Background and palette

[Sephiroth]

Hi, I was off for a while and decided to come back and work more seriously on a project. So here is the first background I came up with:



I would love some help on colours, it is so greyish it almost look like a flashback scene... which is not what I want. I think the colors for the door and shutters are good but I couldnt find a matching color for the rest.

Any crit or help is welcome, thanks!

[Anian]

Is that a shadow in the top left corner of the "main" building and that darkish gray surface under the door? If so, where is the light source?

Is it a night scene? For example take a washed (grayish) bordo colour and try amping up the blue color (cause it's night). If you're working with a rgb pallete that is. Try using that sort of color on the walls.
Would do the same thing on that sign post but with washedout green.

On the walls in the foreground, use that same red color only even more towards the gray (keeping the lightness the same). Be sure that the colors of the main buiding are less saturated than the others cause it'll draw more attention of the eyes.. And you want that since I'm assuming that's where interaction takes place.

I like the overall style. Simple at first glance but with cool textures (about that, might wann use less brick lines on the building in the back of the scene, maybe remove them all, so you'll get the perspective/depth of field effect.  

[Sephiroth]

Thanks for the pointers! The top left corner and strange color on floor  were just tests for shadows. (I have no idea if i should draw them).
Yes this is a night scene and it should be dark somehow.

Everytime i try to get a new color it just looks to bright or too colorful if you see what I mean  ^^
This is what i have now, tried to use blue colors since its at night and I think it somehow improved, even slightly... I included some sprite to see if it fits the style.



Im very limited in term of skills and creativity so this is why any idea would help me a lot.

[Monsieur OUXX]

You're absolutely right.
Additionally to what has been said before, the scene is too GRAY.

The trick here is that, even if the buildings are made of concrete and are supposed to be gray, they'll never be really gray in real life.

Look at my paintover :


ALL I did was:
1-  changing the "Hue" on the background wall and foreground wall (I made them more borwnish).
2- Also, I colored the sign, like it's been done before.
3- As a bonus, I added some moss on the foreground wall, because it's never so dead.

Please note that, if it's a scene night, then you might want to give a blue tone to the scene instead of a redish tone, as I did.

[Monsieur OUXX]

This new post focuses exclusively on how to make a night scene.

Look at the second paintover :


I started from my first paintover, because, as said before, it's more colorful.

Here is what I did then, in order:

1/ I lower luminosity a lot, to make the scene darker (I also lowered the contrast not to make everything disappear in an all-black scene)

2/ I modified the shadows. It's been asked to you before: "Where does the light come from?". If it's a clear night, then the night come FROM THE SKY (above), so all things facing the "up" direction must be lighter, and all things covered by something else on top of them must be darker.
   --> The top of the walls are now lighter than the walls themselves (on your early drawings it's the opposite)
   --> The part of the wall that's under the roof is in the roof's shadow.

3/ even if it's the night, some things catch light (it makes the scene more alive and easier to read). Just add some bright outlines at the very top of each object directly facing the "up" direction.
   --> The top of the sign
   -->The top of the walls
   --> the bars of the door
   -->Some details on the sewer plate.
   On this same topic: I know exactly what you mean by "It always seem that the colors are too bright", but don't be afraid. If you do it moderately and add some subtle gradients, it will look good.

[Sephiroth]

Monsieur OUXX: Aye that's a really nice technique about setting up a night scene, exactly what I needed.
Im trying my best to make it look decent at least, but usually trying randomly until I get something good, this will save me a lot of time, thanks

As I said this is the first background so i need to get things clear before i start drawing more, one thing I wanted to say is I love the colors you used in the paintovers! I intend to make another city in a desert/sand area like South America or Spain and it will look awsome for this kind of settings, but this city is a post-apocaliptic setting meaning it's too colorfull not that it looks bad of course

The light source: I didnt think it would be that important, maybe I should consider something like this and start working on colors/gradient from there?



Thank you for the paintovers, I learned a lot and will try to work on that!

*Edited picture to swap colors and add some highlights.

[Monsieur OUXX]

The light source: I didnt think it would be that important, maybe I should consider something like this and start working on colors/gradient from there?

You still didn't do what you need to do about the light source.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Let me explain again.

If you have a look at the wall in the foreground of your last post, you can basically see 4 faces of it :
- The front
- The top
- The left side
- The right side.

The light comes from above.
So you need to sort the faces in an order from "the face that receives the most light" to "the face that receives the least light"
Here it is, sorted properly :
- the top (it's horizontal so it receives the most light)
- the left and right sides (even - medium-lighted)
- the front (it's vertical, so it virtually doesn't receive any light)

Therefore, colorwise:
- The top must have the lighter color
- The left and right sizes must have a medium color
- The front must have a darker color

However, you sorted it randomly.
In your drawing :
- The left and right sizes are light
- The front is medium colored
- The top is the darkest face (That one, in particular, looks awkward).

You don't need to do anything fancy, just swap the colors! 

[Sephiroth]

You explained it well, but I just realised, I hope i got it right this time.
Edited the pic, I will have more time to work on it when I get back home though. Thanks

[Monsieur OUXX]

Sephiroth FTW!
I hope you understand that I'm not trying to force my artistic choices onto you, it's only about tstrict consistency of the light sources.
And indeed, IMHO, I believe that after your edit it looks more realistic.
Now, all you have to do is to fiddle with the picture to find the "perfect" contrast balance between the dark and light tones, and there you go!


PS: a tiny remark: Strangely enough, you drew the bright parts on the sign on the bottom and right sides of it. Is there any good reason for that? The moon is supposed to be behind it.

[Sephiroth]

What you told me just makes sense, and is great help since most of the things I do are kinda random for the details/shading.
I think this time it looks a bit better:


I treid to add a quick shadow to the back wall and changed a few colors, I still need to adjust some of them. Also tried to "break" some straight lines.

The first pic was my limit, I couldn't really find a way to make it more realistic and improve, I appreciate the help, no forcing here ^^
The left part is just here for test btw, and yeah Sephiroth FTW!  

*Tu serais pas francais par hazard?

[Monsieur OUXX]

*Tu serais pas francais par hazard?

Si, mais à condition que tu écrives "hasard" et pas "hazard" 

About the background, I wonder why you reduced the darkness between your last 2 posts. In the very last post, the contrast is too small and it causes the foreground wall and the ground to look a bit the same color.