Forest BG & character sprite to C&C!

[InCreator]

Ladies and gentlemen,
Take a look at this:


2x:


And tell me your opinions, improval suggestions and criticism.
I could use some advice to fill empty area... note: it's stone age on picture.

Also, here's the planned protagonist... with most popular name from prehistoric ages...
2x:

...Noob... from the Eagle River clan.

C&C him too!

Thank you.

[Nikolas]

I love it!

The only things that stroke me while loking at it, really hard in order to find SOMETHING to say, is that:

i. The two trees indicate some kind of entrance. Is this so?
ii. To create depth you have 2 background layers over at the trees. Maybe a fainter 3rd or even 4th would make things much better... Just a thought, as it already shines and looks great!

Noob looks with a tiny angle towrads the front. Other than that great as well!

As for what to put in the BG to mqake it more interesting... Hmmm...
Well atm it looks like an extra tidy and clean prehistoric ground. I mean Noob must be sweaping his ass every day... Stones, trees, dead birds, rubbish (not kit-kat rubbish),  can't think of anything else right now... Maybe traes of fire? coals and stuff?

[InCreator]

Your ideas have been used, thanks.

Two trees don't actually show entrance, but it turned out to look so, yes.
I tried extra volumes of background layers, but got somewhat too overdone.
So I replaced it with some fog instead.





I also redrew Noob's (hell, I love the name ) head.
I went for Lucasartsy default standing pose at first, but didn't realize that face should be faced directly right.
It's fixed now. I'm unsure how or should I add visible nose to Noob.

2x:

And just for show, another BG I also made today (hyper productive day?)


But I'm even not even speculating on any game yet.

[Tuomas]

Have to say, your bgs look better than ever, and that's quite a lot. I love them! Ok, they're a bit too dark for my taste, but awesome.

[Peder 🚀]

AWESOME!

This is looking so good!!
I am SO Jealous right now!

I wish I had your talent right now .


I Love the style!
And it would be awesome to see it in a game!
(I know what game I would of used my talent on if I had yours right now!)


Peder.

[Proletarian]

Great bg. Especially I like the way you made the far distances. Only thing that actually disturbes me is the rock. Maybe add some detail or contrast to it, and try to get rid of those cubical shapes. However, I love the mood in your pictures.

[InCreator]

Peder: Using my technique, first background can be made in about a hour. It isn't difficult or something to be jealous of - at all! For example, check out this quick grass tutorial I made some time ago. It's old and outdated, by I'm still using same tech for trees, grass... Simply, the skill has gone better. You may also check out everything Sektor 13 (also AGS user) does - he's using - atleast by the looks of his work - exactly same concepts in drawing - the brighten/darken tool only.

Proletarian:
The rocks are most difficult to do, 80% of first background drawing went directly to that damn rock.
I'm simply unable to draw cliffs. So, it's freehanded, then posterized, desaturated, freehanded over...

I wish I had some good reference to totally redraw all cliff areas.

[Andail]

I think the first bg looks nice, although it would benefit from having the foreground trees more saturated and defined. At the moment everything has the same shade of mist around it, which takes away from the sense of depth.
The same goes for the second; keeping a low saturation is always good for a professional look (as the most common beginner's mistake is to paint with too clear and bright colours) but don't be affraid to bring out details (especially those close to the viewer) with some extra highlights in terms of contrast and brightness.

[aussie]

They're both beautiful inc. I'd love to have your touch with pixel detail.

The only thing that kinda looks a bit out of place is the rocks in the first bg. For some reason they seem too... well, "airbrushed".

Or maybe it's because I see blurry when I'm not wearing my glasses.Ã, 

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As for the reference, would these help at all?

[vict0r]

Gorgeous bgs inc!

Character is also very good, but IMO, his left hand looks very raised compared to his right. And if what we see there is his hand, it also seems very large compared to the other.

[InCreator]

Thanks aussie! The first picture was exactly what I tried to go for, but just by my memory, I didn't remember where did I saw rocks like this before. I will remake the cliff now.

And thanks to others too. Andail: I looked at my thread at work, and I was so amazed to see how low saturation can feel/is on other monitors. I had no clue before.

The character is far from final yet, and I also noticed the hand.

Meanwhile, I got third background done... though there's little fixing needed yet.

2x:


I'm still not sure why am I drawing those...

