Background - Critique my style

[Andail]

Well some of you know that I tend to draw my backgrounds rather sloppily. I wonder if this is enough for a "good" quality AGS game, or if you would expect more cleaned up backgrounds?

Imagine a few characters and some sporadic objects.

The process of cleaning up is so lengthy that I tend to stop working on my bg's roughly at this stage.
Feel free to give advice on how I can improve it in any direction, too

[Layabout]

I wouldn't complain about that. It looks really good.

[Tuomas]

I would though. It looks great, have to mention that, but would it fit a game with that certain character. I don't think so. I mean, it's hard to imagine someone behind the counter and moving. Surely possible, but I'd still think a more cleaned up, a simple version would do the trick in a point&click. THis bg looks more like a painting than a place in a game to me.

[Afflict]

I have to say that this background reminds me of a comic book, I would love to see the game done in this style. granted you'll need to work at keeping it consistent with the characters too but WOW it would turn out a rather unique style.

[bspeers]

I liked your old style as well, bu this one is quite good.  You'd want to use some in-game lughting effects to wash-out characters a bit.

The one thing I don't like is the tree.  The shape doesn't seem natural or sculpted and the colours are too saturated.  I think it detracts from the scene at the moment.

Otherwise, I really like the style and composition.  you might want to play around with stylized animation and characters.

[DonB]

Impressive!! I especially like the lighting style.

[Kweepa]

I guess it depends what you mean by 'expect' and "good" quality.
I'd be happy to play a game that looked this way, but I wouldn't call it commercial quality.

I don't think it looks particularly finished, and it's somewhat a mishmash of styles.
The floor, right hand wall, tree and japanese sign are getting there.
The left and far walls' brush strokes are too apparent. Sometimes an artist can get away with that, but I don't think it works here.
The lines around the windows don't look very smooth or confident, and the frame at the end of the roof is 2d.
The perspective in the kitchen is off, and the lines of the counter are rough.
The panels on the left wall are precise and the panels on the back and right are rough.
The windows of the buildings outside are particularly rough.
The centre kiosk's roof is a bit too muddy.

I do like the background, don't get me wrong. It just niggles me because I know you can do better and you've stopped saying "good enough". Obviously there's always room for improvement in any piece. Here though I'd say you've taken it to 30% of what you can achieve, whereas for "good" I guess I'd 'expect' 80-90%.

[Azaron]

Actually, I think it would look great with just a touch more work, such as cleaning up and defining behind the counter. It would actually be a great style I would enjoy a lot if the character wasn't so ... "clean"... Characters of that style would be a little too defined for that bg style. you don't want them to blend in obviously, but you would not want the outline for sure.

[Snarky]

I really rather like a loose, sketchy style, and I don't think this background necessarily needs to be cleaner. I do think it looks a bit unfinished, though. The main reason is that some parts look much more carefully sculpted than others. Certain parts of the image have a very "solid" feel, such as the floor, the stairs and the (outside of) the booths. Accurate perspective, careful outlines and convincing lighting and shading make these parts look "real", even if they are still obviously painted. And then other parts (booth interiors, back wall, wall details) aren't nearly as substantial, but look much more like wireframes, sketches or mere suggestions of shape. Oh, and the trash can isn't quite successful, either in shape or in shading.

So it's the inconsistency that bothers me about this background. I think the brush strokes on the left wall could work great in a background, but it would have to be part of a coherent style. The brush strokes there, the pencil marks on the back wall, the kind of blobby effect on the floor, the mostly smooth shading on the left canopy... they all work against each other, and create an impression of "unfinished" rather than "loose".

It's a really nice-looking screen-in-progress! If you don't have the patience to keep polishing it in order to approach photo-realism, maybe you could experiment with a more stylized approach? Something impressionistic or expressionistic, I mean. Or, looking at your character, something cartoony. (And yes, time-saving is a perfectly honorable motive for choosing a visual style.)

