GR#008 - Personal Project Concept - Sideview Backgrounds & Sprites

[st0ven]

LATEST:



LATEST NOTES:
Progress from the last WIP - fleshing in more detail and a bit more refinement in shapes and details. Some detail im starting to really enjoy, others still need a lot of work - Tree form needs some sorely needed attention - i want to resist doing really odd looking trees that look out of touch with how they would really grow, but the current foreground trees are looking a bit sad, so ill be paying close attention to them very soon.

Also another robot iteration with a bit more detail in him (dont like the pose, back leg faces too 'forward' and not enough slant towards camera, but not a bad iteration in my opinion. really like the rim lighting , should pop him off nicely against most backgrounds. makes him more interesting and visible.

PREVIOUS ITERATIONS:
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/nature_tiles4.png
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/nature_tiles3.png
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/nature_tiles2.png



Old Stuff in this thread -

Initial character progression concepts.



some of the first concept pieces i had roughed together -
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/indoors1.png
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/forest_cove.png
http://www.spriteart.com/junk/town1.png

[Lizzrd]

The hair of the character looks wrong, may have something with the color, it looks like it can't decide if it's yellow or green.

[Atrophy]

The hair of the character looks wrong, may have something with the color, it looks like it can't decide if it's yellow or green.

I can tell that it's blonde. Though I personally prefer the white hair in the third picture.

As for the pieces, the guys pants look to ride up a little much..  (aka his nuts getting squished). Overall the character design is nice, outfit is pretty rad looking. As for being a younger character, it's still an uncomfortable stance. It looks to be putting all his weight on his knees.
As for the innocent look.. I don't know.. not so much... he does have his fist raised and a mechanical arm? or gauntlet?

As for the backgrounds.. I LOVE them as is, possibly a bit more definition or smoothing it out.

[Dex]

As I said on AIM, the current WIPs are just as great as some finished products I've seen before! Your knowledge of lighting and volume is excellent!

For the character- if you're going for innocent and younger, his current form isn't cutting it. He looks more 'ready to fight' rather than 'ready to adventure,' and he looks in his 20s to me.

There's not much more to say but keep working and going in the direction you're headed. Everything's looking great!

p.s. LOVE the globe.

[st0ven]

thanks for the input everyone - i think i was trying to force the character yesterday. i worked it to a better state than it had been but fundamentally i think it needs more sound character design off the get go. which means.... off to the drawing board (and to my horror, eventually posting scans of my drawing?). In general, some self critical notes - character needs to look less like a cyborg ninja - his childish attributes have mostly been lost through iteration, his sense of design has also been mismatched in the same process, and in general i feel like the character features need to appear more 'full' or voluminous to appeal to the viewing perspective. also the rendering should be all value dependent with minimal outlining.

I still have to do some monitor adjustments at home as well. the colors seemed a lot more interesting on my home monitor.

also will be looking forward to fleshing out the natural tileset game comp a bit more to completion.

[Scribblette]

BIG TREES! *squee*

Looking forward to seeing this.

The sprite face seems to be at a different vertical perspective to his body, with the way his eyes sit. His left eye seems oddly low.

The other sprite lower in the backgrounds reminds me of you, for some reason - based on a sprite you've done before?

[Conzeit]

I love what you're doing posting these WIPs....I feel pixelation seriously lacks in this regard, crit on early wips is a LOT more helpful because it actually can influence the outcome.....sometimes because people pull the "not finished" excuse we tend to look down in WIP topics but I think they can be benefitial, specially when we're discussing ambience and concept art....it ought to give us a better conscience of cohesive art design....

Whatever you do with the hero.....make sure you have an actual 3d personality for him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSyfGm6wXgs&feature=fvst I'm just tired of seeing this crap in videogames :p he's so obviously meant as a empty flamboyant crazy fashion design...I couldnt take this  guy seriously in ANY universe. That is not to say your character is as bad as this...he's far more decent but he just sort of looks like a mix of usual game cliches...

Maybe a good start would be looking at some personality classification systems that are practical in real life http://www.9types.com/ so you can give him some realistic motives...

