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After a year's break, my art is rather rusty again, and I could really use some tips, especially shading because its the part I find most difficult. The sprite is just the head for the moment, I wanted to get it right before moving on:



I've been studying various photos and things trying to get the shading right, but it still doesn't look right to me, and I can't figure out why. Suggestions would be welcome. If anyone wants to do a paintover, thats ok, just make sure to list exactly what you changed so I can try it myself. Also, if it takes more than an hour, don't bother, I have a full time job now, and want art that looks ok and I can make fairly quickly, rather than brilliant stuff that takes ages.

Thanks in advance

My second game, and its another MAGS!


Hotel Hijinks(click to download)

It's a rather short game, with a simple plot, but as you can see, I spent most of my time experimenting with a custom GUI. I find MAGS a good opportunity to improve my skills, so this time around I was making a custom GUI from scratch to improve my scripting skills. I was also trying to improve my character art, with mixed results!

I welcome constructive criticism. Please note however:

-I got a bunch of uni assignments dumped on me in the past week, so I didn't have time to do as much as I liked.
-I spent an awful lot of time scripting that GUI. I was doing it from scratch to improve my scripting. And it's still quite code heavy, so it took far too long typing the darn thing up!
-I am aware that some of the character sprites look better than others. Most of the static ones, are paintovers of Googled images,

Spoiler

excepting the corpse, because I'm just not brave enough to Google images of dead bodies!

[close]

-I haven't bothered with any music, because technically a MAGS game is meant to be made entirely by you, and I don't want to use music I haven't made. However composing is my poorest skill, and is not so easily improved as scripting and art.
-I meant to put some more sounds in, but just got caught up in other things, and before you know it, its the closing date!

Anyway, other than that criticise away!

O.K. I've finally finished. And here it is:

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/game-haven/CTB.zip



Constance the Barbarian - A humourous take on Conan the Barbarian/Xena Warrior Princess, with a dash of Monkey Island.

Please go easy on it. It's my first game, and has been mostly a learning project. And I spent so much time on improving my backgrounds, that I didn't get as much time to spend on other areas. Anyway, enjoy (if you can). And constructive criticism please, if you feel like commenting.

I've been a bit hesitant about posting anything here, as my artwork leaves something to be desired, but as one of the aims of MAGS is to improve the areas in which you have trouble, so here goes:



It's just a simple little background; I think the perspective is fine, but I don't quite know where to go from here. I think I need some tips on shading or something, so it doesn't look quite so bland. I don't want it to look particularly realistic, as its for a humourous game, but any advice would be welcome. Thanks.

P.S. I've checked that its ok to get critique for a MAGS entry, so I'm not cheating! Oh, and this has just been done with MS Paint, so if you suggest any specific tools, please tell me what program they're from!