A house on the hill.

[gameboy]

Hey! Made a background (not finished yet):



I'm wondering which direction should I take. I drew the image using black outlines, as you can see on the car, tree and path. I then went on to remove the outlines to achieve a clean style I'm used to. For a second I thought what if I kept the black outlines? Since the caracters I have drewn have 'em.

The problem is I want everything to fit together. I thought that theoretically characters with dark outlines don't exactly wit well with backgrounds that don't have any at all (a mistake I have often made... or is it a mistake?)

Here's a quick mashup with characters:


Or should I do it the way I usually do - characters with darker outlines, backgrounds with no outlines at all.

But if I choose to use outlines (not black but darker shade of the same colour) on the background should I use them everywhere on the image? Background mountains, grass? Even clouds?

[Babar]

I am fundamentally opposed to all outlines in principle .

However, if I'm not mistaken, loads of console RPGs in the 90s used the style of having outlined characters against un-outlined backgrounds, supposedly so that they'd be easy to differentiate. So I don't think it would automatically "clash".

[hedgefield]

Well I am a fan of outlines, probably because I do a lot of cartoon lineart. I think in your case both would look good, although I would suggest maybe limiting outlines to characters and objects. So in this case, remove them from the path/road and the tree, and things would be more consistent.

Also, dude, you make crazy-good-looking cars.

[R4L]

This reminds me of Earthbound on SNES. I like the style.

The only thing that stands out is that there is no background, so the house looks like it's on the edge of a cliff rather than being on a hill.

Here's a terrible reference to show what I mean. There's a nice contrast in the background to show distance.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Maybe you should keep the outlines only for characters and objects.

For example I could totally see the ouline for :
- the car
- the people
- the tree

But not for :
- the path
- the road
>>those 2 look awkward, especially the path.

Objects such as tree and car look fine when they're outlined because it makes it feel like they have been pasted in on purpose, a bit like Farmville/The Sims/Simcity/Oldies Console Games.

[gameboy]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm gonna do outlines for characters and objects and no outlines for background then.

@R4L
The image doesn't show for some reason, but I think I get the point. I'll try to do something about it.

[cat]

Another approach might be using colored outlines, i.e. dark green for the tree, dark teal for the car...

[Monsieur OUXX]

Another approach might be using colored outlines, i.e. dark green for the tree, dark teal for the car...

+1

[gameboy]

I removed the outlines on the road and path.

Changed the black outlines on tree and car to a darker shade of their colour.



Did the same for the characters:

[cat]

I like it much better now!

[hedgefield]

Great!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I like it!  I'd fix the totally black windows, though.  Even with tinting they'd never be that dark.