[WIP] Largish Castle

[Nomadic_Cupcake]

I posted this on Pixeljoint and then learned of this place. Me, wanting all feedback and CC possible am posting it here too.
Ok, a bit of background first. The castle is for a game I am making. This castle was once used for defence, but the vampires have pretty much eliminated most of the threats surrounding it. It once had to hold off tribes of 13 foot minotaurs, elves, orcs and the occasional human. The time is sort of a strange mix of a midieval steampunk with a few more modern features thrown in (eg. grafitti, electricity, MINOR combustion engine concepts, and complex metalworking).

Ok, here is the floorplan for the base of the castle, so you get an idea of whats too come.

(some aditions have yet to be added to this)

Here is what I'm starting this with:

(MUCH, MUCH thanks to jalonso from pixeljoint, not sure if he's on here)

Couple thing that I don't like are the corner stones and the wierd area circled in red. The stones seem to be comming out of the wall rather then having been put into it. I want them to be rough and bulky, but still look like part of the castle. Maybe I should  make them bigger. The problem area is explained in the picture. I might have a solution for this one, I'm going to try it and see if it works 

ooh, and the red funky roof area is currently in transition, It was a bad red tile thing with a wierd green spillage.


Update:

[EvilEye]

Couple thing that I don't like are the corner stones and the wierd area circled in red. The stones seem to be comming out of the wall rather then having been put into it. I want them to be rough and bulky, but still look like part of the castle. Maybe I should  make them bigger. The problem area is explained in the picture. I might have a solution for this one, I'm going to try it and see if it works 

ooh, and the red funky roof area is currently in transition, It was a bad red tile thing with a wierd green spillage.

The stones look like they are popping out because of the lighter areas you blotched around randomly. Then to make matters worse you made some of the edges black. So it gives a rippling effect.

The wall optical illusion problem is simple. You don't have the wall out far enough. Look at the length of the top part of the wall vs the length of the sloping roof. You need at least 3 squares forward by my measurements.



Your floor plan failed to take into account the full width of your wall due to the sloping roof part.

[Nomadic_Cupcake]

The stones look like they are popping out because of the lighter areas you blotched around randomly. Then to make matters worse you made some of the edges black. So it gives a rippling effect.

The wall optical illusion problem is simple. You don't have the wall out far enough. Look at the length of the top part of the wall vs the length of the sloping roof. You need at least 3 squares forward by my measurements.

Ok. I'll look at this and make some ajustment.
I might just take the stones out and do something else. I'll try changing the texture and edge of them.

Your floor plan failed to take into account the full width of your wall due to the sloping roof part.

Yeah. I added the width after making the main wall because realising how thin and weak the wakk would probably be. I plan on updating it and putting together the second floor.

[Cure]

just to let you know, it's advised in the pixel art community not to take artwork directly from another artist. jalonso made an edit for you to study and learn from, you're not improving your art by taking the roof directly; nothing is learned here.

[Nomadic_Cupcake]

I plan to redo the roof once I figure out the exact style I want. It will be based of what jalonso showed me. I'm only using what he did as a base for shading and general shape. I hope to do this next.

ok, so the problem areais fixed. I have some ideas as for the tight space. I plan on adding a tower appendage.



I sketched a rough outline for rocks at the base of the castle. they cover up a quite a bit... I'm wondering if I should lower them.
I'm hoping to make the rocks sharply slope upwarsa a little ways, somewhat like a huge clawed beast dragged it's claws up along them. I'm going to look for some good refrence pictures and sleep on this.


EDIT/ADDITION::
Ok. I did the roof and some other stuff. I'm still going to change the roof some more, but as the castle progresses so that it matches better.

 
The rocks will be kinds difficult. I can't find any good reference images to use either.
 
In the process of loking for reference images i found this: [my son sanctuary]
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&ei=-xsvSt1bhMbJBZi2lf0L&resnum=0&q=my%20son%20sanctuary&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
 
Would stuff like this be a good thing to incorperate in the castle, or would it be pushing it?

[Nomadic_Cupcake]

I worked some on the rocks. the interface for the mockup is a little difficult
any CC on any of it?

[ptoing]

You need to properly construct more. You have quite some MC Escher action going on here.



It looks like the heights of the walls those 2 marked roofs are sitting on are equal height.
So far so good. But the roof are way different size, so how can the wall on top of them line up flat? This is spatially impossible.
So unless you are aiming for MC Escher type stuff (which I doubt, because if you were you would probably do it more pronounced) you should be constructing more.

[Nomadic_Cupcake]

the roofs were suppose to be different sizes, but now that i look at it i don't really like it. I'll fiz that.

Update comming soon.

[ptoing]

I know that the roofs are supposed to be different sizes. But the problem is that if that is the case the walls on top and below them can not be equal height and still match up.

[Gil]

You're not constructing a piece this big rigorously enough. You NEED to design the whole thing in two or three color building blocks first. Lay out a correct 1:1 floor plan. Right now you're just going crazy shading stuff and adding stuff before you even checked it to be correct. As a result there's already big errors in the construction and I can assure you that it'll become a huge headache at the end.

[mach]

I messed around with it a bit.

[Mathias]

so then, what exactly is wrong with the corner right now? Is it the jegged edge that looks good on an outside corner, but not on inside? You may need a version suitable only for inside corners then.

And it hits me that Gil is spot on - why aren't there testing color blocks everywhere, feigning the real thing, testing and making everything fits together before the finely detailed versions are done? This thing should still be in rough draft mode.