General Artwork Questions

[ScottDoom]

Now I know about perspective, shading, coloring, and everything else and I can draw with pixel decently, but every time I try to make a game with AGS I end up quitting due to the artwork.

The reason is I just can't seem to get certain things right. I have figured out that it's because of perspective confusion and proportion...

First off, I know there's 1-point and 2-point perspectives, but which should I use? Should I use a combination of both or just one? Also, where should I place my vanish point(s) and how high/low should my horizon be? What extremes should I avoid to not make my character sprite's perspective out of place? Also, for a 320x240 game, how big and wide should my character be (for an average weight, average height type of guy)?

Are these things I just have to figure out on my own? Or is there some general knowledge that could be shared?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum... I couldn't figure out where else to post it.

By the way, some of my example work can be found here.

[otter]

I'm not much of an artist myself, but I think this one looks particularly nice, as does this one.  These are nicely composed and have a neat "vectory" feel.

I'm putting one of them as an inset:

There are still a couple of areas for improvement (what's behind those plants? the roof of the hotel also looks odd, and it seems like you should be able to see the other tires on the van if you can see below it) but overall I like this direction and I think you should continue with it.  This scene is also good for an adventure game because there are plenty of things one could interact with.

With those kinds of backgrounds you'll want to have more realistic sprites.  Just to get you started, a rule of thumb is for the height of the character to be between seven and eight times the length of the head -- so after you draw the head, put a bracket down on the side like so:

and then move the feet, waist, etc. and fill them in.  Actually, that sprite is actually pretty nice -- it has plenty of character -- but its proportions are pretty cartoony and wouldn't go with the more realistic background style you seem to be developing.  It might look a little strange at first because the eye tends to skip over blank space in favor of obvious landmarks, which is a huge reason that people tend to mess up proportion.  That's also the cause of another mistake you're making here -- the eyes are actually in the center of the head, not near the top.  It's an easy thing to mess up because there aren't really any visual landmarks above the eyebrows, but there's still a lot of cranium up there which you have to draw.

Here's a link you might find helpful: http://www2.evansville.edu/drawinglab/body.html

Anyway, hope this helped.

EDIT:

Also, with regard to how big your sprite should be, the more important question is how it fits with the background.  Draw a sprite or a background and then figure out the proportions of the other one based on that.

Please modify your posts when no one has posted after you.  It keeps things cleaner and helps save CJ's wallet! - ProgZ

[ScottDoom]

Thanks for the reply...

About those two particular backgrounds: They were made for a project of mine called Party In Room 26 which was never finished due to the character artist falling out of line. Also, the backgrounds took me on average 3 to 5 hours to make. I made them by taking a photograph and tracing over, and then coloring and adding my own details, looking at the photograph for color reference. In this way it was sometimes difficult to find the exact background I was looking for, and for a fantasy setting I'd really be out of luck. Here's the two photographs I used for those particular backgrounds:


The reason I traced was because I was really having problems with perspective, as I said in my first post. I know what it is, and how it works, but I just don't know how to use it.

I am checking out other drawings and tracing their lines to see where their horizon and vanishing points are so hopefully that'll help me out. I've already found out that in one particular room background the horizon is above (out of) the image and there is one single vanishing point in the center. I had always put the horizon in the lower-middle of the image, creating a very, very deep room where the character would have to walk about a hundred feet to reach the back.