Berth's art thread

[Berth]

Hi folks!

I'm a "new" member here. I’ve been wandering around the forum for years now, and I decided it was time to register!

I’m currently working alone on a Point and click game, and I’d like to share my progress with you during the development.
This is a fantasy Point-and-Click game intended to be humoristic (eg : Day of the tentacle, monkey island, etc.), and you can expect a more complete presentation (in the "games in production" section ) next month.


For now, I’d like to know what you think about the style I created for the game. I tried as much as possible to create something that would feel "unique".
Please, keep in mind those drawings are only concept art, and they are highly downsized (the game resolution will be 1080p). So they don't represent the finished product.


Any constructive criticism is welcome, and if you have any questions feel free to ask!

Hope you'll like it, enjoy!

[Armageddon]

Lovely work so far, especially the perspective of the background.

[dactylopus]

The style is fantastic.  I really like the character designs.  Full of life and uniquely expressive.

Good work so far!

[Anian]

Looks really nice so far.
Only 2 things I notice
- the girl has a bit of messed up hands, especially for concept you might want to keep the hands not covering the body and the shoulders just a tad wider (they should be just a bit narrower than her hips, but this might be a bit too much, unless you want to make it a caricature, in that case you might make the difference a bit bigger)
- you need to lower the boot top a bit on the guy, determine where the knee is and make the top of the boot lower than that. The way this is now looks almost ok, but the animation will look weird

[Andail]

It's all looking good. The character designs look especially professional.

The background is a good start, however all the barrels actually bother me a bit. Unless this is a barrel manufacturer's house, you could probably do with perhaps only a couple, or at least vary their design a bit. It's never good to have the same shape/pattern recur all over the picture. Especially the pyramid on the left hand side is distracting - in fact, the very act of piling barrels like that seems rather risky.

The mat is not drawn properly - there's a second view point far out on the left side that you need to keep in mind.

I look forward to the coloured version!

[selmiak]

meh, the fat guy has bigger boobs than the girl
But I like the mean look on the moose's face

[Ilyich]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

The main character's design (I assume), is utterly excellent and the others are quite inventive and diverse as well - great job! The background shows a great deal of promise as well, with it's confident composition and precise lineart. My only problem with it is that it doesn't seem to have much in terms of interesting unique elements - it's a really well rendered medieval building, sure, but that's pretty much all I can say about it at this point, and that's not extremely exciting. But judging from your exceptional character designs - I'm sure you'll be able to turn it into something special. So best of luck with that, very much looking forward to see where you'll go with this!

[Berth]

Armageddon : Thanks! Did you notice I used a distorted perspective?



dactylopus : Thank you very much, glad you like the style!



Anian : Thank you for your comment.
Regarding the girl : as I said, those are only concept art to give me an idea of the style that will be used in the game. It is not intended to be “perfect” at this stage (so… some characters are more “completed” than others, some are only sketches, etc.). I disagree regarding the shoulder and the hips though. This is not meant to be realistic. “Playing” with anatomy is what makes cartoon characters interesting.
I also disagree regarding the boots, I’m afraid. I believe this is an element of the design that makes the character “unique”.  Animation wise, it won’t be a problem for me either.



Andail and Ilyich: First of all, thanks to both of you!
Regarding the mat, you’re totally right Andail. It was added at the last minute (it’s not even the same color aha), and I screwed the perspective.

You both mentioned that this background lacks diversity (too much barrels, not enough unique elements, etc.). You’re right, it does.  This background had two main purposes:
1.   Define the style that will be used (as I mentioned earlier).
2.   And see if a distorted perspective would work well.
So if it’s used in the game, it will be reworked first. I certainly don’t want the backgrounds to be boring!



Selmiak : every girl can’t have DD I guess 




Edit: I forgot to ask... what do you guys think about the distorted perspective!?

[Snarky]

By itself it looks fine, but remember that when you have characters moving across the screen, they're not going to follow the distortions (e.g. their standing pose is always going to be straight vertical, not curved). I wouldn't think it's going to be a problem with this amount of distortion (and assuming the walkable areas are restricted so they never get to the really curvy edges), but you might want to test it out in-engine.

[Berth]

Snarky: Yes, I agree. Since the distortion isn't too exagerated, I don't think it will be a problem either.
I don't know if I'll have to restrict the walkable areas that much though (I'll have to test it out when I have more free time). But from what I can remember, a similar perspective worked quite well in the game "Day of the Tentacle".

For examples:
[imgzoom]http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/17874-maniac-mansion-day-of-the-tentacle-dos-screenshot-references.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]http://yannick.fleurit.free.fr/GameDesign/Camera%20Screenshots/Day%20of%20the%20Tentacle.jpg[/imgzoom]

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

You have a solid grasp of form within your own cartoony style, so you have already won 90% of the battle an artist must face when creating memorable characters.

What I need to see is something 'ready' for real critique rather than vaguely-drafted rooms and partial concepts because it's clear you have a solid grasp of the basics already and only seeing something you've fleshed out can we determine if you need help in higher-level areas like contrast, lighting, placement, and perspective -- though again, from the sketch of the background you've done I would guess that you have the fundamentals of perspective down as well.