Brave Guy vs Drill Crew

[junkboy]

Decided to finish off this doodle I've had in a folder at work for the past six months or so. Nothing much to say about it really, it's just stupid, saturated fun. High color count due to the gradient in the background. Have at it!

Update:

[Mathias]

Wow, lovely! I'm not much of a pixel nazi so I don't mind the gradient, it's nice. Sky gradients pack in depth like nothing else. The unique (assuming this is all original; not based on something) and strong design is refreshing.

Before opening this I rectified "drill crew" with a breakdancing squad. Must be the negative influence from the worthless and raunchy 'Kicking it Old School' movie I just watched 3/4 of (why did I watch that?). So I expected some urban blah scene, but this is so much better, heightening the pleasant surprise I think.

I don't even mind the 2x zoom, I assume you intend your audience to see it in that mode, so why not. Onto something actually useful . . .

Your title implies the brave dude on the grassy knoll there is "against" the drill crew, there being a mutual enmity, yet he seems like more of a passive spectator, seeing them off as they leave. He's not attacking, he's not taunting, just standing there; no action, very static, and certainly not giving indication of being brave. I like his pet. And the drill crew is oblivious to him as they board their airship. Would really boost things if the two entities interacted somehow. Furthermore, they amost have matching outfits, all you need is to change the "brave dude's" colors for them to not seem like they're on the same "team", and brave dude is their captain overseeing them as they fall in; board the ship.

Loading ramp on airship needs to cast some shadow on the grassy ledge. It reminds me of an in-game sprite with no sense of grounding against the painted background behind.

Tree's branches could use some darker shading where they dissapear into the leaves, it's almost as if they're just dead branches located out in front of the trees foliage. Did you try an additional highlight color on the top of the canopy? I can't help but consider it a little flat, when the other scene's foliage acheives a much brighter highlight, - wouldn't take much.

Did you try AA to blend the outer edges of things into what's behind them, rather than bold selout and completely aliased edges? - Such as the lower darkest part of the trees leaves, you got at least two shades you could buffer with there. I can't tell if the extra smoothing would really help that much.

Way to go.

[junkboy]

Thanks for a bunch of great feedback, Mathias. It is supposed to emulate the look of in-game graphics, hence why the "sprites" aren't AA'd into the background, stuff aren't casting shadows realistically and so forth. I went over it a bit more (first post).

[hsn2555]

i was always a huge fun of this style, and i am still .
i can't help but stare, i can tell you this piece is amazing enough to stare at.
the colors are so lovely. but i don't know ,those circular shapes don't suit to set as grass, i know you are going with simple ones ,but ..



i don't know if you've seen these screenshots (of owlboy by dpadstudio http://www.dpadstudio.com/default.asp?template=project&id=2 ) before.
but i thought they'd help you.

And i think that the gradient actually makes unsuitable combinantion, simplify the background.

[Rosse]

Hello junkboy, nice picture. Here are some things which came to my mind while watching your mockup.

First I assumed that it looks like a game scene. Therefore, reading from left to right, it kind of feels like the blue drills would start an attack leaded by the swordman standing on the hill observing his minions. But your message is different and combining this thought with the normal way of playing a game (imagine a mid-boss scene here), I flipped the whole image on the x-axis. Since the composition doesn't work now, I added a tree on the far right to fix this issue (the lightsource comes from the right right now, but it works nevertheless I think).
The round edges on the ground wouldn't work in a game I suppose. Jumping from them would be confusing, so I made them more abrupt. Then I tried to add some atmosperic perspective to the tree in the middleground and the rocks in the foreground to increase the spatial clearity (less saturated, more blue the further away). I don't mind the usage of a gradient, but I think the image gains nothing from it, therefore a nicely pixelated background (maybe like owlboy as hsn2555 suggested) would be much nicer. Up to you, tho.
The brave guy doesn't work currently I think. Colorwise he's too close to the enemies and therefore looks more like an ally of them than there foe. I tried to alter the colors according to my gusto and made a new outfit, because the hero's concept wasn't as interesting as the blue drill's. The brown critter next to the hero looks almost like a generic 0-lvl enemy and not a friend of the brave guy. Maybe change it's color (it's too similar to the enemies) or appearence. I shifted one of his eyes one pixel. The shadows of the sprites didn't made sense, so I deleted them too.

Great work so far, junkboy. I hope you continue working on it. Looking forward to your new homepage. I hope you keep posting images here.



here's my edit for comparison:

[Reo]

I must say that I disagree with you Rosse, with enemies coming from the ''wrong direction'' to me that gives me the feeling of an invasion!
I second what the guys said about the main characters colors.
I'm abit ashamed for not coming with more crits...
any way ace work!
Keep it up!