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You might not like this, but I attempted a paint over (well modification really). 





I don't claim to be an artist but a few things bothered me.  Firstly her "hourglass" figure is a bit exaggerated, and a little bit too high.  The bottom of the "hourglass" is usually the hips and then is smallest at the waist before widening out towards the breasts.  I'm not an expert on anatomy but these are just my opinions which you will probably through out :-)  So I modified it a bit to account for this.  Maybe it made her a little less interesting in shape, but I think it's a bit more realistic.

Secondly her eyes looked cross-eyed in your pic.  This doesn't seem through any fault of your own but rather the nature of the low-resolution.  I attempted to make it a little better, although I couldn't ultimately get it "right".  I essentially lightened the pupils (well technically the iris but since this is low res it's the whole blue part of the eyes).  Basically the white of the eyes sort of framed the blue part which made it look a bit odd, so I made the white of the eyes grayer to sort of match the tone of it.  If you look at someone far away you notice the whites alot less.  But this left the part in between the eyes, it also was too light, so I had to use a darker flesh color to make it uniform.  The eye shadow looked a bit dark compared to the rest of it, I lightened it a bit.  Now it's not perfect, and I don't expect you to automatically say it's any good, but at least use it to maybe look at how you can stop the "cross-eyed" look.  (Hard to do in low res).

Also I looked at her crotch (okay no snickering here), to me it looked too rounded -- while it doesn't look male, it just didn't really work for me, so I tried to make it less pronounced, more triangular.  I also understand these are supposed to probably be blue-jeans and it might be appropriate for that, but I felt it should be a bit more feminine looking.  I also moved the bottom of the crotch up a bit.

The pants themselves looked a little too blocky and straight.  After looking at some pictures for reference, I decided to add a small crease in the pant legs, and make them more pointed to hang over the shoes.  The crease sort of dictated how to angle the bottom of the pant legs.

Finally we get to the arms -- to me that just looked un-natural -- While the upper part looks okay, the lower part seems to long to me and too forced, like she's holding her arms out to her sides on purpose.  First I made the shoulders less pronounced (not necessarily needed but again to make her look a bit more feminine, then I brought the arms in a bit so they don't looks like she's trying to imitate a bell with her arms.
The hands are also by her sides and the arms are shortened a bit.

A few other odds and ends.  I made her breasts a little more rounded, not alot but the low res made it more blocky, so I decided to compensate.  I also fixed up her mouth to be a bit fuller by adding a bit under the lip line.

There's also a little discrepancy between your mouth and my mouth because what I did was shrunk the image down to a one pixel by one pixel height (for each of those pixels) and it seemed to flatten the lip line a bit.  Also the necklace part somehow isn't centered anymore as in your pic.

Please forgive me if any of this post is out of line.

Keith

As far as the staircase goes, why not make it an interactive area, the character just can't go up the stairs, because either they're in such disrepair that they break stopping the player from going up there, or they're blocked off by something.  Of course blocking the area off might mean that it makes the player even more curious in trying to figure out how to get up there.

Or you could let the character go up the stairs out of sight, and then come back down and report there wasn't anything worthwhile up there.

The only problem I see isn't so much the fact that every game will have the same graphics, but that the graphics put together won't seem to come together as a whole.  Lighting, palette, and what not.  It will look closer to a collage rather than a new background.  However be-that-as-it-may, it would certainly provide some quickie mockups so you could get something up and running rather quickly.  Also when you have your game finalized you can then go and repaint the background or have someone repaint the background to provide that consistancy.

The pictures still rock though :-)

the images are great, my only gripe would probably put everyone at odds with me and that's the colors look sickly.  I realize this is a style choice, but the sickly greens and off color purples just put me off. 

Other people probably have seen graphics that use a color palette like that, but I have not, and as such, cannot think of it nostalgically.

Not that my opinion matters.

You can check out the threads the games' names' link to, as it seems to be a rather irrelevant question in this thread because it rather assumes that 800x600 is an important feature in a commercial indie adventure game.

However, no, I don't think so, they manage to look fantastic in 640x480, and I believe Super Jazz Man manages to look brilliant in 320x240 and a reduced palette.

