Trying to achieve graphics in a comic book style

[Mouth for war]

Hey y'all!

I've been trying to create game graphics like the style you'd find in a typical comic book. What do you think? :-)

[TheFrighter]

Well you're close Mouth for war! It's just a little "square and plain"! 
_

[Mouth for war]

Please elaborate

[Danvzare]

They look more like graphics you'd see in a cartoon than a comic.

[Mouth for war]

Well...that's fine too

[Cassiebsg]

I agree with that's been said. If you want a comic book like, then find some references to the style you want to achieve and go go nuts. Comic books are usually hand drawn, and require some more detailing that what you have. Like grass, pebbles, wood texture on the fence. You can apply a filter, shader or texturing to make it look more hand drawn.

If you want cartoon, then more or less the same apply, you still need more texturing, or the image just looks flat and boring. As right now, it could just be drawn in paint and then used a single colour fill.

Here's a bunch of 3D movie cartoons for good inspiration: https://www.thisgrandmaisfun.com/20-best-animated-3d-movie-list/

[Mouth for war]

I did try more textured first, but it's too detailed I think...i want it simple...like how The Simpsons is drawn kind of...but maybe that is too boring?

[Cassiebsg]

I think this one looks much better to be honest. 

If you going for a Simpsons style, here's some inspiration:

Spoiler

[close]

Make the shadows less hard. Even the Simpsons uses soft shadowing. 

[Mouth for war]

Thanks for your input really!!! I'm gonna try to texture it more but not TOO much

[KyriakosCH]

Nice style! 

[FormosaFalanster]

There's lots of different styles of comic books though, which style are you going for?

[Cassiebsg]

Less saturation. 

[Mouth for war]

Thanks! That's a good point :-)

[Mouth for war]

Here's another version. Is this better?

[Mouth for war]

Yet another update!

[TheFrighter]

Great! 

_

[Potajito]

Nice! Clear improvement from the first version. As for some criticism, the level of detail/style seems a bit inconsistent, for example, the bricks don't really match, at least for me, with the roof of the house.

[Darth Mandarb]

I think the biggest "problem" I see is the inconsistent shadows and shading.

For instance if you look at the stone-work around the door of the house there is adequate shading to define the shapes well (though I might suggest a bit more contrast between lights/darks to make it a bit more obvious). The wood frame-work around the edges of the house, however, is a single color and it's difficult to see the shape/form of the beams (same with the roof tiles). I would suggest adding a darker shade to the sides to define that better (or, at the very least, a black/dark line to show the edges where the shading would be). As it is they almost look like blobs of clay with no edges just lumped on to the sides of the house (the roof tiles are a little better but still need some more line work/shading to define the edges)!

The flowers, trees, rocks, mailbox and fences are all casting shadows but the grass over-lapping the path isn't. Just stands out to my [picky] eyes!

Compositionally speaking I would suggest (if it's not too much effort) moving the path/fence opening more to the center (just horizontally, doesn't need to move up/down) to draw the eye into the scene more effectively. In its current form the fence is really distracting and lends an almost claustrophobic feeling to the scene (I don't know the tone/feeling of this scene/game so if that's the intent, kudos, leave it as is!).

One last thing is the [sort of] outline on the character... it looks unfinished so I'm hesitant to comment on it but I think either embrace the outline and dive in with it or remove it entirely and let the colors define the form. I lean towards the outline to match the style of the rest of the image.

Those few nitpicks aside I really like the direction this is headed. You're on to something good here!

[Mouth for war]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll get cracking with this again tonight

[Mouth for war]

Can't seem to do much about the outlines of the character. That's the way Poser renders it. The alpha transparency seems to be causing it or perhaps the antialiasing. When he's bigger (like standing in front of the fence) the outlines are more visible. When he scales down, they seem to disappear a little

Edit: Ah! I found a setting for the outlining...that seems to be working

[Mandle]

This is looking better and better every time I take a look at it!

[Mouth for war]

Thanks i'm trying my best to improve it. It's for a Quest for glory-ish kind of game (at least the battle system) I always enjoyed the fighting in QFG so hopefully this could be enjoyable

[Cassiebsg]

Yes, looking much better.

I really like the level of detail you have on the path and fence. I think you hit the nail there (where is the nail?  )
I liked the 1st weel detail, though. The new one is too much. The roof just needs a very small detailing, like the fence, to give it "texture". The house and back wall seem off, and don't math the "cartoon/comic" feel.

And then there's that grass, that dominates the picture but has zero detail and is too saturated in colour. Tone it down, please. Shadows in grass will never have that perfect outline, because grass isn't flat (unless that's a plastic coated cement slab painted green, in that case it's perfect!  ). So you need to find a middle ground that has so "little" detail like the fence and path but still transmits the grassy feel.

Keep up the great work. 

[Mouth for war]

Thank you at least it's improving

[Mouth for war]

Ok So I tried something else. I got rid of the toon renderer but kept the outlining. Maybe this is better? It becomes a bit more detailed. I know that the character looks a little off now and those 4 grassy points are too dark so don't think about that

[Mouth for war]

Maybe even with a bit thicker lines? I think it increases the toony look just a bit

[Danvzare]

Oh, those thicker lines definitely makes it look almost like a comic book! 
Up to this point, it's just looked like a cartoon to me.

[Mouth for war]

Great :-) Yeah I agree. Just need to fix the character too...sigh...32 directions

[Mouth for war]

Here's a bg with a new version of the character as well. I think this looks a lot better than the first image I showed

[Mouth for war]

Here's a night time image as well. I know that the character doesn't match up with the blue coloes...that will be fixed

[Fred Five]

Quick paintover.

[Mouth for war]

Wow! Totally different but awesome!!!!

[AndreasBlack]

Apply some of fred's ideas. Forexample you could see that the side of the house is not hit by the light and is therefor a bit darker, those things create depth and sense of 3d space of objects. Yours have the same colors, or at least too much similar colors. As for the colors i think also you should desaturate the background colors cause your main character melts into them a bit too much.

Mayne try Fred's colors on the house, they looked so nice!