The VG Resource

Hey, first post so... I'm Damian or Jim as my friends call me. Been around the web a bit and I stumbled across this site a short time ago while over at Pixelxworld's forums. There forums are still growing and I get a hell of a lot of critique from them, but seeing as allot of them are here I'll swing post through both and update as I go.

Anyway, here's something I've come back to.

I'm happy with most of it and I'll be moving on to a newer screen of the mockup. If there's any problems with it please say and I'll see what I can do about it.

Edit:

Ok, here's the latest WIP in a sketch phase. It looks a bit busy at the moment.

I like the backgrounds the most, though at first your choice of color for the leaves made me mistake it for darker clouds. The enemies I'm not digging as much. Might be the stark looking outlines, and I'm not crazy about the color choices, mainly on the bear because he shares similar colors with the bridge he's standing on. Maybe make him stand out more by making him more silver or gold haired. The eagles also look very stiff, almost projectile like rather than they should be flying back and forth.

Seconding what Nidocott said. Also, are the hearts in the top left supposed to animate? If not I'd suggest sticking with the third sprite for all of them. Maybe also thicken the outline with another layer of the outline colour or white, to make them stand out as HUD icons better.

Thanks guys. I'll try getting more fluidity in the animals soon.

@Neslug, yep, if it was in a game I'd have the hearts and star animate. I'll see what I can do to make them stand out a bit more.


Changed the bears colour. I've been trying to limit colour use, mainly out of habit and its really showing. Here's another update on the house..I really need to get more colour in there, it just looks like wood, wood and more wood!


Still in progrees

Damn, does PxC and TSR have this special game-developing bond ?

I keep finding similar topics.

that's because pxc was created by a respectable member of the tsr community

not to mention that before it was pxc, it was technically a tsr offshoot

so a lot of people from here are over there as well

@Lexou: Similar topics?, please do share.

Respectable member, Tyvon? Yeah, he's one of the only reason I joined both community's, that and there are great pixel artists on both sites, Adam, Shawn, Fantastic Mister Fawkes etc(Not to mention the likes of Elk Chris2Balls etc over here) but I'm not entirely sure about this community yet. While there are people with great talent here, I really like the "work hard get something out of it" mentallity PxC seems to represent. This place is still growing on me though.

Didn't know that about PxC, always nice to learn some history.

I need to get back to work. I'm switching between both this and another project just so that I have fresh ideas. More on that project soon.

Glad to have you here Jim, I'm Adam over at PxC!

Stuff's looking nice as per usual! I really like the worn look in the new one! The clouds in the previous one look a tad messy and unstructured, I'd like to see you work on them some more, give them more puffiness and volume.

Overall, sweet stuff though, dude, I hope you stick around!

@Adam: clouds seem to be my kryptonite. I have tried to add more volume to the clouds, here for example :


(This pic might not show, tiny pic is stupid.... I can't upload anything to Imageshack until I get home as I have no admin rights here).

I'll try other variations.

i can see the character blending with the background at the moment he stands in front of the house, or anything wood-related.

besides it appears every object in the would has its own lightsource, even background objects. to a point some of them even look pillowshaded like the roof, the well or the eagles.

the grass also seems to be particulary oversaturated compared to the range of colors of the rest of the mockup, wich ends being way too distracting for something that should be a small decorative detail(it gives me the impresion the floor and objects are covered in some sort of radioactive goo)

i do like these new clouds though, they look way more natural than the ones in the first screens. the vegtation also is quite good as it doesnt meess with the foreground and does help increase the contrast between the foreground and background elements. i'd add some small leaves just to make it clear it is a plant and not just a random wall of green.

Holy shit Metaru, well..I've been working on a new character, at this size I really battle, so it might take me a while to get something that looks good. Other than that, I'll work on the pillow shading and the grass( I liked the bright grass ) as I can see where your coming from.

While I work on that I'll post this WIP

you'd want to focus into one subject and finish it rather than jumping into several minor wips that would lead to nowhere.

this converges with what metaru said, but get your priorities right when you create sprites for a game, value and saturation and differences in value and saturation are important aspects to consider in visually communicating with the player.

(oh and i'm sorry i haven't been on recently i was on a trip far away heheheh)