Apartment Sketch [Updated w/Colored Version]

creatorlars · Tue 21/10/2008 19:47:08

I've been meaning to learn how to draw for many years, and when recently deciding to surmount an adventure game project, I decided it was time to try. This forum and many of the links from it have proved to be incredibly helpful, and I'm very grateful for the resources and knowledge I've gleaned here.

Here's a room sketch for a location in the game I want to make. I am still trying to find out what direction to go in terms of resolution and artistic style. I know there aren't any "right ways", but currently I like the look of 640x400 backgrounds with digitally colored pencil drawings. I would do 320x200 pixel art, but am afraid to lose the natural quality of the lines. I tried inking by hand before scanning, but realized pretty quick I need more practice at that, and it seemed to flatten out the pencil lines too much.

I am stumped where to begin with color. This room is supposed to be dark and moody, lit only by the candles in the foreground.

Anyway, any critiques of my drawing and suggestions on how to improve it, as well as suggestions on a fitting color pallet are greatly appreciated. I am planning to redraw this scene much cleaner for a finished version, but as I'm very much a beginner and don't have anyone else to go to for critiques, I'd love your feedback.

Lars

Paper Carnival · Tue 21/10/2008 20:32:24

I can't really give any coloring advice, but I believe you are on the right track with the sketch.

I like it a lot, it has enough detail while still giving a lot of room for the character. It doesn't feel "empty" of anything. The perspective, on the first glance, seemed just right but then I noticed some details that were slightly off (like the top of the door, or its knob). Oh, it also has an interesting angle and is generally well-composed.

DanielH · Tue 21/10/2008 21:06:02

It looks great. My only qualm is the (i presume) fridge, which looks way too wide. Dunno, maybe it's just me.

Tuomas · Tue 21/10/2008 21:44:13

You're right, while the table in front of it looks WAY too small and is also fairly oddly placed, next to the fridge.

This got me wondering actually. The door has a sign, "Do Not Enter". Usually in an apartment this means there's someone's own room there, right? So I was wondering, if the person living there has his/her bed in the same livingroom/kitchen he/she has their fridge and stove etc, what would be behind the door. Aside from a bathroom of course. But then the "Do not enter" sign would seem a bit odd. Of course I'm not to decide who puts what where, but still. This looks like a 1-person flat with a combined kitchen, a bathroom and a door to the hallway. Could be a room upstairs of a big house too though, renovated for rental, with the stove and all.
The latter actually seems more like it since the floor is obviously made of wood, which is usually not the case with flats, at least not where I come from.

I think I'd personally place the table next to the entrance door right in front of the pov, but I reckon that would take something away from the functionality of the background

creatorlars · Tue 21/10/2008 22:05:19

Awesome, thanks for the feedback! Yes, there are definitely a few perspective issues I need to work on in the final drawing... this was drawn fairly small on paper, but I am going to draw it bigger for the next go. Thanks for pointing out the proportion issues on the table and fridge, I had not realized it.

The "Do Not Enter" sign is the bathroom. In the world of this game, there is (as of recently) no electricity, gas, running water, etc -- so our protagonist's bathroom is not a place anyone wants to be right now.

Also good excuse to not draw the bathroom, which is irrelevant to the plot (same for the "kitchen", which I framed out of view.) I tried to hint at this in a couple places in the design of the room, such as with the unplugged lamp, candle-light, battery-powered mini-fan above the bed, etc. So in addition to dark/moody, I guess my coloring job needs to reflect a very dirty, stained, dusty appearance.

You're right though, it's a 1 person flat or as we call them in Texas, a "loft" or "efficiency". Some of the older buildings around here are converted into apartments, and those do have wooden-planked floors, so that's what I'm going for here. I will save rambling about my game for another thread, once I have a demo or something, though.

Tuomas · Tue 21/10/2008 22:21:27

I just wanted to add, as I saved the image in order to do some paintover, to show what i meant in case I wasn't clear... Yes, wanted to add, that you might want to save the image as .gif or .png instead of a .jpeg. Even though it provides you with smaller sizes, it can really hurt the image with the compression, and you might get unwanted artefacts, that'll ruin the image for good. It was basically meant for compressing huge pictures, like photoes for the internet. Perhaps you knew this already though.

Aside fromt hat I forgot to mention, that the sketch is very nice, and you obviously have a very stable hand, which is a good thing. One that I always lacked when ti came to background drawing

creatorlars · Tue 21/10/2008 23:25:38

Tuomas -- I'll post as a 24-bit PNG next time.

Thanks for the tip. The original scans are in PSD format and 300dpi, so I'll probably work off those when actually getting into the painting...

Thanks for the compliments on the sketch, however I must admit that my "steady hand" is a ruler...

Mr Flibble · Wed 22/10/2008 17:17:00

I adore "Wet Retina".

creatorlars · Wed 22/10/2008 19:39:44

Due to an artist friend's suggestion, I decided to start with a value painting of the scene with just grayscale values. The idea would be then to smooth out the gradations (due to diffused candlelight) and then set the "value layer" to multiply in Photoshop while painting pure color values underneath. Something seems weird about it to me so far though... thoughts?

And for fun, the sketch of the exterior... very rough.

For this game I needed a band name that sounded over the top, but in a cool/ridiculous way rather than a corny/cheesy way. If that makes sense.

Hence, "Wet Retina".

Tuomas · Wed 22/10/2008 21:16:18

Hi, I know there's alot of people around here who know much more of lighting than me. I like it though, can't see anything wrong with it at the moment. But about the rough scetch below, I was thinking, you might want to experiment with different stairs. The ones there look like they were going straight down to the street. See here for example of what I meant: http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w103/kaushen79/DSC00018.jpg Making them bend a bit at the upper end of them. Also, going up the stairs, you'll notice, that in most cases, the last step is below the level of the hallway floor, not the way there. I know it's only nitpicking, but since I can't give any artistical suggestions at this point, I thought I'd just bring these up for consideration.

