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I've been doing background and character art for a while, so I'm quite comfortable with that.  But now I want to move on to making fully animated cutscenes.

The style I'm trying to create is similar to Curse of Monkey Island's, so also similar to a lot of cartoons you see on TV I suppose.

Does anyone have any recommendations of programs which help with any stage of the process?  Thanks.

I drew this in 5 hours earlier today for a competition to make a background following the theme 'beach':



With more time I guess I could have added more detail (more objects) and smoothed out some more of the brush work.  But apart from that does anyone have any C+C or ideas on how I could bring it closer to the CMI style?

Thanks

[Hue, Saturation and Value]

After buying a Wacom graphics tablet a few months ago I've been working on creating my own background art style similar to that of CMI.  I've definitely come a long way since I started, but I still think there's a lot I could do for my backgrounds, I'm just not really sure what.

I suppose the main thing which I'm not sure about is colouring.  I really don't have much knowledge of Hue, Saturation and Value - when I pick a base colour for an object and then alter it's values for shading and highlights, I'm really not sure what I'm doing.  I remember reading in 'How To Draw Monkeys the LucasArts Way' Bill Tiller saying he used a green-ish hue for the leaves of a palm tree, a blue hue for the shadows and a green-yellow hue for the highlights... what I want to know is why he did that and what the general rules for selecting colours are

Another thing I was wondering about is Tonal Range.  When I posted some art here a while ago someone told me that increasing the tonal range of my work would help a lot.  However, now, everytime I draw something I end up thinking that the tonal range isn't enough, and having the re-draw it darker and darker.  Is it always a good idea to range from fully bright to fully dark, regardless of the overall brightness of the room?

So if anyone has any tutorials on that sort of art style or answers to my specific questions I'd be very grateful.  I've already read Tiller Techniques and How to Draw Monkeys: The LucasArts Way.

I was wondering if anyone here has any advice on how to compose music for adventure games, because I'm having trouble coming up with tunes.  If I look at the general pattern of another piece I can then go ahead and create something similar to that, but I want to create original pieces...

I've already got a great program for it, so that's not a problem... I'm just having trouble coming up with 'catchy' tunes.  I've done grade 5 piano and theory exams, so I understand a lot of the techniques, I just have trouble putting them into use really.

Another problem I have is with instrument selection.  I've got hundreds of instruments to choose from, but I have no idea how most of them sound.  Usually I write tunes as just piano first, and then try to choose instruments afterwards, but it's just a long process of trial and error.

So... how do you go about composing music for your games?  Do you come up with tunes in your head or do you have a technique for coming up with them?  And how do you choose which instruments to use for each track?

Hi,

I recently bought a WACOM graphics tablet (the A6 one on Amazon - about £40) and I'm using it with OpenCanvas.  I find it very easy to draw characters with it, and there are plenty of tutorials for that online.

However I can't seem to get a good style for backgrounds.  Does anyone have any tips on how to draw backgrounds with an interesting style or know of any tutorials online?  I was trying to create some in a Curse of Monkey Island style but I guess I'm not using the right tools in OpenCanvas (all the tutorials online are for drawing characters so I don't know which tools I should be using).

I had a go at recreating part of the Blood Island map and this is the best I could come up with...



So if anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated