Lacking a special somthing

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 12:38:18

Its a medievil town,

*new edited version*

And its lacking a lot of contrast. I have tried a lot of thing to fix this background, but all with no avail. Im not sure what it needs.

There are a few thing which are not included into this picture which are the townsfolk/knights and i will probally have a matket stall selling tomoatoes next to the "ye' odle sale" magic shop.

what do you as the intended audience, think it needs? I think ive looked at it too much now, so i cannot really think very well...

im blabbing

crit away, paintovers are welcome

-OSC

Peter Thomas · Mon 12/04/2004 12:51:15

I'm not prepared to make a judgement until I see a version with townsfolk.

Honestly, it's that one single person that can make the difference between a good background and a great background. Once you've added the people in, I think it will look fine.

Kweepa · Mon 12/04/2004 12:55:11

I filled the dark brown with a darker, more saturated colour, then whacked up contrast 40% and brightness 10% or so:

Then, for kicks, I (very roughly) added some shadows:

I'm not sure the shadows help

Steve

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 12:58:14

steve your edit hurts my eyes lol,

ill play around with the outlines colours, addin the townsfolk and then put another edid up.

it'll be done soon

-OSC

Peter Thomas · Mon 12/04/2004 12:58:50

okay....

so maybe there's something that could be done...

I still like it, though. Nothing worth serious crit. in my opinion.

EDIT: I think steve's idea would work well in a bright/happy setting, but I get the feeling that OSC was trying to get across quiet and calm, and slightly drab. Am I right?

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 13:04:18

your rite, but messing around with what steve said i now have a result iREALLY like, im just ading townsfolk ect now.

-OSC

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 13:28:21

http://img18.photobucket.com/albums/v54/oversizedchicken/townscene.gif

the new revised version, maybe it still needs some more brightness. i dont know.

i added the characters Peter

-OSC

Jockstrap · Mon 12/04/2004 13:49:33

Actually, I think it needs to be dirtier. It looks good but I think it needs to be totally filthy and disgusting. At the moment it's just too..."clean". But it IS good.

Kweepa · Mon 12/04/2004 14:01:18

Yeah, I like it a lot.
I still think it needs more contrast though, with a sky that blue.
I'm prepared to admit I overdid it a bit

PS it's "medieval", not "medievil".

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 15:08:00

Eval??? really! lol i never knew that. Learn somthing new everyday

ok so im now adding dirt/mold/disgustingness ohhh and contrast

-OSC

shbaz · Mon 12/04/2004 15:23:04

I think I'd like it better if the shadows had more emphasis, they're very pale.

I've harvested straw before because I just live in that backwards hillbilly section of the US, and it isn't the idealized golden color you'd image from Rumplestiltkskin. You should make it darker, add a few more colors with different (darker) shades of the golden color you have, add contrast, and voila, hopefully it will look nicer.

I hope you realize I'm nitpicking with the straw, I just don't think it carries the level of detail you've added with the rest of the scene. It sticks out of the image because it's so bright and then it only has two colors without the quality of the rest. Yellow and gold are very loud colors, use them with discretion.. which is why I think it needs to be darker with more colors.

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 15:34:55

hey cheers jinkens,

ive been playing around with the straw colours and all ive got so far is a kinda shit colour :

but im still trying

-OSC

shbaz · Mon 12/04/2004 15:57:30

I just fooled around a bit in the Gimp and here's my result:

I used the pencil tool with a wood gradient (length varies depending on how many pixels your image is, adjust to your needs) and using shift+click made the lines in three different layers. In the top layer, I made most of the straw with moderate gaps, never overlapping the straw. In the layer behind it, I filled in almost all of the remaining area with straw, and did overlap some of the straw from the layer above, but once again, not from the same layer. In the bottom layer, I only had specs showing, so to solve that problem, I used a bucket fill with the same gradient. Next, I used the brightness/contrast tool to lower the brightness of the middle layer to a middle ground, and the brightness contrast of the bottom layer to a dark shadow.

I hope this is of use to you, I don't know if you use the gimp or not but I know those tools are available in all self-respecting paint programs.

The major problem with this is that you'll need to make a lot of tiny lines, but using copy/paste it shouldn't be so much of a problem.

EDIT:
Houses of that era usually used thatched roofing, which is where they took thickly wound packets of straw and packed them closely together. They were rarely just straw stacked on the roof, as that would just blow away. You could make one thatchet of straw and duplicate it over the whole roof, it'd be something deviate from the ordinary.

Scummbuddy · Mon 12/04/2004 19:30:51

Is there a way that you can make the castle seem a bit more in the distance? perhaps a light blue opacity layer?

YOke · Mon 12/04/2004 20:16:07

Very cute and cool!

My suggestions for improvements:

1. Add more random junk, useless stuff and such. I know it's not fun to spend lots of time to draw stuff that will never have anything to do with the gameplay, but it really makes the difference. (This is one of the first things to go in many amateur games.)

2. Make the stone foundation in the alley darker. Now it has the same color as in front, and that takes away a lot of the feeling of depth imo.

3. Fix the upper-right-backmost corner of the building with the red roof. As it is now it's not really zany-crooked or charmingly-crooked, just physically impossible.

4. As shbaz said, it would also be nice with some more thickness to the yellow roof.

5. As scumbuddy said, a light blue overlay over the castle would make it seem further away.

One tip for making it more dirty would be to add (dried) mud on the bottom of the buildings, since they would get splashed when horses and people use the street on a rainy day.

Maybe fix the clouds? The dig-site tutorial on the Fountain of Youth pages is very good for learning to draw clouds.

You have developed a really cool "universe" for your characters. Just put in those small details and it will totally SHINE!
Great work!

EDIT:
Did a quick paintover to illustrate some of my points. Turned out badly

but I think you can still get some information out of it.

Fixed the corner of the house. put a blue overlay over the castle go give the impression of distance. should have done the same with the trees at the back of the forest...
darkened the stone foundation in the alley.
finally I added a dirt path between the tents.
The cloud is way off the style and more a result of me monkeying around in photoshop than anything else... I hope it's of some use.

shbaz · Mon 12/04/2004 21:24:40

I still think the straw stands out a bit much.. an easier way to modify what you've already drawn would be to use the burn tool with small lines.

In any case, it'll still look good though. It's improved a lot even though it was already good at the beginning.

EDIT:
I wasn't thinking, I thought Yoke's paintover was an update. :

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 22:01:12

hey thanks everyone, really inspiring. YOke i love your edit, looks real nice. Im now taking everything said into consideration. And improving drasticly.

Edid should be up by the end of the night

-OSC

Chicky · Mon 12/04/2004 22:33:27

is anyone interested in seeing the final result? Or would you rather see it in the finished game?

-oSC

YOke · Mon 12/04/2004 23:55:21

Show it, show it, show it!!! or at least PM me the url

ravenfusion · Tue 13/04/2004 00:02:23

Show me or I'll eat your brain.

Lacking a special somthing

ravenfusion