First attempt - 3 backgrounds

[kq5_gamer]

Hey

These are my first ever background attempts and I thought I'd post them to this forum for some criticism.  A few points I'd like to make first though before they get ripped apart

• This is NOT a King's Quest game!  I just used Graham to put the room to scale... that and I love KQ5.
  
  


• Ideally I did want my backgrounds to look the style of the Sierra VGA games though... obviously I have a long way to go, hehehe.  I am posting these for critique on style, scaling, size, perspective, colours, shading.  For the most part I think my perspective is OK, but the scale, particularly of the mosque, looks a bit wrong.  I am also well aware the backgrounds lack details, textures, etc - I welcome comments & suggestions.
  
  


• Most the mosque artwork is not entirely original in that I have found images/cartoons online and traced them somewhat, resized, and made a number of changes.
  
  


• The gradients were done in Photoshop and then indexed to reduce the number of colours.  I do realise that gradients are not ideal, though they provided me a quick & easy way to give the backgrounds at least a little bit of depth.
  
  


• I also realise the black outlines are a "no-no", and make them look very "MS Paint-ish", however I struggle to make it look right without them.  This is definitely one area that I need assistance with.
  
  

Mosque - Outside View - The mosque is meant to look large, but for some reason I really struggled to make it look massive, while still keeping the same sprite size, fitting the whole mosque in, and having enough walkable areas.




Mosque - Outside View (colours dimmed) - more emphasis on the drawing, less on the horrible colours I chose




Inside Mosque - actually three 320x200 backgrounds.  I realise 3 of the 4 stars are lacking writing inside.  Also probably needs shadows from the pillars, despite numerous attempts I failed dismally at this.




Prison Isolation Cell - supposed to be small and dimly lit.  On my screen now (work) I can barely see the roof or definition within the basin.  On the screen where I made it (home) I could... I think my laptop screen is brighter than it should be.  On the left is a squat toilet, overflowing with sewage.  On the right is a basin with a water droplet.




Many thanks in advance for your comments!

[Anian]

It actually looks nice but you did over exagurate with the gradient - the palm tree is especially noticable, even more so cause the light source isn't the same as for domes and the rest of the building.
Yeah, I think you're gonna have to resize or redraw the sprite for that building to be the correct size, cause right now it looks like it's about 6 meters high and that's a pretty low building. To help make it "look" bigger, make the windows and the door a tad smaller, it'll make the walls seem more massive.

For the interrior, think of where the sources of light will be, then do the gradient and shadows etc.

The isolation cell has a perspective issue - the toilet and the sink are too big for the character as it is, not to mention they should be smaller. While on perspective, the mosque has a parallel thing going on, don't know if you meant that or not, just check any othe critic topic and you'll see what might be considered wrong with the perspective. Although it's not that bad.

If using as less colours as possible, then using a gradient doesn't really help. Try seeing what KQ has done with trees and maybe try and add some texture feel to the walls, ground, clouds etc. Some other people will probably show you this and you'll se that gradients can be achieve some other ways.

My inexpertise meddling is done, hope it helps.

p.s. is that barbed wire behind the mosque?

[kq5_gamer]

Hi Anian,

Thanks for your comments.  In answer to your questions:

I'll have another go when time permits to try make the Mosque look bigger.  Ideally I wanted to keep the same sprite size throughout all the backgrounds, but I may have to make an exception.

I should have mentioned that I did intentionally draw the mosque with parallel lines (ie did not truly follow one-point perspective).  I'm not sure why - I think because initially I drew it front on, but when I realised I needed to show the sides & top of it to give depth, I didn't want it to fill the screen, so I made the perspective only slightly tilted.  I didn't think it was enough to warrant making those lines converge to a VP?  I'm not sure if it makes sense, I might need to demonstrate with an example.

Regarding the cell, I actually thought the perspective was spot on and that the sizes were in proportion?  The basin is around waist height - ok perhaps a bit low, but the size is correct?  Perhaps this scene is suffering from the fact that it is a long room, and ideally in this room the sprite would scale as he moves back & forth (which I don't want).

And yes, that was my (lame) attempt at barbed wire!

[kq5_gamer]

Hi,

Here's a slight rework of the inside view.  I just added some texture to the walls, and made the stars a little better with some shading - took away the black outline as much as I could.  Added a door & staircase on the left, and attempted to make some shadows for the pillars but it doesn't look very good!



Also, I thought about showing the roof (and the start of the inside of the dome) from the middle background... forgive the gradient, it's just for demonstration - I've really messed up the construction of it though!  I don't know how to make the roof LOOK like a roof, it's hard when you can't see the side walls.  Any help with this or the other ones I posted earlier, would be greatly appreciated!



Thanks!

[Jim Reed]

If you want to make the mosque look big, you should shrink the size of the palm tree a bit. I havent seen a palm yet that was as big as building.

[deadsuperhero]

I took a stab at the texturing and shading. Overall, nice background.

[krishaw]

Nice but for the dimmed outside view the character looks just as colourful and lit up as he does in the bright view. I'd say that if you're using a dimmedview you should apply the same rule to a second sprite. Nice backgrounds though