Give him some proper personality traits, dont be shy to think of all his needs including habits..sexuality....a little inner conflict, give him a role and some twists in the story.....and when you chose his clothing PLEASE try to tie it to some tradition or some artistic movement in his enviroment.....

As for the concept bakgrounds....No outline sounds like just my kind of thing! I really like the night mockup you got there, looks gameable and I specially like the way the foreground has a sort of backlight effect on it, makes it pretty eerie...

The forest is looking pretty good...maybe try to play with a more tree covered area? I've always kiked the light effects that happen when there are pools of light filtering trouhg the leaves....it can be quite enthralling.

The last screenshot...well it sorta just screams fake videogame scenario :p it's this weird blend of forest and mountain....do you mean to cut the terrain the way you did? I would try to think of a natural terrain that has actual steep formations like that if that's really what you're going for.

[Ryumaru]

This is me continuing our aim discussion, sorry I got cut off. The Night scene may not have anything strong going for it compositionally, but the reason I ask the purpose of these is because in an image like that, the background, character, foreground will all be changing CONSTANTLY which means you can't really have a composition in the sense of elements precisely placed in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. However, it does deal with space a lot better than the first two images do. Also it's a shame you don't like the sprite in it that much. I personally like it much better than the first; but I don't think its only a matter of taste. Anatomically, it has less errors, palette wise it's more pleasing, it's pose is not as restrained as the first, and it generally has more character than the first.

When you say " technically" I don't know if you mean pixel tech, or things such as composition. the lighting and palette both work fine in the first two images, and in all the images really. Pixel tech - and I might get rawr'd at by other members for saying this- is not something for you to worry about because I believe you are a master in that regard; and as far as GAME art goes, you are obviously a seasoned professional.

[st0ven]

Camus: Cool - I agree! i thought it would be a bit risky posting stuff so early and not as developed as is more typically shown. didnt want people to construe it as me rushing and posting things they cant really comment on. The main thread focus was on the sprite but i think thats been already pretty well covered - and i dont at all mind conversation on the development of environment style, i find it quite constructive and useful.

As to your comments about the character's design - i laughed at your video and otherwise agree. i think that in doing this comp of the sprite (and there were other ones mid way through that looked rather more dimensional and interesting overall now that i look at them) i think ive discovered what i want him to be, also found out what wasnt working. ultimately the design shouldnt be an amalgam of other 'neat' ideas, but genuinely has to be a functional character - not only should (s)he fit in the environment but into the game play mechanic as well. this current iteration in general does neither. but the good news is i now have more of a concrete vision of what i want him to be.

Ryu pounced on me last night (presumably to scold me) and mentioned being most interested in the same environment concept you were. i told him it was my least favorite of the bunch, because i felt it was the most under developed in terms of what was in the scene, but i certainly felt it was the most 'doable' of the bunch and am going to take the atmospheric ideas with me to when i get to doing them in detail.

I looked at the sky rendition of the last one and also felt that it was the most cookie cutter in a sense and thats pretty much antithesis to what id _like_ to accomplish. light beams shining through gaps in the canopy is something that immediately came to my mind when drawing the tree aspect. this piece is what im considering the closest to what will actually be realized in terms of view angle and construction of imagery. so it will be the one for the time being ill be pouring the most time into. ive already nixed the blue sky as it doesnt mesh with what i had originally envisioned.

 

I hope to keep these up at least for a good bit in the beginning of exploration so that i can get this very helpful feedback.


Ryu: You know that one day i hope to be a 'real' artist too. i wouldnt discount game art as being completely detached from that real art stuff, while their functions are entirely different in practical purposes, the same theory and concepts obviously apply to all aspects of art. I do agree with you with the character - i will post a bunch of variations i was working on when i get home so you can see how over worked it became.

[Ryumaru]

Sprites 1 and 3 are infinitely better than the one you initially showed. The gal is cute, too :]

Oh and you're not a real artist until you paint a small red or black dot on a 36x72 canvas and then waste $100 dollars in paint covering the rest for textural effect.