Dystopian mockup [WIP]

[spektre]

Mockup:


Our hero - running inside a green box until the end of time:


Updated the post with the current firing animation:


And a compilation to see how it looks, and a faster firing animation:


I'm thinking of making a platformer just for fun and practice, so I started drawing a mockup. It's supposed to take place in the somewhat near future I think.

C+C very welcome, pick it apart and feed it to the dogs please.  

Updates:



Update:

[rikfuzz]

I really like the cloud transition, that's awesome. 

His legs animate very smoothly, but his top is very stiff - is this because his top half is a separate sprite? (So he can run and gun at the same time?) I'd consider giving his top half a 'running' anim too, if this is the case.  Even just having his gun bobbing a frame after his head would smoothen it all out. Also a transition frame between running and stopping would help I think.

I'd give the streetlights 'beams' of light, too, it looks like the sort of place that'd be very foggy/dusty, with a lot of shit in the air to reflect the light.

[Jad]

Main character guy has ridiculously low contrast, you might wanna up it if you want him to look like anything but a dark silhouette.
Background sky wants either more colours or a more colourless foreground - right now the gameboyish simplicity clashes a bit with the foreground. ..


Buuut I'd say introduce more highlights to the picture, keep the sillhouetteness of the background but add more colours, make some transitions smoother and - at all costs, avoid single pixel noise, like what you've got going on at the lamp posts, it hurts my soul - more colours, smoother, spread the highlights out more, right now they really stick out a lot.

Yeeah well I think you should aim for large clusters of colour, a fair amount of buffer colours but not too much AA, but crisp pixels and solid shapes and sillhouettes ... Gah

I don't know! First of all try introducing some highlights into the foreground and up the contrast in that general area!

Edit: Also generally good stuff - pixel tech might be a bit rusty but your construction skills are awesome - and those are important! So good luck and please do continue making this, it's awesome.

[spektre]

This is a lot of good critique!

rikfuzz: I see what you mean with the animation and I've had some time to do a quick edit (no update) but I saw it needs a bit more work than just shifting the gun a bit. The transition frame is a must.
I don't really know how to make the lights cast a field of light in a good way though as I had in mind to make the foreground with the lights, the fence and the backdrop scroll independently and not use any alpha channel black magic... But I'll see what I can come up with, any ideas are welcome.

Jad: I'm at another computer now with different screen settings and here the contrast is a total disaster! I'll have to check the calibration on my screen.
I agree with what you're saying, that's some good stuff, will work on it.

I've not done much art before at all so your compliments mean a lot.
But Jad... I'm sorry, what do you mean by construction skills? 

[Jad]

Your pixel polish isn't what it could (and thus will, if you practice hur hur) be, but the silhouettes look good - proportions look good, it just appears to me that you can draw well. And that's awesome.

[spektre]

I did a monitor calibration and it's worse than I thought. Now I just have to find the guy - he kinda disappeared. 

[spektre]

Posted some updates after the monitor calibration. Added some more colours and highlights, have not done any more animation though.
The updated contrast is now roughly how it looked on my screen from the start. 

Am I going in the right direction?

[rikfuzz]

I don't really know how to make the lights cast a field of light in a good way though as I had in mind to make the foreground with the lights, the fence and the backdrop scroll independently and not use any alpha channel black magic... But I'll see what I can come up with, any ideas are welcome.

Retro games often used one frame of colour, with one frame of transparency or a dithered single frame with colour+trans. Alpha or blend mode probably gonna look best though. Or you could have the beam fade from pure white to your lighter bg colour, only as far down as the fence top. That way it'll always be over two similar values and hopefully look okay over either. 

[spektre]

I explored a cleaner approach and put a bit of depth on the wall.
I don't know about the lights, I can't make it look good with dithered transparency so I just made them glow. Couldn't find any reference at all either. The images I found either did the glow thing or had nothing around the light at all.
Feel free to edit if you have any ideas! 

[Alcala]

I like the background, but the character could be a bit better. Great job with the update too.