Messages

thanks guys.  the outhouse was bugging me too so i fixed it last night.  i also did some dodge and burn tool on the stumpface to bring out his features a bit more, which kind of got lost at that resolution.  i also made a generic 8 view sprite to go into the game, but i have to redo it, because i used an alpha texture on the hair, not realizing that it would cause aliasing around that area, so, she now has pink highlights.  grrr.     Ive decided to make the game really weird, in the same vein as the comic book 'howard the duck', which is one of my favorites.

it's 100% artificial.  aside from the mesh elements, the outer regions of the stone wall, and some of the turf are actually 3D textures i made using texturemaker.  here's the stump face in case anyone wishes to use him.

i made this for a test room, but I like the way it turned out, so i may have to make a short game with it.  i have some characters that would go well with this background, so i'm trying to think of a plot.  maybe an underground gnome network of some kind.  the original renders of the stumpface and the cave i made awhile back so i just sort of composited them together and added some isometric textures i made for troopers, and an outhouse sprite that i had also made for troopers, but it didn't show up well at that scale so i left it out.  anyway it's a gnome outhouse now.

yes, the waters edge is a mistake, i forgot to add the water lines along the edge.Ã,  you can see they are in the first one though.Ã,  i made it by doing a few different things,....
I started by making several textures in texturemaker, making them into isometric textures with the same program, then setting those textures as patterns in photoshop.Ã,  then, i made a solid black and white map of my river, to make selection of the river area easier, and moved that to a hidden layer.Ã,  I then used the wand select tool, and the pattern stamp tool to layer in my terrain, and water, and the dodge and burn tool to give it some variation.Ã,  the rocks and the trees, were constructed in 3D in blender, and a program called arbaro, and then rendered, with an alpha channel, in blender, as pngs.Ã,  then i opened those in photoshop, and used the move tool to drop them into my background, using constrained scaling to get them the right size.Ã,  The house I painted in pixia, and applied in basically the same way.Ã,  I think I might try rendering some 3D water too, and see how that looks.Ã,  of note, all the photoshop stuff can be done in GIMP as well, and you don't have to use patterns, you can also use the clone stamp tool.
<edit> oh, and the bridge, i made and rendered in blender, same as the rocks and trees. ( except for the tall trees which i made in arbaro, an open source tree maker )

thanks for the comments.  i tried to improve some things with this latest version.  sorry about the light being on the wrong side of the trees,...i totally spaced that.

thanks for the crits, however, if it was crystal clear, you would see only the specularity, and the stones beneath it. Ã, it is a shade or two too light, but water gets its blue color from reflecting the sky, so the color of water depends somewhat on the weather. Ã, the rule is, make it a shade darker than the sky it is reflecting. Ã, choppier means less reflective and darker, and other factors in coloration, are, algae, mud, and minerals. ( such as in turqoise colored glacial water )  i will do some more work on it, mostly adding reeds, lily pads, and reflections.

to the comment that just got posted, good point,.... i'll try some variations.

thanks, and yeah, i made that tree on the left way too big, i will have to watch the scale issues closely as it gets more complex.

This is just a random background, and not really finished.  Softwares used were: blender, texturemaker, arbaro, photoshop, and pixia.

everyone else made a paintover so here's my version.

great job, it reminds me a little of the art of the original 'adams family'.  also this kind of inkwash style is often used for gag cartoons, like in the NewYorker.  nice character.

you should break up the bottom edge of the house with some blades of grass.

a couple of things,....on the bridge, i would consider varying the color of the rocks a bit,....make some stones darker, or lighter, or give them a hint of blue, or brown, or whatever.  for the grass, usually grass is not even all over, but has patches that are a bit more dried out, or more healthy than the rest, so, some patches of straw color, and some patches of darker green could be good.  also, grass that isn't perfect lawn grass tends to be on the clumpy side, so painting in some roughly horizontal shadows, then going back and repainting in the grass can be effective.  for bushes, it's best to paint in the shadows to start, then paint in the basic bush shape with a dark green, and the outer leaves with a lighter green.  also, one thing to remember about bushs and trees, sometimes they have bare branches or twigs protruding through the foliage.

i would tone down the saturation in the windows a bit, maybe darken them slightly.  very nice pic though.  i like the city in the background on the last one.

i vote for seleceus. 

next,.....michael jacksons next plastic surgery,......gone horribly wrong!

i also vote jrl2222.  they are all quite good though.

sorry i missed your message, it looks like you came up with an excellent idea, though.  i like that pic too.

looks like gamma took this one, but I'll be back to fight another day! happy holidays, guys!

i vote for jrl2222.   

extending it sounds good to me.  i was bumming that only one other competitor has entered!