Edit: Okay, I added some saturation to trees and redid the rock.
Better? Worse?



Sierra-style rocks proved to be ALOT easier to make, almost random freehanding is what I used.

[Andail]

I took a shot at your first forest pic to prove some points. I used highly saturated colours a LOT now, but the good thing is that you can tone down these afterwards.
Everything is smeared out now, cause I was sort of in a hurry, so you obviously need to repaint everything to make it crisp and clean.

The good thing with keeping high saturations is that you can vary the hue to easily attain different effects, for instance night-scenes.

Original background:

[InCreator]

Difference:



Better? I repainted central areas with saturation brush.

Another comparasion shot:

[Chicky]

New rocks look awful imo pal, they seem far too messy. They distract the eye too much aswell.

[InCreator]

I somewhat agree. But It's quite difficult to come up with something better.
I must find a medium between my own and more realistic-sierra style.

[Tuomas]

What you have here is something that looks like a lot of small rocks piled up together, which afaik is not the way a hill or a big rock look. they look better yes, in one way, but I suggest you go for bigger whole areas than addin those little.

The newly saturated bg of the original forest looks better now imo. Nice job.

[InCreator]

Actually, every photo I found on cliffs looks like even much smaller rocks piled up...
So, realism and likeability of picture have serious conflict here.

[Andail]

Well rocks can be in "one piece", but then they'd hardly end with a flat top, like the one in the first background; they'd probably be pointy or rounded or something.
Rocks and mountains can look in a hundred different ways, you just need to settle for a type (sedimentary, magmatic etc) and be consistent.

[Stupot]

Your BGs are great, man.
I tried clicking on that grass tutorial vid and it wouldn't work, do you know why?
I found your background making tutorial on your website and I'ts really interesting.. when will step 5 be up?

[loominous]

Think they look very sierra like, qualitywise as well.

If you're going for a more realistic/believeable look, you may want to make some adjustments to the lighting and colours.

Atm it's hard to tell what lighting condition we're looking at.

I) The trees suggest that there's a directional lightsource, but very faint.

The problem is that if it's that faint (and directional), it would probably have to be evening, and the light temperature would be very low, so it would be reddish.

II) The general brightness suggests an overclouded day, but the contrast, of the grass for instance, suggests a dark room with a faint lightsource, and not an enviroment lit up by a giant lightbox (the sky).

This is an incredibly[/b] common mistake, that is, not keeping the contrast low in ambiently lit areas, which gives you a very harsh, fake and artificially contrasty look.

III) The saturation need to correspond to this as well, which is why I think the first version works best, because it correlates with the desaturated colours an overclouded sky causes.

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If you want to have a directional lightsource, make sure you seperate the values substantially between the lit up parts and the parts not hit.

In practicality this means lowering the contrast of the current parts, and keeping them at, let's say mainly between values 3-4 (where 1 is black, 10 is white).

You'd then add the lit up parts, keeping these values seperate from the other, so perhaps mainly between 6-7.

This will give you a pleasing contrast, that looks convincing and isn't straining or harsh. If you blend the values, you'll have to resort to cranking up the general contrast, which will look fake n, at least imo, ugly.

Depending on the colour of the lightsource, make sure you tint everything it hits appropriately, which will also add a nice colour contrast.

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Lightwrapping:

This is kind of overused in particularly conceptart/mattepainting, and I tend to overdo it myself, but is nevertheless a vital concept in achieving a believeable look.

You can think of it as the same thing as the glow around a lightbulb, but instead of glow emitting from a small object, the same thing happens from the sky or any other lightsource. So just as glow from a candle, any part of the lightsource showing will have a "glow".

In practicality, you'd see it in the back of this pic, since there seems be an intense light coming from there. So the sky there would work just light a lightbulb, and glow, so you'd add glow around any sky that's exposed, which will "wrap around" the trees.

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Composition:

The two not distant trees are both lined up at the same depth which goes for the bushes as well. This is a pretty boring solution, and robs it of both depth and interest. By pulling one of them closer, or adding additional closer objects (apart from the very close foreground), you'll probably end up with a more pleasing look. Example would be to pull the right tree partly infront of the tent.

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Small note: The leaves of a tree works as efficient shades, so make sure you keep the tree trunk fairly dark in the regions surrounded by leaves.

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Keep up the good work!

Edit: added some notes