First Background for Fingers

[Wells8892]

Is this a good background for using MSpaint? Be mean if you have to.

[DutchMarco]

I quite admire your courage for using MSPaint, it's not the most forgiving (but it'll do if you're cautious enough).

I miss a fade or something else to indicate that the horizon is far away, maybe use trees or whatever getting smaller and smaller near the horizon.

Also the castle seems like a very flat pane. No dimension at all.

[Scraseface]

The first thing I notice about that castle is that it has no windows - medievil castles had very thin windows with no glass, which were made so that archers could fire out of the windows at oncoming attackers.

In fact, on the whole, your castle seems very unprotected all round. There's no moat, it's set on flatground, and it's very small, so the ammount of servants/guards that you could get in there would be very limited. The door to the castle is easily half the size of the front wall, indicating that the castle only has one floor, and the door is wider than the towers, suggesting that the towers are very thin, which presents problems because A) very few archers could make it up there at a time, and B) a stair case leading up into a tower would spiral up to the top, but it dosen't look as though there would be enough room for a staircase in them.

Castles in the middle ages were often made from dry wall, which means that they were just made from lots and lots of rocks jammed together, with anything but other rocks holding them in place. Your rocks seem to fit together seemlessly. What you might want to do is add a few nooks and cracks in there.

Also, how old is that castle supposed to be? You could spray-can on some dirt or moss or show some lose stones hanging around on the floor if you think that would be appropriate.


You should attempt to get a bit more shading in there too. Try spay caning different shades of green onto the grass instead of drawing lines. Also, I notice your sky is a monochrome shade of blue, but in reality, in on a perfectly blue day, the sky still gets brighter pitched nearer the horizon. A good trick for shading sky is to start off by drawing a pixel-high line that's very, very light blue, almost white in fact, then, draw a very slightly darker color two pixel-high line right above it (to shade in MS paint, from top menu click on 'colors', then click on 'edit colors', then click 'define custom colors'). Repeat this process, making your lines darker and thicker as you go up. Once you're pleased with the range of colors you have (I suggest, like 5-7 different shades of blue, but if you want really high quality graphics you'll probably want to go bigger than this), select your range of colors with the box-select tool and drag your shade range until it fills the area you want it to. This works great for simulating wood grain too (with brown shades), so you could use that same technique on your wooden door if you want.


PS: one last thing, looking at it again, some of those rocks would be huge in real life considering their size in relation to the rest of the castle. Try breaking them up into small rocks.

[Stupot]

Personally, I'd bring the castle closer.  maybe put a moat around it, and have a drawbridge.

Also... you need more stuff... trees, a stream, whatever you can think of.  Make it busier.  A busy background is an interesting background.

Keep us up to date with your progress

[ThreeOhFour]

Some interesting points brought up here. However, when forced to use something like MSPaint I often go for less detail.

I've done a rushed example to show you roughly how I would structure this background. This was all done in MSPaint, with a line tool set to the 3rd thickness level. Didn't spend too long worrying about colours or anything, and left the black lines in because I think they look fine and because I'm lazy.



Here are the main points that come to mind:

-Brought the castle closer, gave it more structure (outer wall, inner building).
-Put mountains behind to mask the horizon.
-Changed the road shape so that the sign was easier.
-Desaturated colours.

Its still far from what I'd call a good background, and there are many shading, colouring and perspective issues, but its workable as a 10 minute sketch.

[Wells8892]

This is the new picture of the front castle im working on. I like this style of art better than the pixel art i was trying to go for. I used Paint.net to make the picture. Ill try to have it finished later today. Tell me what you think of the rough draft please! By the way, the yellow thing is where a town will be. Thats a cottage in the town.

[InCreator]

How about using LINE tool?

[naamlock]

ok, this is my castle ^^

[Wells8892]

I did use the LINE tool but on Paint.Net there is a Line tool that bends the lines and i like that style of art! lol

[Blue]

Your perspective is way off. Try letting the lines of the pathway follow the lines of the castle in parallel.
You've also made the path round where the cottage is. Dont do that.

Good luck with the rest.

[Wells8892]

Why cant i have a circle road through my town? is it bad looking or something? I guess it is harder to draw but i dont understand why.

[InCreator]

Are you... actually asking for advice or only praise?
Your perspective is off!

Take a long, critical look at your bg's and then at one Ben supplied.
And then, read all what people said.

[Wells8892]

OK sorry geez! Ill make it better in perspective.

[radiowaves]

Any background that is done under 3 hours is a bull****

[Snarky]

Some of the responses have been quite unfair. For instance, while there are some perspective problems in the second version (mainly lack of foreshortening on the ground), there's nothing to say that the roads have to be parallel to the castle. Also, the round bit of the road makes a certain amount of sense as a village square (although it has been naively abstracted). And while the screens are not finished by any stretch of imagination, they don't strike me as lazy, just as the work of an inexperienced artist. I already see improvement between the two posted. Ben's picture is a good example of what someone at this level should be aiming for.

Keep at it, Wells! You'll get there.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Keep it civil, people.  If you can't be constructive with your criticism then post elsewhere.  We're trying to help people, not make them feel terrible.

As for the background the second one shows a marked improvement.  Some people are really, really obsessed with proper perspective in everything and to them it's important.  Decide for yourself if proper perspective and straight, proper lines are important to you or whether you want to continue with cartoony, abstract designs.  There's nothing wrong with it, and you can learn a lot about art that way, but eventually you'll probably want to learn how to handle vanishing points and perspective so that you can more easily bend the rules and create an eye-pleasing result.  Try bringing the objects farther to the back of the castle down and the road on the left with the hut down as well.  I'm not really an advocate of Paint or Paint.NET for people who really want to draw better but if you are having no trouble using them then good for you.  You might check this list of paint programs and try a few alternatives just to see if one fits better or not, though.

[Blue]

there's nothing to say that the roads have to be parallel to the castle.

Well It was just a suggestion because I thought it would make the image easier to read 

Wells8892 > Of course you can have a cirkle road in your town. Just not that round. If you take a coin and lay it down, it's shape will change depending on your view. It was something like that I meant.

And as Snarky said, I can also see improvement from the previous image to this. 

[radiowaves]

best way to study is to look other peoples works, what makes them tick, how depth is concieved, etc. I somehow doubt that this particular background will go any further. I am not going to give any constructive critics, mainly because most of the stuff has already been said.

[Wells8892]

Wells8892 > Of course you can have a cirkle road in your town. Just not that round. If you take a coin and lay it down, it's shape will change depending on your view. It was something like that I meant.

Ok I now understand the circle road thing. I thought you were saying it looked stupid or something... But ill take a coin or something circular and look at it in an angle and draw the road. Thanks!