My first background.

[jetxl]

I said it before and I say it again, that's a fine background.
The only thing I can give advice on is make your first game a SHORT game. A maximum of 10 bg's (including close ups and cut scenes). There are so many game that look great but will never be released because they are too big to make.
Please start small, and save big ideas for later games.

[Helm]

please don't use lighten/darken brushes, add highlights and shadows using colors you pick yourself.

[A�rendyll (formerly Yurina)]

please don't use lighten/darken brushes, add highlights and shadows using colors you pick yourself.

You know, lighten/darken isn't always bad... Only if you work on an 8-bit game.

[dasjoe]

it gives you absolutely no control over colours. don't use it.

[Khris]

Or do it using two separate layers, one with white, one with black pixels. Then adjust the opacity to a value around 20-30 and you're done.

I tend to use lighten/darken myself, I'm not sure why it would be so wrong, with 16-bit it doesn't really matter, does it?

[Kweepa]

Helm, hajo, perhaps you'd like to explain why?
This is one of the better looking backgrounds I've seen around here, so I don't see what's so wrong with using the lighten and darken brushes.
Choosing your own colours may be better if you know what colours to choose - but therein lies the problem: it's slower, and requires more skill.

[fred]

Anyway, much the same technique could be used with 1-pixel colored brushes with low opacity - in case the shadows and highlights should be say, darkblue and yellowish-white respectively, instead of pure black and white. But yes, that would be harder and require that one keeps track of the colors used for highlighting/shadowing, or consistency in the picture would be hard to achieve.

[Damien]

I think choosing colors by hand makes the background much more pleasant to look at. Sure, it takes more knowledge and effort to do it, but this is the CL after all so there isn't much use in saying everything's perfect.

Example:

Now, imagine if there were no blue tones or orange highlights, just monochromatic shadowing. It wouldn't be as half as interesting as it is now.
The orange highlights are directly lit by the setting sun and the blue color from the sky gets reflected on the unlit parts of the snow. Ofcourse, if the sky was cloudy, then the shadows wouldn't be that blue and sharp, and the highlights would be a bit more dull, too. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Helm]

steve: because an object's highlight shade isn't the same color as the thing's color, neither is it's shadow. If someone wants to better their art, I'd urge them to check out color theory just enough so they have a grasp on the basics, nothing fancy, how a lightsource for example, tints various materials, and go with coloring stuff in themselves.

The process doesn't have to be much different anyway. Just make a new layer, set it to OVERLAY for highlights or MULTIPLY for shadows, paint with a color you find appropriate using basic color theory, vary the opacity of the layer until you're happy, repeat as needed.