Advice on background

[Kara Jo Kalinowski]

I'm pretty bad with graphics. Anyways, I was wondering how feasible it would be to draw backgrounds using colored pencil and convert/pixelize them using GIMP or something. Here was my first attempt. It's meant to be a dog cage from a dog's height and perspective (I drew it based on one in my house).

Original colored pencil drawing:



Then my attempts to make it more pixely/computer gamey:





I really drew this based off of a real dog cage inside my home. If I were to use this in a game, I would add pillows and stuff to the inside. (which I could draw later and put in separately). Anyways, is a graphic style like this bad? FYI: the colored pencils I am using to draw are the prismacolor premier set.

Another thing I drew was an apple but because I drew it so big it looks pretty decent when scaled down. I can't really count this as my own work, because I watched a guy on youtube do it and copied him, but I'd like to be to match around this level just drawing based on sight or what I want to draw.

[Billbis]

Hi chaosgodkarl,
I was in the same situtation than you last year: complete newbe in graphic. And I chose the same approach (but with some pastels). Here my advice, that you may not want to follow (because remember, I am a complete newbe in graphic):
-If you're going to use pencil, keep the game HiRes (i.e. 800 x 600), and leave the pixelated approach, which do not marry well with pencil colors in my opinion.
-Reinforce color contrast. I do it by adding a layer of flat numeric colors behind the pastel layer, and transform white with transparent on my pastel layer (exemple below).
-You may also want to add some contours, like in some Belgian comics for example. I try to use Ligne claire style, but I still need to anti-alias it. 
Maybe it will be less confuse with some examples:

Spoiler

[close]

You can find images corresponding to each steps of image 1 here and here (in french... but images are still images ).
About your composition, I wont say much because I a not a graphic expert. I like the naive style and the broken perspective. I just can't manage to understand what is behind the dog cage ? If it is outdoor, I think you sould show us some sky.
Good luck with your project !

[Kara Jo Kalinowski]

I just can't manage to understand what is behind the dog cage ? If it is outdoor, I think you sould show us some sky.

Yeah, I was afraid of that. On the left side, there is the lower half of a white door (the door knob is near the top). On the right is a brown table with a lamp on top. The green is the wall behind it (lighter green is where the lamp has lit it). One of the things about these pencils is that it doesn't draw solid too well. Of course, I could spend more time than I have on the drawing, but well this is what I have as of now.

If I would draw the game in pencil, I'm not sure that I would want to leave the game as it looks in the original image. I kind of like my 2nd image (when it's smaller) but then as it zooms in it gets blurry and well I'm not really completely satisfied with it. If I drew all my backgrounds larger, I could add more detail to it and be able to scale it better, perhaps doing a 640 x 400 approach). But I dunno. Imagine the original colored pencil picture, with more detail added, along with a more finished second picture. Which style would be better for a game?

[Anian]

You left a bit too much white space between coloured areas and in general the colored areas are not filled in enough. And yes, it will eat up more of your colored pencils.
Maybe fill in the colors then, if needed, thicken the cage lines over it.

[cat]

The structure of the paper leaves lots of white dots. After scanning and shrinking there is not much of your drawing left. Could you use smoother paper? Then there might be less white dots and stronger colors.