GarageGothic · Wed 22/10/2008 21:40:57

I think you have a lovely drawing style and good sense of composition. If you could clean up the pencil sketch a bit (either with an eraser or in Photoshop - the former may actually be easier), you wouldn't need to ink or draw over the original drawing. Just make the original linework as a multiply layer and add color in layers below it. I think it would suit your style not to cover up or refine the sketchy quality of the scanned artwork.

I wrote a tutorial on a similar technique which can be found at the AGS Ezine website.

Good work on the value map, by the way. After hearing Loominous go on and on about it in the critics lounge I want to try it myself for my next background.

Kweepa · Wed 22/10/2008 23:54:10

It's a nice sketch.
Personally I would choose a side view of a room for an adventure game background.
Placing the light source in the foreground could be a problem. Generally you don't want to draw too much attention to the foreground objects since they are non-interactive, particularly at the expense of highlighting what IS important. It might also lead to the impression that it's a first person view, shining a lamp or flashlight into a darkened room. Finally it leads to a rather boring value distribution.

creatorlars · Thu 23/10/2008 00:07:52

Thanks again for the great advice!

Those stairs have been a pain in the brain -- thanks for the reference photo. I did another version of this scene and am still playing with it, but i like the general composition. I think it will help to work on it in the right resolution, so that i have some sort of judge of how much detail to add to the background buildings.

GarageGothic, that tutorial was very helpful -- I thought I'd read just about everything to be found around here...

Been going through all the posts in this subforum slowly. I agree that I don't want to lose the pencil texture -- the setting needs to be gritty (but not "realistic") and the pencil seems to work well for that. I will do some of the coloring and then decide if I need to redraw it or not. I was going to make a lightbox this weekend for this purpose.

Steve, yeah -- it does kind of look like a flashlight right now. I plan to blend the hard edges, and probably decrease the value range a little bit so that it looks more like candlelight. For this scene I really wanted to emphasize what an "ordinary apartment" would be like after a few days without electricity -- so from a narrative viewpoint, the candles and lack of electric light are what I want the player to notice first. The two items you will be able to interact with will be a pile of clothes on the floor and the fan on the wall. Since these are things you are supposed to "look for", I didn't want to place them right dead center in a spotlight (you do know you're looking for them, so it's not an unmotivated pixel hunt.) While I definitely see your point about a boring value distribution, I think the insinuation of a "first person" angle sutures the player into the character's viewpoint a little (within the context of the candlelit room as a whole.) Let me know if I've misunderstood you.

Just for kicks, does anyone have any suggestions/ideas on what kind of sprites you imagine in this sort of environment? I really have no idea at all. I've got a sprite/animation artist, but it'd be good to give her some references to work from as this isn't her usual area of expertise.

Tuomas · Thu 23/10/2008 07:58:51

Haha, well, for instance, in the exterior image, the character sprite should at least be 600 pixels high. Well, 500, if you cut the top of the door there.

Just squeeze him into the room bg then later on. The style is very detailed, so, well I guess she should know already, that the most important thing is to make the sprites, objects and stuff look like they were originally part of the background.

creatorlars · Wed 29/10/2008 22:20:46

For the life of me, I am having a really hard time with colors for this scene. I guess part of it is indecision on my part of how I want the entire game to "look". Here is a version inked by hand and then colored in Photoshop. I do like the grungy/messy inking job to add some texture. There will be animated candle flickering going on, but for now just imagine those candles are lit... the colors are supposed to be surreal, but what do you guys think? What are the weak points and problem areas? It still seems very unfinished but I don't know what to try next.

I colored by doing a grayscale value map and then painting over on a "Color" layer in Photoshop.

creatorlars · Wed 29/10/2008 22:28:04

Here is the PSD if anyone would like to screw with it:
http://www.larsattacks.com/apt_int.psd

There are layers for Background tint, Grayscale values, Colors, and the Line work.

goldensox · Wed 29/10/2008 23:27:15

http://i33.tinypic.com/33y3ith.jpg tried a bit of my style, strong lightning with almost liquid shadows and color watering.

Ryan Timothy B · Wed 29/10/2008 23:43:10

Honestly, I see your sketch and instantly say that you're onto something there. It looks great, has a great composition, and other than the floor on the left side there isn't any 'empty' space in the layout.

But then I see it after the photoshop touchups and coloring. I think your black outlines are really really bold. Too bold. It kinda takes the realism out of the images (that you once had in the sketch) and gives it this Comic book style.
(Also) The further the objects the smaller the black line should be. It helps gives depth.

I noticed you chose a lot of light colors. The floor looks like it's planks painted white. Even the desk and walls are white.

It's alright for a game, but honestly, looking at your great sketch I'd love to see you do better. With less black lines, and perhaps stronger detail on the coloring to make it look less water colored.

Phemar · Wed 29/10/2008 23:44:25

I love the background style you got going there, it's awesome.

Only thing I can think of is that the lighting is drawing all the attention to the bathroom door, which as you said earlier has no function in the game. Could be a bit of a red herring

creatorlars · Thu 30/10/2008 00:24:14

Thanks very much for the feedback. Ryan, I agree with you -- I think this could be much better and with stronger detail. I am a complete newbie, so I'm trying to figure this out from the ground floor -- I know nothing about painting other than the dozens of tutorials I've read over the past several weeks, and my idea of coloring is still not much past "coloring book".

I guess I should find more stuff I like and replicate it as close as possible. If you could see an alternate direction for this sketch/bg please post some examples!

I'd love to give some different methods a try.