Test Background That Needs Help

[Domino]

A Friend of mine came up with an idea of a game where I am a Smut(Porn) dealer on my own little planet with my own shop. It is the only building on the small planet and I have hand drawn and scanned the image, but I am having a hard time trying to make it look right.



Here is what I have worked on so far.

And here is the scan of my original...



Right now, my color filled image does not seem right.  Can somebody help me here.

As of now, I am not happy in the progress of this picture, and I want to make it really great!!  Any help will be appreciated.

Domino

[Evil]

There's a lot of flatness to the walls that make the counter look like it's at the same depth as the walls. Part of it is the lack of shading behind the counter. The left wall is really flat too. My edit looses a lot of that neat saturation, but I was lazy.

[Domino]

Nice job Evil.  Right now I am working on some new sketches of the Smut Hut.

Thanks

edit:

[Evil]

Looks much better. Sign is facing down, not that it looks weird, but gives the whole background a distorted look. Normally you'd see the bottom of the sign where the supports are attached and wouldn't see the top of the sign.

Bar shape looks really good. I think this floor layout will work great for a game. Interesting depth and shapes.

[Play_Pretend]

The planet should be *two* spheres stuck together, and the Smut Hut a tower built between them.

[Layabout]

You should try and tidy up the fuzzy outlines really.

[Domino]

Yeah, I do need to clean up the lines big time.  I get that after I scan in my drawing in Black & White and then rescale the image.

I am drawing with a pen on paper.  Is there any way to get nice smooth lines?  Maybe it is just my old scanner.

Thanks.

[GarageGothic]

Scan in grayscale rather than black and white. You can always adjust the contrast/brightness afterwards for a crisper look.

[Mr Flibble]

I've found the best way to get crisp outlines, in low res, is to scan in greyscale like GarageGothic said, and then trace over the image on a new layer.

[Layabout]

You would get even smoother lines if you used vectors and later convert them to raster.

Alternatively, if you scan in greyscale, adjust the brightness and contrast, you should get pretty crisp lines. I usually use this method, as I tend to pixel over hand drawn art.

Even better would be to use method two, import into Adobe Illustrator and convert bitmap to vector. This will give you that smooth vector effect with little effort.

To colour, there are a few choices for hi-res art. You could use the magic wand, increase the size of the selection by a few pixels so the edges of your selection are in the middle of your outlines, create a new layer, set to the layer to multiply and fill. Another option here would be to use LAYER MASKS. They are frigging great. You basically have to create a new layer, have a selection and click the Create Mask in the layers panel in photoshop. Make sure you change the layer selection to the main image and not the mask, and draw away. Anything you draw in this layer will be confined to the mask area. Anything you draw outside of the mask will be invisible, or Masked. Thats why they call it a mask. Easy?



If you want use the same mask for another layer, that is pretty easy as well. You can use the magic wand tool on the mask of the layer. (Select the mask layer, click the magic wand within the visible area) If you create a new layer, it should automatically create a layer mask for you (not totally sure about this) but if not, you just need to click the layer mask button again, and voila! New mask. This is handy if you want to create a shadow mask for a layer.

Pt 2. Shadows in 6 easy steps.

Create a new layer.

Set to darken or burn or whatever looks best at the end. Create a new selection of the part of the image you DON'T want to be in shadow. Your selection doesn't have to be that smooth, but it helps a little.

Go to select menu and choose invert selection.

Fill with a very dark bluey-grey colour. Remember nothing is completely black. Not even black.

Gaussian Blur. Set it quite high so you get a smooth looking transition.

Set the layer opacity to maybe 30%.

Voila! Shadows that look pretty nice and smooth with little to no effort. I will try and get some pictures up later to illustrate, if my instructions aren't clear to you.

Remeber you can layer shadows, so for example in the smut hut interior, you could use a shadow layer here. To get a smooth join of a shadow, it's only a matter of painting it in black. You may have to blend using the old blur and smudge tool, but try to avoid it, as it can look messy if not done right.

If you are using other programs like psp or gimp, i'm sure there are ways of doing what I have said. If you are using paint. Get the Gimp!

[Jakerpot]

Another thing (in my opinion) is that scanning images to do this type of art isn't the better way. I recomend you to do a pixel art background rather than scanning images, because it look A LOT better when done right than a scanned image, that look rustic. Pixrl art is smooth, so the lines too. If you draw on a paper, and then draw on the computer using your eye, it will look a lot better. Trust 

[Layabout]

Not necessarily. It depends on what you want out of your art, and the look you are going for. One style of art is not necessarily better than another style. Just different. We all make choices. Line art can be smooth, you've just got to know how to get away with it.

[Domino]

I use NeoPaint for all of my pixel work and scanning.  I do have Photoshop, but am really not that experienced with it.  Maybe I should learn it.  Sounds like a plan.

Thanks,
Domino

[Jakerpot]

i think you could draw the sign like a post, in the high, like on the real life, i think it would look a lot better