[Layabout]

Then again, if you look at the background, all the edges have lines.

But the character could be refined a bit, and perhaps more detailed. Although, he asked us about the background, not the character.

[Sparky]

When looking at the background zoomed out I'm quite content with it. But when I zoom in it feels a lot less consistent. I'm fine with the level of roughness overall. I quite like the parts of the background with rough, more textured brush strokes (the floor, the left wall above the stalls, the right stairwell, etc.).

I 'm feeling a little conflict between the overall loose style and the tighter outlines in some places (The strip of lights above the balcony on the right wall, the chimney above the rear stall on the left, the benches along the center stall, etc.). I'm not against outlines; I like the looser, antialiased lines you use in many places (they're particularly nice on the back wall and the rear left stall). If all the outlines were done in that style I think I'd be happier with the piece as a whole.

The colors are pretty solid. The piece definitely has atmosphere. There are some neat parts where you vary a color across a surface. Little deliberate color impurities like that are fun. The touches of green in the sketchy lines along the back and right walls is another example of your use of color that I like.

Great background, I hope my comments are helpful.

[Vince Twelve]

I think it looks amazing, though as has been mentioned, the clean pixels of the character don't seem to dance 100% with the background.

I'm sorry I can't add a whole lot to this, knowing very little about art myself.  This post was really an excuse to ask a question.  If you don't mind, how long did this take you?

[InCreator]

I think it looks amazing, though as has been mentioned, the clean pixels of the character don't seem to dance 100% with the background.

Seconded. Amazing and charater doesn't quite fit.

* The tree at back is somewhat weird (doesn't look as well drawn as surroundings) and doesn't quite fit neither.
* GigAtel sign and "13B" are way too saturated and stick out too much. Same goes to sloppy tree.
* Though reflective floor looks really good, I suggest to cut back on reflections: Otherwise it'll seem weird why everything reflects on floor but not the character.
* Some places seem more rushed than others and stick out. I especially don't like the area at right side, where trashcan is: the floor and missing outlines make this look strange.
* Leftmost roof-window arch seems to have smaller middle outline than others.
* The white thingy on wall at leftmost side looks empty and strange.
* Pay extra attention to antialiasing since there will be characters living around someday.
* The second roof arch is generating illusion of being 3d, since it's shading. But looking at first arch, it's not supposed to be so. Recolor it so part of arch wouldn't be lighter. Just observe carefully, if I couldn't make myself understandable.
* The roof glass could be less dirty and have some extra transclusent white spots to look more glassy.
** The background city should be ALOT clearer!

EDIT: * The little cabinet inside leftmost stall looks extremely weird. Look at it.
It seems like it's far back, like inside the stall wall or something. Like wall was much further than it seems. Or is it just me?
I just think that it's impossible to us to see stall floor. It should be lower and not visible.

I gave this extra picky criticism since I know you're a great artist and general opinions are positive anyway, therefore not helping much.

[Andail]

Ok, thanks a lot for your comments. Yeah the background obviously has some major incoherencies which I guess I need to address.

Vince Twelve; not exactly sure how long but maybe 3-4 hours. The process behind this particular piece was pretty linear, and I haven't had to re-paint (as of yet) large chunks of it.

[Dualnames]

I wouldn't complain about that. It looks really good.

Good is an under statement for that kind of background

[ravenfusion]

The sketchy, concept look of the background is very cool. As others have said, I didn't think the character fit in with the scenery so i've made a paintover to show a few things you could try. As for the background, i'm not in the position to be painting over that. :]

This is how i'd change the character:

- Reduced saturations and messed with a few colours to match scenery
- Slightly blurred the shading
- Replaced black outlines with darker shades of the clothes.
- Gave the character slightly more noticable cheek bones.
- You could also add darker shades around the limbs

[Ionias]

I love the background, and with the character that Ravey's painted it looks even more spot on.