Critique > Pixel Art
[WIP] Need Help to Improve this Battle Background
Sammy:
Hey guys,
I made this battle background for a game. Any advice would be appreciated. I need to improve it!
(Haven't worked on the river at all yet)
The bottom space is where the character's status and info would go, so I left it blank for now.
eliddell:
Random points, in no particular order:
Your light source appears to be top-right, but the foliage of the trees (the nearer ones especially) doesn't reflect the "right" part very well. Put more shadow on the bottom-left.
What's that spotted grey stripe just below the horizon supposed to be? It looks like the side of a rock cut or gravel pit, sort of.
Shadowing on the cave-mouths of the mound things in the background is completely wrong for a top-right light source. The one on the right especially should also cast some shadow.
The trunk of the largest tree on the far right doesn't work well for two reasons. First, what I assume was meant to be bark texture looks more like the lines where someone glued the tree back together—if you want to try again, go for something more vertical. Secondly, while there are a few kinds of trees where the branches stick out at right angles from the trunk, generic deciduous hardwoods like the ones you seem to be trying to depict aren't among them. You want to have the branches either spread out from a crotch at a level near where the leaves begin, or have them angle up rather than curve. I'd suggest searching for "winter tree photo" or similar to get an idea of what branch patterns in real trees look like.
I'm not sure those irregular stripes in the sky are a good idea. I'd even them out and maybe even do some dithering or blending with single-pixel horizontal lines in alternating colours.
I'll ignore the river for the present since you say you haven't worked on it yet.
Hope that helps.
Sammy:
So here's the updated version based on @eliddell 's critiques:
--- Quote from: eliddell on February 01, 2021, 08:57:28 pm ---What's that spotted grey stripe just below the horizon supposed to be? It looks like the side of a rock cut or gravel pit, sort of.
--- End quote ---
: That's some cliffs in the very far distance.
--- Quote ---Shadowing on the cave-mouths of the mound things in the background is completely wrong for a top-right light source.
--- End quote ---
: I couldn't figure out what to do exactly to fix that unfortunately but I tried. Hope it's better this time ???
eliddell:
Okay. First of all, it now looks much better to me overall. The cave on the left could still use a little more shadow inside (the one on the right is good, though).
Now. Your cliffs. If they're really far away, they should be affected by atmospheric perspective. That means that there would be no details visible, and their colour should be shifted toward that of the sky. Think of the furthest background layer in a fancy parallax scrolling game background: it's really just a silhouette, right? Like that. Currently, the cliffs have too much detail and aren't at all bluish, so I interpret them as being behind the caves, but still only in the middle distance.
Sammy:
Thanks for your critiques eliddell. So this is the updated version. If anyone thinks it can be better, I'm looking forward to hearing about how to do it! :)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version