Background for a new game

[homerus]

I think there's a major issue with the original drawing and most of the paint overs. It's been bothering me from the beginning.

You've got to choose what kind of surface to "apply" to the skull.
It seems like you can't decide whether you want it to be shiny or not.

- If it's shiny, then you must also draw the cracks as if they were cracks made ina  shiny material.
- It it's not shiny, then you must stop drawing reflection effects that are inside of the skull's outline but don't reach the outline.

A picture is better than 1000 words :



EDIT: I think that's what Khris was trying to address when he made shading suggestions, only in a more arty and diplomatic way than I did.

You are right, somtimes i can´t decide how to finish the job, hahahaha i think that is because im new and i have no experience, btw i like the people who critics in a good way.
so now im going to change a few things to improve the skull.
thx a lot
keep doing critics

[homerus]

started to make a paint-over and noticed that Monsieur OUXX  already pointed out a lot of things I wanted to convey:



I also tried to tighten your colour scheme, because some of the colours really clashed, imo.; especially the plants in the foreground with the bushes behind the skull. Unfortunately, my take on it turned out a bit dark and I have not got the time to tweak it anymore.

Some of the lighting on the rocks is a bit jumbled and confusing, but as I said no time anymore...

Hope it helps, nontheless!

that was awesome  :o, and i dont know what to say, now i feel like a 2 years old kid hahaha...
im going to remake the skull, trying your way.
thx a lot, and you like the others are helping in a very good way.
keep doing critics

[Khris]

That's a great paintover Mad, exactly what I had in mind when I first saw this thread.

homerus, it's nice that you answer all the posts, but quoting the entire post every single time is distracting and really not necessary.

[Dualnames]

Not be impolite towards Dualnames, but his paint-over is a lot worse than the original.
The skull looks like rubber in your version, plus the entire colour scheme is just...worse.
Sorry

LOL, it's okay man, it took me like 2 minutes and I just did the shading by randomness.

This will probably suck more or equal but I couldn't help it.
Aliens abduct the great skull.

[Jim Reed]

I think you all put too much faith in this "art" thing. Here I made you a proper edit, and I bet you'll like it more than all of the other edits:

=P

[The Last To Know]

No Lensflares? 

[Monsieur OUXX]

Pick. up. the. KEY!

[Jim Reed]

Damn, I knew I missed something! I'll edit it right away.

[DutchMarco]

MUCH better. That's the first skull that actually looks like it's made of stone.

I must say that it does, but I prefer number 4 above. Number 3 has a weird round (window?) hole between the eyes, like the victim's been  executed. I prefer the look of bone in the originals (colors look better than Mad's versin, IMHO), also Mad's version looks too messy, if you're going to make it look like it's made of stone, draw a brick-motif onto a smooth-ish surface.

I do like Mad's idea of teeth very much.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I must say that it does, but I prefer number 4 above.

Stone or not stone,  shiny or not shiny, I'll be happy as long as the material is consistent with the reflections.

[cat]

Polished marble will have different reflections than crude sandstone, so you should select the material first anyway.

[homerus]

http://yfrog.com/jpbackground003p
http://a.imageshack.us/img709/4216/background003.png
http://img709.imageshack.us/shareable/?i=background003.png&p=tl

thank´s to all of you, i changed a few things in this one.
i start to think, there is imposible... hahahahaha
thx
keep doing critics

[Hubris Incalculable]

awesome runes! did you make them up yourself?

Edit by Progz:  There's no need to quote photos, especially ones directly above your post.  Please don't do this.

[homerus]

yes Evil, the runes are made by my self... im glad to read "awesome" but it´s too much
keep doing critics
thx

[Mad]

OK, found some more time to verbalize some of the things I tried to address in my paint-over:



The skull does look a bit like a toothless old crone, and since I guess you're going for an eery mood, that is not a good thing.

Even if you're not going for the ragged look of my paint-over, you should maybe alter the base of the skull, since for now it gives the impression of tree roots.

If the skull is frequently visited, grass would not grow at the foot of the steps, and maybe a well trodden path would lead up to it.

As it is, the eye is drawn to the left hand corner. If there is an exit there or another game relevant feature, that is fine. If this is not the case, you should maybe close that area up.

Besides the clashing colour, the bush in the front has a lighter value than the background elements. This detracts the player from the important bits.

[Khris]

Also, being on a CRT, the picture is currently skull, sky and a huge batch of almost-black.

[Anian]

Also, being on a CRT, the picture is currently skull, sky and a huge batch of almost-black.

It's not your crt, it's very dark on my lcd as well. The bushes are just black shape.

[Khris]

On my laptop at work, which I'm currently at, I can clearly see the different colors and what's supposed to be bush, ground, trees. The LCD's brightness is set to ~80% though.

I'd darken the foreground shrubbery to the right and lighten the ground and background bushes.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Okay, a few people have tried to show you how to make the cave look more rocky (an object this large would almost certainly made from some kind of stone) but you still seem to be missing the idea, so rather than redo the entire image for you, I've taken half of the skull and redrawn/reshaded it to bring out the various shapes of the skull as well as to emphasize its construction.

1.  Adjusted the color values to bring the greens more towards blue/purple as well as to bring the highlights on the skull more towards yellow.

2.  Reshaded left half of the skull to bring out the native shapes (the ridge around the sockets) as well as applying stronger shadows around the nose and beneath the cheekbones.

3.  Gave the edges of the skull more of a 'carved' appearance, with jagged grooves and areas that either catch the light or are in shadow to emphasize a rockier shape.

4.  Added cracks, dents, rends, and sections of the skull missing or collapsed to show weathering and to make it look more visually interesting.

5.  Added a row of teeth simulating a raised portcullis and made the steps look like rows of teeth as well.




I didn't really spend as much time on this edit as I would've liked, and the top left of the skull in particular suffers for it, but this should give you a solid basis on which to build the skull with more interesting shapes.  Good luck!

[Monsieur OUXX]

ProgZmax found the good compromise between the "shiny" material and the cracks.

In your original drawing, the skull was shiny, but the cracks looked like they were in a non-shiny stone type.
Here, the skull is still shiny, but the cracks also look like they are in a shiny stone type.