I do agree with Stairwaytoevan in that the two pieces are proficient on their own, but together, one or the other looks out of place. Also, to satisfy my foolish curiosity, what is the green? Is it a kercheif, or a plump undershirt?

[DarkSword]

They contrast with each other like hell! What's a colorful cartoon pimp doing in Castlevania?

Getting away from the question of whether or not they go together, why don't we look at the actuall art. It's easy enough to say that thay don't match. What I really want to do is talk about the environment and background a bit, but I have to adress the pimp first.

That pimp is all fine in his own right. good use of color theory. There are a few nagging problems, though. Fiest and foremost, that stace makes him look like he just had back surgery. You might want to change that so that his arms rest at his side. Unless, of course, your intention was for him to have just had back surgery.
The shape of his shirt doesn't work. It's longer at the back than it is at the front. Is that some kind of pimp thing?

I'm probably safe in assuming that the environment is bassed on Castlvania. If you look at a screenshot of any Castlvania game, you'll notice that everything is crammed with detail (except Circle of the Moon).



Here's a screen from Castlevania: Harmony of dissonance. Maybe you can use that as a refrence.

[crab2selout.png]

Actually, castlevania was pretty far from my mind when I was doing this. When I drew up that first tile I was trying to make something abstract and cartoonish so I just drew semi random squares representing light and dark areas. I kinda don't see how you would see those bricks as being realistic. I did make a more realistic tile at one point and it looks fairly different from the ones in  my mockup.

I get what you're saying about how the tiles clash stylistically with the prince, though. I'm going to take a closer look at him and try to figure out what would kind of shading, colours and details would make the tiles go better with him.

For his stance, to explain myself, I had been looking through this great little website/art resource a while ago, and wanted to try out this thing that was mentioned about curving the spine of your people to make their stances more interesting(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm : It's almost 3/4 of the way down the page near the perspective stuff and after some b&w portraits of a girl.). Looking back and forth between them, I think my arm position might be exaggerating the effect more than I had intended, I'm gonna try and work the arm into a new position, like the one in the website, and see if that helps some. I'll fix the bottom of the shirt up too.

If kerchief = neck tie sort of thing, then yes it is a kerchief. If you zoom in and look near the collar, you should see a knot and also see how the green goes into the collar. I thought it would make for a nice little secondary animation during a walk cycle.

And about the height of the walls, I can easily make them taller if I want to. They're about 2 and a 1/2 tiles high at the moment and moving it to 3 tiles high would give about 10 pixels of space.

One last thing, I forgot to attach this in my first post. It's a reference for my pixel guy. http://images.google.ca/images?q=castlequest&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images click the second link on the page. I didn't use it as a direct reference on my pixels, I hadn't actually looked at the box art for a couple months now( which is why I forgot to attach it), but it's obvious from looking at my pixels that there's a pretty direct link between them. Sorry about that, I'll try not to forget any references again.

 
I'll have an update again when I've edited the arm and shirt. I'll also try and make some replacement tiles that go better with my guy.

[crab2selout.png]

here's an update


No update on the mockup though. I'm haven't a lot of trouble coming up with a tile design that doesn't clash. Any suggestions here would be appreciated.

[DarkSword]

The new sprite is much improved.

I think the best way to make the character match the environment is to keep the simplistic environment, and increase the contrast and saturation. The other way would be to ditch the character, but I'm sure you don't want to do that. It's a very nice sprite.

Edit: you might want to consider removing the black inside outlines.

[Mercury Rising]

I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with a tile design that doesn't clash. Any suggestions here would be appreciated.

May I suggest something pink/purple.  Or a club scene?  With pink and purple cushions and a bar.  Hey, it would be original .  Had to do the glow.

[crab2selout.png]

I tried using lots of black and high contrasting colours. Replaced the three pixel border around tile with 1 pixel border. I also moved the head forward one pixel in my platform character, and added some slopes, a key and a new door. The key looks a tad crappy with the yellow outline, so I'll probably drop that. Aside from that, I think the colour of the tiles work a lot better now.



link to x2 version: http://img330.imageshack.us/img330/2848/bricktilesmockup2x21mp.png

EDIT: fixed up the glow on the key

[DarkSword]

That works much better. The prince matches his environment wery well. Also, the new bricks tesselate much better than either of the old ones do. Nice choice of colors, also.

And about the key, I think it gets enough contrast from its lumination to set it apart from the background. If you don't think so, you could make it a different color. I don't think it needs that though.