Expirementing with Eric's hi-res tutorial *REVISED (againx2)*

[Paper Carnival]

Hey guys,

The past few weeks I've been really busy with school, but that didn't stop me from expirementing a little... I followed this tutorial http://www.sylpher.com/kafka/tutorials/hirestut.htm and I was supposed to come up with this:



but I combined my existing skills with the style. I used the method it describes, some of my art (like the sky) and some pixelation art and I came up with this:



Which one is the best? Why? Any suggestions? I feel the original has *something* mine doesn't have. The same applies to mine.

Thank you

EDIT: I forgot to mention the program I used. I used Pixia

This is the revised one. I changed the sky and added mountains. I don't like the new sky, but it looked worse with both the mountains and the old sky. Anyway, here it is:



Luckily, it turned out I had saved the sky before I put it into the project (the new sky was made in CorelPhoto Paint). I just replaced the old sky with the new one and then redrawn the mountains. Now the difference between the two styles is even more obvious :S
EDIT: NO! Notice that grey thing? I accidently put it there, before I saved as a png! I saved it again, but now it is uploaded and I cannot replace it... Just imagine that grey thing does not exist



I decided that I should make the foreground match the background. So, I revised it again and blurred it a bit. Then I did some more changes to it and fixed some stuff. This is the final version and I'll probably not revise it again, unless I have some critisism which requires me to.

[Igor]

Cute edit Love the grass and shading.
Though, i must say i still like Eric's original better. The thing that takes away the most from your pic, in my opinion, is mixing of two not very compatible style: bold and robust lines with complex shading/coloring. This is especially evident with the moon that clashes too much with smooth colored sky.

[Timmy]

I'd say yours is better !

[Paper Carnival]

It is? Any ideas of why?

A friend of mine said that mine has more depth and texture and liked it more (before I said which one was mine, so he wasn't trying to make me feel good).

I think if I removed the sky and moon it would look better, but whatever I do Eric's will look more proffessional :'(

[TheYak]

Simple or complex, I think it's all about cleanliness.  Eric's got experience in making a composition, not just a picture.  He's kept uniformity throughout.  If yours was done keeping the same style throughout, it would be a bit improved.  The sky's nice (in fact, I prefer your sky in theory) but the shades tend to make it look like a bumpy 2-dimensional surface.  It makes me envision the entire scene set against a backdrop of a large planet.  I think, perhaps, if the dark spots were lighter shades instead of darker, it might make more of an atmospheric look.  The general shading of the background (curved with a spherical appearance) lends to the solid-object illusion.  

However, if you make the drawing entirely in your own style then I couldn't really say which is better.  It's all a matter of preference and taste.  I can't exactly say that Van Gogh is superior to Monet - just which style I prefer.

[MrColossal]

hehe nice

i'd really like to see you're own background painting in this style. mostly cause I hate that image now. I'm gonna put a disclaimer up saying that it's been years since those first tutorials were put up and I'm better now, hehe

what I'd suggest you do is take that background and transform it so it looks like instead of just falling behind the telescope it was retreating into the distance and coming out at us.

And I really think you need something in the lower part of the image, like how I have the mountains. Something to layer the scene, give a background for things to fall back into.

either way, woop!

eric

[Paper Carnival]

Thank you all for your comments

I will revise it when I get home. Right now I am in an Internet Cafe and I can see how different it looks here. My monitor settings are darker and it looks a bit better here, only less antialised. Imagine that the colours on the bottom right corner seemed almost solid black in my monitor :S.

what I'd suggest you do is take that background and transform it so it looks like instead of just falling behind the telescope it was retreating into the distance and coming out at us.

I don't really understand what you mean, but if it is what I think you mean, then it is like inside a cylinder and the sky is the inner wall texture of the cylinder. I'll try to do that...

I'm not sure if I am going to use this shading style for my game, but whatever it is it will be very similar. This tutorial teached me a lot of stuff, even though I wasn't following it step by step. Ya c, I was doing that stuff in my way (mostly because I don't have PhotoShop), but I have learned importand stuff about shading and light sources.

Thx again

[Paper Carnival]

I revised it. Look above

[juncmodule]

I like everything about your original revision except the lack of mountains. But, I don't like the mountains in the new revision. It doesn't look like you spent as much time on them as you did the rest of the picture. They are very blurry and the peaks are too long...

I think comparing it to Eric's isn't fair at this stage. Finish the mountains with the same kind of detail you put into everything else and then maybe we can compare. In the end though they are just completely different styles and it becomes a matter of personal preference.

For me, I like Eric's, because I can see characters on that background. Putting characters on your background...that looks like it would be a pain in the keester

later,
-junc

[Paper Carnival]

You're right about the mountains. I wanted to change them but I accidently saved the project in png format, so hasta la vista layers :'(. I'd need to create teh sky from scratch and I am too lazy to do it .

[MadReizka]

"Guybrush Guybrush. Now what did we learn?
START USING THOSE FRIGGING PSD BACKUP FILES" - In a teacher voice from MI4.

Note the joke in the message!  

[juncmodule]

I noticed you need to do some work on the tower, mountain, and moon borders. For the low res that this is there are a lot of details that should be tended to. For example, the moon has sky colors on it(along the edges). It looks like some spill over anti-aliasing.

By the way, the above should be pixel perfect. Just paste it over the old, also use it as a border to extract the mountain, tower, and moon!

later,
-junc

[n3tgraph]

very nice GB,

but I  have to say the moon looks like a big yellow thing about to fall down  

anyway nice go

[Paper Carnival]

I updated it again.

"Guybrush Guybrush. Now what did we learn?
START USING THOSE FRIGGING PSD BACKUP FILES" - In a teacher voice from MI4.

Do I get one of those pointy hats now?

I noticed you need to do some work on the tower, mountain, and moon borders. For the low res that this is there are a lot of details that should be tended to. For example, the moon has sky colors on it(along the edges). It looks like some spill over anti-aliasing.

Well, I'm too lazy to do that now.

very nice GB,

but I have to say the moon looks like a big yellow thing about to fall down

It does NOT look like a big yellow thing about to fall down. You see, it's white-grey-whatever.