My first iso-building!

[Pawsofthepanda]

I've just started out with pixel pushing and want to create one of those fancy, cute isometric pixelcitys that you see in games and online communitys and stuff. I got this idea about three days ago so I began to read up on what everything was called and then I picked up a few tutorials to begin with. I finally settled for the "Isometric Pixelart Tutorial" by Gunstar Red at GAS 13 (http://www.gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/isometric_pixelart_tutorial_isometric_house.php) and by following it I made this last night:



The final result obviously came very close to the house in the tutorial but I made it all from scratch and I'm pretty happy with the result. The only thing in there that makes me a bit frustrated would probably be the street light / lamp post.

I would VERY MUCH appreciate some critique on the image that could help me improve. I'd also like some general tips on everything else regarding my project (making a whole city, or at least a block... or a street). I was thinking of more or less making a whole bunch of these "chunks" with one building on each square and then fit all of them together with pieces of street between them. Right now I'd really appreciate pretty much anything you guys can toss at me.

Also, I made this in Adobe Photoshop CS4 using the Pen Tool.

Thank you!

[McClaneGames]

Never use gradients, unless absolutely necessary.  The outlines on the text are missing in places, too.

[Pawsofthepanda]

what do you suggest instead of gradients for cylinder shaped or round objects? Dithering?

Yes I forgot about the text. I was unable to achieve the same nice text effect as shown in the tutorial. Figured I set up Photoshop incorrectly or something.

[ptoing]

Never use gradients.  Ever.  The outlines on the text are missing in places, too.

Never use generalisations. Ever. Oops.

Anyway. On the cylinders "gradients" as such are fine, they are hardly avoidable in some places. What looks off tho is the fact that the lightsource seems different on the bottom and the top bar. Also the top bit which is cone shaped would not be shaded like that, there a gradient in deed does not work. There are also quite a few stray pixels in some areas. If you want me to edit some stuff to show you some more points I can do that.

Welcome to Pixelation btw, hope you have a nice stay 

[Pawsofthepanda]

Please feel free to do that, I really learn faster trough seeing and trying in all aspects of life. 

I think some of the problems has to do with my non-existent skills in pixeling curves. I made both the trash can and the street light with the circular marquee tool in Photoshop so neither that one or the street light turned out the way I wanted them to.

And thank you, seems really nice so far

[ptoing]

Just wanted to edit this, but it's jpg. Please don't use jpgs for pixelart. Use either png or gif.
Just edit your first post and exchange the image with one of those and I will edit.

[Pawsofthepanda]

Sorry about that, edited first post, replaced jpg image with png 

[ptoing]

Just some small edits on general stuff.



The edit i made on the lamp is very rough but should give you some ideas in terms of shading.

Things cast shadows, which I show on the wastebin and on the back of the house bit. Don't be afraid of giving parts which are in the shade less detail as I did on the ground behind the house (by the bin there are no floortiles just because I could not be bothered)

On the bin you had a gradient as well, but in many cases with a super smooth gradient you do not show the form better than with lesser well chosen colours. For the little recycling icon you just made a triangle, which is recognisable but even at this low res it can be closer to what it really looks like.

In general I think it's a good idea to have outlines be shaded as well according to the direction of the light. Don't have all the outlines black, have the ones which are outlining something purple, purple and so on. This is just a general thing tho, there are no rules to this as such, esp when you are limited with colours. But in general it makes things look more organic. This I mainly demonstrated on the edited letter.

If you have specific questions to the edit, just ask. 

[Pawsofthepanda]

Thank you very much for your time and effort poiting these things out to me, everything in your edit made absolute sense. Both the trash can and street light turned out great, it looks better and has tons of more depth to it now and it's really nice not having to use the automated gradiant tool. Besides the fact that the result using that turned out crappy it also felt like the objects didn't really match the style of the rest of the image before the edit.

It's amazing how just a few pixels (in many cases just one)  can change the overall result in such a dramatic way.

Anyway, I spent some time with the image after I studied your edit and made some updates to it. It clearly looks better in my eyes but I obviously have more to learn.



UPDATES:

- Changed colors on the lines (almost all of them I think, and sure enough it's much smoother now.)
- Made a brand new street light!
- Re-pixeled the trash can. (*)
- Added shadows (I know that it might not be 100% correct angles etc. Same goes for highlights.)
- Tried to enhance the "REA"-sign and the "7"-sign using grey pixels to smoothen out the text.)
- Pixeled and added some wooden boxes behind the store/building.
- Begun to experiment with see-through windows, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but something still feels odd...)

If you or anyone else have more creative feedback I would definately not ignore it, although I have to admit that studying your edits made me realize that I really need to experiment ALOT more in PS myself before posting too many questions

* Also, I understand the basics of how you created the recycle icon but I didn't really got the hang of it while trying for myself (therefor I left it out on the update), I will experiment more with this since it's kinda crucial knowledge for my city/block/street-project but if you have any hints on how to get into the right kind of thinking for doing this that would be awesome. I tried to use the same dithering effect on symbols I had already put in there, like the "7"- and "REA"-signs and I think the difference is pretty noticable, although perhaps not optimized.

[Zoggles]

Quite a few inconsistencies, but showing improvement.



Some things have black outlines (eg the bin and the door sign etc) other things have very soft outlines eg the crates, lamppost.... Try and be consistent.

Also pay attention to the front facing corners if you are using that bright highlight. A few are missing - door frame, steps.. and a little bit in the shadow below the 'T' of Katt

I've also adjustded the base of the building at the rear so that the window matches the one at the front. i.e. there is a sill. However.. the top portion of the building would need to also be adjusted to match.

Also adjusted the highlighting of the panels of the streetlamp.

Lastly, the ground. You have the highlights of the tiles on the opposite side to the rest of the piece. Highlight on front edges.. shadow on the back. See the small tiles in the bottom right.



-Z-