Help me make these images better?

[Daniel Thomas]

I'm not sure what you are asking, what happens when you remove the black lines(supposing it's on a layer)? Do you mean that when you remove the lines the shapes just blend together with to real edge? If so the solution is ofcourse to make the shape contrast each other more. For a very obvious example, look at Rembrandt, he uses light against dark a lot. You don't have to go so extreme, but it's just an idea that using light against dark creates a clear edge. And it is not a bad thing that some edges blend in to eachother(also refered as a 'lost edge'). Look at any image/painting and see how they did it, look how they create a good silhouette and make the object pop

http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rembrandt/rembrandt88a.jpg
http://www.dan-o-saur.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2647.jpg

As for a process, you can use the lasso tool and fill the shapes using the lines as a guide(I think this is what Bill Tiller have done for the Vampyre Story background, you can see they have very crisp edges). That way you have a mask anytime you want to tweak a shape/edge.

[EchosofNezhyt]

That second drawing is amazing.

[Anian]

This is a more of a moral support thing comment:
past few days I've been working on the competition entry for Background challenge (frozen water theme) and I am also very much more comfortable with drawing outlines (and the scene I'm doing is with loads of shades of white and blue basically) and it's really hard for me to switch into that "mode". My mind knows what I want it to look like but keep struggling with the number of shades I'm using.

As Daniel said, I think it is a matter of working with high enough contrast between colors that is the trick. For example shadows make a good outline tool, they give shape but also indicate where an object ends without a separate outline.

Btw by responses, Squinky, I hope you didn't get the wrong idea about your drawings, as far as I'm concerned the usage of outlines was not the problem, but the fact that they were (they're look really good to me now) a tad too thick and formed shapes of their own and so overpowered the shapes they were supposed to surround. The digital painting you posted is a lower level of those backgrounds, even though it too has some good aspects.

[tamatic]

Yeah, apparently people in this thread now think about losing outlines all together? But what MurrayL meant was that black has the habit of jumping into the foreground. Especially when you start to do the whole bells and wistles thing with desaturated backgrounds for depth effect.
The easy way is to adjust the brightness along with it. But I am not convinced this is the real hate Squinky has for these images yet. lol

[Daniel Thomas]

I didn't read the question as he wanted to keep the lines.
But if you want to keep the lines but not have it so dark, you can always paint the outline as a darker color of the object. I also like to punch up the saturation of the line, but it depends on what effect you're looking for.
Another, obvious, one would be to make the lines thinner, or introduce line variation. That way they will seem more interesting. tamatic mention that they jump in to the foreground, you can make the foreground with thicker/darker lines, and thinner/lighter as you go back, like Monkey Island 3 - that way there is a clear distinction of where in the space the lines belong.

[Honza]

If you have the lines in a separate layer, can't you just reduce their opacity?

Or maybe something can be done by playing with masks. If you post the lines layer without colors, I'd like to give it a try

[Darth Mandarb]

Some really good advice in here (and accurate).

However... my advice? 

KEEP THOSE OUTLINES MAN!!  I love the way it looks and it just screams personal style!  (though I do agree that line weight could work really effectively to separate the depth)

Just my $0.02!

[Squinky]

Thanks a ton guys!

I’ve looked over all the comments and I think the wisest choice for me is to keep the black lines. I actually took some advice from this thread and lightened some of my images. This weirdly made a world of difference to me. Also, I’m messing with the yellow shade layer and liking what I see, although it is very easy to overdo.

Thanks  guys! I’ll try to post an updated picture soon!

[dactylopus]

Good to hear that you're keeping the black lines.  I like the outlined style a lot.