Rate my art and critic!

[Jakerpot]

Hi everyone, i will post them some samples of my art from mansion break, i wanted to ask you what can i change to make it look better. ThankS!


Dr.Cliche


Corridors In Game


Dungeon Just Background



The Machines Room Just Background


Secret Room In Game

Thanks!

[Trihan]

Dr. Cliche is a bit too symmetrical. People don't stand perfectly symmetrical, giving your characters more dynamic poses will make them far more interesting to look at. Also, his hands are a bit too severely straight and it makes them look like triangles.

The corridor looks alright. Not too much ceiling although unless it's going to play an important part of the game you could stand to lose a bit of it. The plant is nice but for some reason it still looks a little bit...flat, somehow. As for the character, I like everything about him -except- the arms. Well, his right arm anyway, it looks like it's made of paper that's been folded in the middle.

Dungeon background is fairly nice but the angle of the top of the cage is a bit off-perspective in comparison to the rest of the room. If it's meant to be a square or rectangular cage you've got a bit of work to do there. Also, the small window with the bars doesn't really look natural, it looks like something's knocked a hole in the wall and then put bars in it. (and maybe that's exactly what it's supposed to look like, who knows?) Finally, I can't tell what that thing sticking out of the ceiling at the left is supposed to be - some kind of vent?

Don't really have much to say about the machine room or secret room besides the fact that the colours in the secret room are far too saturated, it almost hurts my eyes.

Hope that helps you!

[bog]

that guy in the first screenshot looks like he's about to fall on his back, i think you might want to balance him a bit

[Jakerpot]

Well, everyone is critic! Bog, i don`t know what you mean with the cage, but the hole with the bars, is just that! A hole with some bars! If you play my game you will understand what is that thing on the ceiling, it`s not a duct, it`s a "pipe" but not a water or air pipe, a people pipe (don`t try to understand). Well, as i see i have some work to do  but let see someothers critics.
Thanks! J-

[Trihan]

What I mean with the cage is, if you look at the angle of the bottom left wall and the angle of the top corner of the cage, perspective-wise the cage would have to be irregularly shaped to look like that.

[Jakerpot]

oh, yes. Do you think if i make the cage bigger, and exclude de celing of it, it will be on a good angle? so the player will not see it top, just a line.
J-

[Trihan]

I think the problem is the angle of the walls themselves. I'm no expert on this, but it doesn't look like you have any particularly defined vanishing point.

[ALPHATT]

These might help you

http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/

http://www.freewebs.com/mini-tutorial/

As for your characters:

Try drawing simple sketches by hand, experiment with adding details to it.
Only get to the pixel-pushing part when you have a basic image of what you're gonna do.

Also, look up Andrew Loomis' 'Fun With A Pencil'

edit: also, save your images in .gif or .png when posting it here

[Jakerpot]

thank you very much, i don`t like to draw this way, with points and guide lines, i just draw and adjust if i feel it`s wrong. I bet most of the people don`t this kind of errors, but when done right it`s look more beautiful.
J-

[ALPHATT]

http://www.placidchaos.com/Loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Fun%20With%20A%20Pencil.pdf

Oh, I forgot. Here's a downloadable version of Fun With A Pencil.

It's a really good intro to figure drawing and dealing with proper perspective.

[Houchin]

IMO, the proportions of your cage are a bit off from your wall:



I think they should be parallel to each other.  Looks pretty good either way.

EDIT:  I probably should change my image to .gif or .png, but I'm too lazy to do that now....  So 'dere...

[ManicMatt]

Hi. I'd say the main character's feet are the wrong size. The difference in size shouldn't be that great, as his feet are so close to each other that they'd look practically the same size.

random example:



I like the cartoon style of the character, although I'd have liked this crazy style somehow replicated in the backgrounds.

[Jakerpot]

The answer of the character feet is: It wasn`t i who drawn he  :o it was Lo_Res_man, which don`t respond my PM`s anymore... well, i think you are wrong too Houchin. Look at the celling line. Did you saw, that when more high is the object, more curved down is the line? This is my perspective, the line should be more curved down on the top of the cage, and more curved up on the floor...

[ALPHATT]

Your reasoning made no sense.
The perspective is off and it should be fixed.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Hi Jakerpot,

What most of the others have been trying to point out is that the way objects are percieved to slant is based on the theoretical artistic convention known as a vanishing point. any object whose lines are perpendicular (lined up with one another) will follow the same vanishing point, so since your cage is square and it also lines up with the left wall, its lines should also follow the same vanishing point.

There are some places where these rules don't apply, like in isometric art and top-down, but your average Adventure game background follows these rules, and even backgrounds where the art seems to break the rules, you'll be surprised to know that they actually are very deeply based in theory. True, some really wacky backgrounds like the ones you'll find in DOTT or CMI do bend the rules, but as they say: Learn the rules before you break them. That way you'll break them right.

I know it's a pain to try to master a new technique, but believe me when I say that learning the concepts of horizon and vanishing point will greatly improve your background artwork. Let me give you a practical example based on the background in question:



What I've done here is use the common line created by the walls and floor to establish my Vanishing Point (VP). From there I take the corners of all other parallel (lined up) objects and draw my z-axis (going towards and away from the screen) lines from there. Once I have my lines worked out, It's a simple matter of filling in the blanks.

When you have this technique down, it's even easier to do a background, since you don't have to muddle about trying to figure out what lines to use for any given object.

[Jakerpot]

Oh, i saw the diference! Thanks!
EDIT: Do you think i should do it with the other rooms? Or they look more "right"?
J-

[ALPHATT]

If needed yes.

Check if the perspective is applied correctly or not in every single one of your backgrounds. If it's off fix it.

It's that easy ^_^

[Jakerpot]

Ok  i will post the new dungeon tonight. I'v done a new grate putting a concrete frame arround it. I will put more details at the floor and ceiling, and some more things. And also update the other ones.
EDIT: Here is the new background, is 10000000 times better than the last one!



What do you think???
J-

[ALPHATT]

It's definitely better. I kinda like it. keep it up.

edit: Maybe the dirt on the wall is applied too randomly.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Definitely looking a lot better than before. Might I suggest not actually having the candle lit in the background and consider animating it as an object in the engine in-game? It'll add a lot, I think.

Also, You might want to think about making the pipe/tube coming out of the ceiling rounder - at the moment it looks pretty flat. If you really want to improve the room, I might also suggest adding some sort of texturing to your ceiling and floors, as with the walls so nicely done, they look a little nondescript. But so far, so good. I really like what I'm seeing here.