AuthorTopic: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island  (Read 5839 times)

Offline Ambroiz

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[WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

on: June 22, 2020, 03:01:00 pm
Hello everyone,

This is my first artwork for a side project.

   (scroll horizontaly to see the full image)


I would appreciate to get your feedback and suggestions, especially on these points:

-perspective/ shadows.
The overall perspective feels weird. Do you have any tips?

-Trees and leaves
The leaves don't feel right..

-Textures
The overall impression feels too "flat". See what I mean?

Feel free if you have other suggestions :)

Thanks for your help!

Ambroiz



Offline tessellata

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #1 on: June 28, 2020, 06:46:37 pm
The reflections are not pixelated. This makes the image feel awkward to me.

Add depth to the sky by incorporating generic dithering or whatever technique you enjoy.

In my opinion, flat is OK.

Offline Ambroiz

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #2 on: July 06, 2020, 08:53:37 am
Thank you @Tessellata for your feedback.
 I'll try generic dithering for the sky, and I'll also add some more details on the buildings (moss, rocks..) and see if it makes it better.

Offline fskn

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #3 on: July 06, 2020, 12:56:28 pm
I think the angle of the reflection is wrong... What we usually see when people try to do those is that they just mirror the image from top to bottom, and that's what it looks like you did there. So the perspective looks wrong, despite the camera being so far away and at a low angle.

So, for instance, if the islands have depth, I don't think you would be able to see all of the features that are just on top of the grass. And you would be seeing more of the underside of everything.

The colors of the shadowed parts and the lit parts being so close in luminance also help (in a bad way) to the feeling of flatness.

Offline Chonky Pixel

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #4 on: July 07, 2020, 10:13:23 am
When shading things, be careful not to fall into the trap of just embossing everything.

Only got a few mins so here's a rough example.



The left object looks more like a solid sphere because thought is given to how the light will fall on a 3D object and produce areas of shade and highlight.

The right image looks like an embossed circle, because shading is just applied to the top-left and bottom-right areas of the shape, with no thought given to the volume of the object and how it will interact with light falling on it.

I'm looking at your rocks especially here.

Offline Chonky Pixel

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #5 on: July 07, 2020, 01:53:03 pm
Your cloud:

Your stripes go some way towards giving the cloud volume, but they don't seem quite right. Here's a real cloud:



In general, the top parts are brighter and the underside is darker. You can see there's a sense of volume because there are individual parts with their own shading.

I attack clouds by creating a collection of spheres of different sizes, arranging until I get a nice shape. Then I'll mess things up. Fluff up edges, join or separate areas of highlight and rough them up, make the dark shading at the base of the cloud darker and join it up, that kind of thing. There are loads of ways to do clouds though, I broke some down in a recent thread. Have a look down, I think I'm the last to post on it. But my way may not suit you. Have a look at artists you admire and see if you can work out what's going on.

Here we are:

https://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=48706.0
« Last Edit: July 07, 2020, 01:55:39 pm by Chonky Pixel »

Offline Ambroiz

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #6 on: September 28, 2020, 10:56:38 pm
Hello,

Thanks Chonky Pixel for your feedback!

Here's my V2 of it: It looks better but I still have difficulties to get the shades right on almost everthing..
For instance, I can't manage to make the wall's texture fit with the rocks .It looks like that it is not the same style.
 
(Note that the cloud on the horizon is not mine, I added it justto see how it would look)

https://i   l  imgur.com/cIbJzMZ.

« Last Edit: December 03, 2020, 01:30:14 am by Ambroiz »

Offline eishiya

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #7 on: September 28, 2020, 11:09:38 pm
I think the walls and rocks don't fit together primarily due to the lighting, which is more intense and directional on the rocks, and more hazy/overcast-like on the buildings. The buildings have less contrast and form definition than the rocks.

Offline bengo

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #8 on: September 29, 2020, 07:11:59 pm
Firstly, this isn't considered "true" pixel art- there are gradients on the sky and water. Also, I wouldn't add pixel art in there that isn't yours. Try your best to do your own thing.

Arguably, it's also against the rules to do this (https://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=2002.0). I'm not a mod so I can't say whether it truly is or not but it's definitely pushing it. So I'd say refrain from using other artist's work ever, even if you tell us it's not yours. We're not here to help them, we're here to help you!  :y: ;)

This is quite large for pixel art, it defeats the purpose a bit when it becomes too large. Pixel art is about pixel precision, controlling every pixel so when it gets to a certain size... why not just paint it? I'll link some examples below of pixel art that's still fairly large but much smaller than yours, take note how effective it is:
https://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/25321.htm
https://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/11415.htm
https://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/17123.htm

I'd say pick a portion of this maybe make it a bit smaller then try to focus on that. It's quite a large project you have at the moment. Neat scenery but it will definitely take awhile.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2020, 08:45:52 pm by bengo »

Offline Chonky Pixel

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Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island

Reply #9 on: October 12, 2020, 10:27:45 am
There's a couple of things I noticed in the more recent post:

 - The roof tiles on the right-most building.

The roof is actually going inwards as you get closer to the top. It's not a rectangle with perspective, like a road or a runway. It's actually a trapezoid with the top side shorter than the bottom. Any perspective effect will be small. However, the tiles you've put on there act like the surface is a rectangle and follow the lines as if there's lots of perspective involved. If I look at it with those eyes, it becomes a comically long piece of road at a shallow angle.

Lessen the perspective effect and allow there to be fewer tiles across the top.

Here's a photo to show what I mean.

https://grouptegula.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tegula-Roofing-Grey-Tiled-Roof-PH-2.jpg