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alright, then thank both of you for your replies and for your help!

ok, here is my hopefully last edit to the cupboard.
I just added an extra line to your first edit, Ishmael.

Thanks, Ishmael!

I did an edit myself and I don't know if it's correct but it seems to be more realistic than the first one:

Alright, I made an edit and finally fixed the problem by removing 1 px from the outside of the drawers. I also worked on different things like shading, materials (pixel textures) and so on.

What do you think?

[// EDIT:go on reading reply #4 to see the new edit*drawer problem fixed*]

// EDIT:

go on reading reply #4 to see the new edit
*drawer problem fixed*



Here is another background I am working on, it's still unfinished because there seems to be something wrong with the perspective. I got different vanishing points that are crossing in the center of the picture. Especially the cupboard and its drawers look weird to me (take a look at the pictures with different positions of opened and closed drawers).

Et voilá:



and here are the different combinations of drawer positions:

#1 , #2

I made a scheme of the vanishing points in this picture, you can get it here.

It's better now! Some things still bugged me, and after writing page-long post, I finally decided that I can't explain myself without an edit.

So, I made some adjustments...

What I didn't fix - and what you should - is the shadow of the ladder on the wall.

- it must not be shaded in any way!
- it must be darker where dark lines of the bricks are (the holes between bricks)

...or it will look like another real ladder placed behind first one - as it looks now.

thank you for your overpaint!
your version looks quite good, it gives more detail to the picture. I already thought about putting a little distortion onto the bricks of the wall and the walk way. You're right concerning the ladder and its shadow, maybe some transparency will fix that problem. Although the slime on the wall looks nice with this new fading colors, I think a little less detail would fit more into the classic style, same thing with the pipe. If it's shaded too perfectly or too realistic, the rest of the background has to look similar. I try to to create simple backgrounds for my little project, nothing too complicated.

@TheBrat499:

this picture is made using Photoshop, not PSP but I am sure you can do all these little things as well in PSP. The "vintage look" is a combination of distortion (effect in PS) and simple crack / hole paintings (shading is important).

well, I fixed the lighting and made another paintover.

fixed / new:

- darkened and shortened the incoming daylight from above
- cut off the outer (dark) ray of light
- added cables hanging into the room from the ceiling
- added shading to the walk way
- added shading to the pipe (similar to darth mandarb's paintover)
- added reflections of the walk way in the water
- changed color of slime on the walk way

what do you think?

that (pablos comment) is definitely correct, I chose this "round thing" for presenting a more realistic entrance of the light though it's kind of filtered or rounded through the entrance to the sewer (normally stairs in sewers look different but anyway...). now it doesn't seem to fit anymore, so I'll take it out for avoiding conflicts with the new light.

here is another paintover.
fixed:

- changed lighting on the walk way
- added some slime
(thanks to darth mandard!)
- removed the old light source



now I'm going to follow darth mandarb's hint concerning reflections of the walk way on the surface of the water and shading of the pipe in order to give more depth to it.

in fact the spider web was painted in dark colors but it didn't look so good... some particles of the light from above reflect on the web, therefore it's upper left side is a little bit brighter. you have to imagine that spider webs are originally white (in daylight), so being painted in dark grey tones, the web is as dark as the rest. if it was i.e. completely black it could a) only be a shadow of the web or b) the room would be completely dark, then you wouldn't be able to see anything.

as I already mentioned there are certain light sources on the ceiling of the sewer, connected with cables like you maybe know them from coal mines. I'll try to paint some of them as objects of the foreground and then I decide if they disturb game play or not...


//edit (before posting): good remark, veryweirdguy! As I said particles of the light are reflected on the web and that is IMO caused by the surface of the water.

thank you so much, guys!

in the meantime I did a paintover myself and fixed the following things:

- added additional light
- created depth in the bricks (wall)
- added an additional spider web (right side)
- added some cracks on the bricks



what do you think?

just 2 more things:

1. the little red thing on the pipe is just a towel or something, it's not a part of the pipe and therefore it does not have to point into the same direction. it will be an object to be taken later in the game.

2. the sewer is lightened from above, there may be some lamps on the ceiling you are unable to see in that perspective, so that daylight is not the only light source... otherwise it would be to dark for the character to move down there. a flash light would only lighten up a small part of the image and you cannot draw that in a physically correct way in order to be displayed later in the game (as you know it from 3d action games). a light switch in the sewer would make no sense, so it has to be at least artificially lightened. I'm thinking about moving part of the lamps in the foreground...

Here is my attempt to create a sewer, I would appreciate your c & c to this background. I would like to keep it simple but a little more detail would make it more attractive to the viewer / player I guess... still I don't know where to start with the extra shading and pixel-textures.

I know what you mean... I just made it more b/w (or grey) in order to underline that it's night. It's hard zu describe but when you're in a dark room you only have a colour feeling for grey tones, so you can't see real colours actually (this happens when the amount of light is not enough to be reflected by the iris). I don't know if it's different when you're looking from a bright room into the dark, I just thought it would be a better demonstration of the contrast between the inner house situation and the outside.

5 days later...

I found out that my character was actually too small for the room - that was really annoying as you can imagine. so I changed most of the things in the room and I also added a GUI (not on the picture, left blank). I've done the shading so far and used the lamp on the upper side of the room (at the ceiling, not visible) as the light source.

so what do you think?

really great edit! seems you put a whole lot of work into it, thank you!

I was working on the background myself and so I just took a look at your edit a few minutes ago - maybe I should have done that earlier. Well, here is my new version:



let's see what I have done so far:

- added a door frame
- removed the lamp (on the wall)
- added another lamp on a little table near the bed
- changed the bed style
- moved the bed away from the wall
- added a window frame and a jalousie (spelling?)
- removed the poster, added some books on shelves
- addedÃ,  a button to switch on / off light
- added some noise to the wall (left)
- added clothes on the ground
- made some objects less flat
- changed window perspective (actually I already made an animation of a car driving to the house but it's not on the image right now)

Is there anything else to fix?


@Ali: I don't want to use all the ideas of Tim Burton's Vincent, it was just the main character that inspired me to make my own. In fact it has nothing to do with Tim Burton's style. I like the german expressionist style (like cabinet of dr. caligari) but I don't want to put it in my adventure - at the moment. Maybe next time.

thanks for your hints! someone in a german forum told me that the perspective of the street and the house (window) could probaply be wrong and I agree with that. Or do you think it's correct?

I try to create a background with a few objects... it's a work in progress version as you see. First question is: What would you change so far (colours, perspectives and so on..)? Second question: How do you get Ã, details into backgrounds, what should I do? I tried to add a few shadows but they didn't look so good as on characters, so I removed most of them.

I know what you mean, it's probably in frame 5 where the arm is completely stretched. Maybe it should be more like the last frame... thanks!

as Viktor mentioned the character steps too far when he walks and this creates the impression of running... it took me a lot of time to get this new animation but I think here you can see more of a "real" walking effect:



the arms aren't swinging so much and the step is shorter (I changed 4 frames) - so what do you think of it? (one arm is missing, will be added later on)

alright...

I created a new walkcycle without floppy hands. as you may see they're too big but ignore that - i already know. i can correct that later on, it's important now to figure out what animation is better... the old one or the new one:

--edit: I created a second version of the "new hands" animation, it's the third pic..

floppy hands
new hands v1
new hands v2

looks good (nice idea with the eyebrow!) but I think the skin tone is way too dark. my character is very pale and in fact more thinking than evil if you know what I mean.