Can you help me with my art

[SinSin]

hello folks I'm back after being off the net for soooooo long but i need some help with this problem
The picture below is a lil something i quickly drew up on adobe photoshop 7
its pants and artsy fartsyÃ,  Ã, i know but I'm only just getting my head round how to use this software

Now heres the thing i want to draw like the nice fellows who did this lil piece


Can anyone help me with this as i have loads of fab game ideas i would like to get progressing with

PS I like art like monkey 2
And i have looked at loads of tutorials and have made only minor advancements Ã, 
Cheers folks

SINSIN

Also how does this chap look

[Babar]

heh...Patchy chap!
The dithering looks a bit odd...is it intentional? You could have achieved a better effect by just using the darker shade directly.

About transforming your BG to the fellows (won't Increator be proud?). The most obvious difference is the detail. Perhaps when InC started his BG, it looked somewhat like yours.

You could add something in the background. In InC's pic, it is the outline of buildings on the far right. In yours, it could be the outline of mountains in the distance.

For the foreground, InC had the green dumpster. You could perhaps have the outline of a tree?

Then of course, you need stuff inbetween! That all depends on the game you're making. It could be a stream, or a big tree, or a Magic Mushroom of Doom!

The only way to achieve what was done in the 2nd BG is through LOTS OF WORK. You can make a very passable pic with a little effort, however.

[SinSin]

i guess only babar is the only one who wants to help me
please could i get some more feed back from people
Im desperate for some pointers 

Sin

[DanClarke]

i guess only babar is the only one who wants to help me
please could i get some more feed back from people
Im desperate for some pointers 

Sin

All i can say to you at this point is to at least attempt to do a BG, even if you dont think it's very good, everyone here is willing to help, but you need to give it a go 1st. If you're not confident with photoshop then dont expect to achieve magical things straight away, just keep practicing and with everything you do you'll get better

[SinSin]

the first picture is my background dude but its not the desired effect i require the second pic is the type of art i would like to be able to create

Sin

[InCreator]

Perhaps when InC started his BG, it looked somewhat like yours.

Quite so. But I never start from large empty areas like you did, because... well, in this case - in the end, I'm still stuck with these stupid large and empty areas I have no idea how to fill.

If you like my style, you must concentrate onto one word: Detail.

I'm faaar away from professional drawing (unlike DanClarke, for example, who can use lots of empty space, because it will still look good, somehow o_O), so I try to have as much detail cluttered into small space as possible. The smaller and more carefully handicrafted pixel thingies, the better. And they must be brought out with bright and varying colors.

Whole style is about faking detail. All these big empty areas are always covered using noise filter (best way to fake detail) and heavily modified using brighten and darken brushes. Which is about all the tools I need, after line tool.

I start from one thing and see where I end up. The background you posted was originally simply boring building (without V-roof). I even remember some stupid tree at far right. Thanks to community, good ideas came, as well as more interesting background. Declaring some large area which I have to fill, takes the will to go on.

The actual process of bg was a bit different, thanks to CL, but if I had to start again, I'd follow steps like on this gif:



First the building (coloring and primary shading too!), then the street, etc. It's probably easier to make sketch and outlines first, but I usually won't go that way.
If you're not using layers, leave the coloring to the last!
The key point is that making a bg starts when everything is already drawn: The detailing. Most (newbie) bg artists don't have this part in drawing process at all, which produces hundreds of identical box-shaped-room-a-door-window-poster-desk-and-bed backgrounds. Empty and boring, though functional. There's your difference.

The only way to achieve what was done in the 2nd BG is through LOTS OF WORK. You can make a very passable pic with a little effort, however.

Which is same thing what I'm talking about. Functional bg is easy to make. Get your perspective right, add some geometry and color.

But if you can "fill" this colored geometry with detail or atleast fake it well, your bg becomes 200% as interesting.

This isn't so hard work as it sounds. Especially at low res. Making whole background took only half a day, (my average) and only oncoming crits and comments prolonged that time, since everyone had something interesting to suggest or add.

[ildu]

I dug up the original image:



If this is inappropriate, I'll remove it.

[SinSin]

thats just the tips i needed thanks
Cheers inc for giving me the will to carry on 

Sin