First attempt in spriting and background art (UPDATED)

[JoelMayer]

Hi alltogether!

I just recently decided, to teach myself doing "adventure"-art 

this is what came out after a few hours:




the little character is supposed to be living in the shoe. it's still not quite finished yet. i plan to paint some chimneys and tv antennas, which are coming out of the "house" i'm still not quite sure about the troll... i mean, he IS supposed to be cartooney, but is he working with the background? does he need more shading? C&c most welcome, since am still a greenhorn 

thank you very much!

EDIT:

worked a little more on the shoe. i think, maybe it could work after all with the rather cartoonish character. i still don't like the overall "smudgy" look of it.

EDIT 2:

still working on the chimney. i put the new colored character in and made a simple gradient in the back.

[Ryan Timothy B]

The troll looks amazing and goofy, meets the perfect criteria for our everyday adventure game protagonist.

The shoe looks great also, But not together.  Looks like graphics from two totally different games. IMO

Your background should look more like this if you are going to have a character like that.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33763.0
(it's a previous thread that I happened to stumble upon with great Paint-like graphics)

[JoelMayer]

darn, i like my shoe so much! but i see your point, it was also my concern. the example you showed me is nice, but i would rather do something more colorful. my inspiration comes from the mid 90's games like kings quest 7 and torins passage. but i guess, my shoe is already too "detailed" (if you can call it so...).

thanks for the reply!

ps: here is a little walkcycle i did with him:



not quite perfect yet, but a good start i hope 

[Ryan Timothy B]

The shoe would be great if you could draw characters to match.  But that takes A lot of time, and I personally wouldn't try it.  And your walk cycle on this character is already fabulous!
I say kick the shoe, and go with pixelated and cartoony backgrounds.

[Babar]

No, I think it could work, and work very well. I was also reminded of Torin's Passage there . Unfortunately, I was also reminded a  bit of SQ6. So I'd say the way to save your character (if indeed it needs saving) is slightly greater detail, or, as they did in Torin's Passage, an ass-load of animation.


Torin's Passage Screenshots (which are sadly of low quality)

[Layabout]

Lovely detailed backgrounds and simple character art??? Doesn't work together?!!?!?!

Look at any disney film.

And that background link you posted was rather a poor example of what he should follow.

To improve the sprite, I would anti alias the black lines. Well, I wouldn't make em black in the first place. But it is ok.

Do you draw your character art on paper then scan it in and trace?

Simpler terms, what is your technique for spriting.

As for the background. Looks nice, but yes, a bit smudgy. Do you use a tablet?

[JoelMayer]

all done digitally. i maybe design a character on paper first. but the troll was drawn and animated directly into photoshop with the pencil tool. same for the shoe. i use a wacom intuos 3 tablet. i dont know about antialising. ther are only black lines by the eyes. i kind of like the "pixilated" look. but i'll try. but doesn't that give you white outlines, when the character is placed in front of a background? what can i do against the smudginess?

[Daniel Thomas]

Shapes can relate in many more ways then just amount of details, but us see a whole background first before making any judgement.

Antialiasing will/should not give white pixels if you draw the character on a seperate layer - if you draw it all merged the line can get a hint of the background color in it(or so I belive, correct me if Im wrong).

About the smudgeniss - paint less smudgy(and dont use smudgetoll:) )! You can try to use harder brushes. Do you use burn- and dodge-tool? If you do I would suggest not unless you make a greyscale painting which I think it works great for.
But harder brushes and bolder strokes would probably eliminate the smudginess

Hope it helps in any way, looks fun I think so far.

[Afflict]

I would suggest using different colors on the little guy looks like you chose the colors out of windows paint.

Saturate them a bit & play with the look & feel, or sample colors from a Disney movie character or something.

I like your walk cycle, I think adding a frame or two might be beneficial to the over all look and feel.

Keep up the great work!

[Erwin_Br]

Exactly. The colors are too hard, that's why the character doesn't match the backgrounds. - Love that walkcycle, btw!

--Erwin

[JoelMayer]

yeah that could be! do you think, i could save my shoe somehow? maybe do some outlines or something?

[Daniel Thomas]

Finnish the background, then we'll see if it matches or not - no need to overdramatize..
You cant really tell if it will match until you lay down all colors - colors are relative like everything else.. Using a neutral background(instead if the white that is) is atleast a good start.

But yea, the boot and the character might not relate much right now IMO.

[Ultra Magnus]

I love that walkcycle.

As for the character vs. boot thing, I think the problem is that the guy's colours are all very separate, whereas the boot's all blend into each other.
If you anti-aliased the guy and un-smudged the boot a little, maybe they'd strike a nice balance in the middle somewhere.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Alright lets try this again.

It's very possible to have the two coexist (just not yet. lots of work my friend).  IMO there is too much blurring and smudging on the boot.  Also making it appear out of focus.  (as far as I know, unless you're downloading low quality movies, Disney has never introduced a pixelated character and a blurry background, <like I said> as far as I know.  Yes they go into great painted detail on their backgrounds-especially Aladdin with their blurry CG animations.  But their characters are always colored properly, and the backgrounds usually have the same colorful contrast.)

Average character:
http://www.disneymovieonline.info/hidden%20things%20in%20walt%20disney%20movies.jpg
http://www.christianpost.com/upload_static/2007/07/entertainment_28649_2.jpg

Like I said, you're either going to have to tone down on the backgrounds or start drawing your characters with a little more detail.

Also on a personal note, avoid coloring your characters with near colors as the average backgrounds.  If your backgrounds are going to be dark, you'll have to do something with the Trolls pants and hair.  Barely noticeable against the shoe.  If your backgrounds will be bright, like maybe grass and bushes (like I can see you doing), you may not need to worry about changing the dark colors too much.

[CaptainBinky]

Detailed sprites, simple backgrounds...
Simple sprites, complex backgrounds...

That's all I need. I see no reason why these sprites can't work on these backgrounds providing all the backgrounds are consistent to one another, and the same goes for the sprites.

[lemmy101]

The worst is when there's *no* distinction between game objects and background. Anything else is down to stylistic choice IMO as long as there's consistency, as Binky says.

[JoelMayer]

i worked a little on the troll character (actually i call him Llort ). changed the colors and added some details...



thanks all for the comments so far! really helps me learning

@ binky and lemmy: i actually like your backgrounds (and characters) from the forgotten element quite a lot! are there any tutorials online, which illustrate a similar working process to yours?

[Layabout]

Your outlines use a lot of double pixels. I'd advise against that.

[CaptainBinky]

@ blinky and lemmy: i actually like your backgrounds (and characters) from the forgotten element quite a lot! are there any tutorials online, which illustrate a similar working process to yours?

Thankyou very much

The backgrounds are drawn by myself, MashPotato, and a chap called Philip Drake - we all have our own methods of working but pretty much it comes down to using a Wacom Pad, Photoshop, and lots of layers

I'm afraid that other than that, there's not a lot I can really say except that I tend to use a lot of Gradient Maps whenever I paint in Photoshop

Cheers,

Cap'n Binky

[Ryan Timothy B]

I like what you did on the boot 'collar' or whatever it's called, to separate the blurriness of it.  Llort looks much healthier now and less glow.

I made a quick edit (mostly on his face) to show what Llort would look like without double pixels as Layabout mentioned.  I also changed the outline to give you an idea of what he may look like without black lines, if you choose to do this or not (i feel it gives him a more cartoony look).