Background feedback

[CMonkey]

Hi all,

I've been working on lineart backgrounds for the second part of my game 'Just Another Point n Click Adventure'. I wouldn't call myself an artist, but doing backgrounds out of necessity has improved my skill somewhat and since I'm not likely to find an artist to work with me on backgrounds I thought I'd better polish up my art skills. I've done 11 out of 20 backgrounds so far, and am having trouble with a few, maybe I someone could help me with a few pointers.

Okay firstly i've got a reception area for a TV studio

The important parts of the room are the monitor on the reception desk, the doors on the north and east walls, and the panel next to the door on the east wall. The door on the east wall will be openable, which is why I haven't drawn a door in there. You can also exit to the west. I would like to know if the perspective looks correct, and also a good source of light, i've put some lights in the roof (4 circles), will this be sufficient? Does it look crappy? The squares on the walls will hold abstract paintings and news of upcoming TV shows. I also plan to put some magazines on the round glass table and some on the table in the foreground.

Next I have the waiting area behind the door on the north wall of the reception area

Again, does the perspective look alright? The important areas here are the window on the west wall(openable), the panel below the window and the speaker on the north wall. Again I have put a light source similar to the one in reception in the centre of the ceiling. I'm worried about the door on the east wall not looking right. I planned to put a small crowd of people blocking the door so that will obscure a section to the north-east. The two squares on the north wall are for pictures or posters.

And finally I have a back alley, behind the studio.

I've coloured the bin and put grey on the walls and floor to figure out the lighting and shadowing (it's night). I wanted to put a chain link fence where the uncoloured wall is, blocking the door to the north-east but I haven't been able to make a good go at it, it always looks like a lined mess. Any suggestions as to how I could pull this off?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated =0)

[Dr. Scary]

The reception bg:
- The wall the door on the east goes through seems to be only 1 pixel wide. As you said there will be a door there this might not be a problem. I don't know.
- The couch on the west wall seems to stick out a bit too much.
- Perspective is fine, but the room is very deep, forcing you to scale the character a lot. I would have dropped the foreground and "zoomed in" a bit so that the door on the east and the corridor on the west would be at the bottom of the screen.

Waiting room bg:
- Again the room is much bigger than it needs to be, forcing you to scale the character a lot.
- The picture(?) to the right on the back wall is squeezed up in the corner.
- The door on the east wall is too small. Usually in a house the top of the windows and the top of the doors are at the same height. Your window has about 1/4 of the wall above it and the door has nearly 1/2.
- The door opening on the south wall is a bit overdone. You can make it just 3-4 pixels tall and it will be obvious to the player.

Back alley bg:
- Nothing really wrong here. I recently had to draw a chain link fence myself and found the best way was just to do what looked good. If you try to draw it in scale it will be almost all fence, but in reality a chain link fence is mostly air.
- Dumpster might stick out too much from the wall.

Looking good so far! Best of luck!

[Kweepa]

I didn't like the shape of the dumpster.



I made it taller, removed some pixels on the left of the lid, added thickness to the walls, made the panels at the front recessed rather than pillowed out, added some dents and scratches, changed the lighting in the lid, and modified the perspective of the little bracket on the right. It's rough, but you get the idea.

[CMonkey]

Thanks for your feedback Dr Scary, i can't wait to implement it when I get home. I agree that the rooms are probably too deep, I seem to have a habit of doing this, i'll just have to try and keep it in mind when i'm making the first room sketches. Also thanks for the feedback about how a room should be setup with door and window heights. It's funny, it's just not something I think about at all until I try and recreate it.

Steve, thanks for detail on the dumpster! I like the fact that the scratches on the ground and the side reflect that the dumpster is 'in use', rather than just a nice clean prop. Also the thickness of the walls, when I saw it I was like 'Of course! It's not made out of paper!'. It's little oversights like this i'll have to work on. I also like the highlights you did of the bricks on the back wall, it gives me some idea on how to give it some texture without going for the standard repeating brick pattern.

Thanks =0)