I think 800x600 IS an important feature for MY commercial indie adventure game, which is why I asked in this commercial games thread, which seemed to be the right place to ask.

I never made any mention on how good other games looked in lower resolutions.

Curious if any of these games actually feature a native resolution of 800x600?

Curious, but does that plant happened to be named "Chuck" ? ;-)

Perspective doesn't look bad for what you're trying to do, however the very top of the building (where you're seeing the sky ala a sky light) is a little too small and rounded to make me think it's the top of the building, rather than just some little small pointed section.  Make that top part larger, and more square (rectangular?) since you're not really caring to distort perspective up there, it's only supposed to be small.  You want forced perspective for the top, not distorted perspective.

Yep that's more of what I was talking about.  Looking good :-)

As far as the comments are concerned about a certain portion of your pic looking like a male part of the anatomy, I'd say they need to get their eyes checked.  As far as what you did to that piece, it does clarify what we're supposed to be looking at.

Keith

While the background looks nice there are a few things that I don't care for.  (Not that anyone would listen to me anyway).  The backgrounds color scheme looks a bit too drab.  Obviously it's all stone work and so forth, but I Think you could push it to be more orangish, and the red pillars to be a bit more saturated, not necesserily lighter, but more of a purer red.

Personally I don't care for the dithering.  While some of it's inevitable, I think you could do with choosing more carefully what's dithered and what isn't.  Play around removing the stray pixels, so when you look at it you see more of what you intended in the original high-res painting.  There's a certain point where the fall-off is minimal and instead you could just fill in with a solid color.

Just some thoughts to heap on those others have mentioned.

Okay I had to change the name of the post so that people would look at it anew, and so I could keep new images in the same thread, and not clutter up the board with a bunch of useless threads.

I did a new version, and it didn't come out too well, and I could have fixed it.  But then some people suggested The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams, and I decided to use that to make the next walk cycle.  So I decided to add it.  To me the newest (second one) looks almost like a double-bounce.  I'm thinking I should redo it again, or should I add the arms now?  What do you think?



Keith

I forgot I even posted here.  And the one in the right (front view) was posted after I started this thread.  I merely replaced the image since they were both on the same pages.  In any case yeah the front view looks a little odd, the arms are ok, but the legs need some work, and that part in the torso needs to be fixed.  As far as the height I can see how it can look short, so I may redo, or change it or something.  I'm currently considering what I want to do and how I want to do this.  The arms look a little odd because I don't do any slow-in/slow-out -- Essentially the hands should move slower once it gets tot he top of the arc, and then start out slow, and finally swing more down the middle.  Also a few people suggested I need to add a little spring to his step to make it more lively.  So i'm deciding how I want to do this.  I may redo these soon.

Thanks for the feedback!

Keith

I stopped working on my background for a while to start in on some animation.  A brief explanation here before I present the image.  This is intended to be generic (probably male generic), which I would use as a template for any other actual animation.  I want you to keep in mind that the drawings weren't precisely aligned and that may diminish the smoothness of the animation a bit.  Mostly i'm wondering if I should attempt to perfect it by doing it over, or if I should move to the next rotation.

Suggestions?  Is it really terrible?

Thanks, Keith.

ahh yes the almighty tablet... unfortunately I only have a mouse, so I have to make do.  Even so I'm generally a beginner.  But it has least given me some food-for-thought.

I think you're quite accomplished Andail

You can actually do decent perspective with just a few tricks.  First lightly draw a horizontal line for where you want the horizon to be.  If it's too high and most of your objects are below it, it will be as though you're looking down on them.  If too low then you're looking up at something.  I would generally put it about a 1/3rd from the top.  I'll just briefly describe one point perspective.  Next draw a vanishing point anywhere along the horizon line you just created.  I would put it on the side of the middle to make it a little more interesting looking, rather than dead center.  Next to do the objects in perspective, I would start with cubes and boxes, then draw your object within them using the box shape as guidelines.  So basically you pick a spot on the paper under the horizon line or it can actually be covering the horizon line.  You'll have to play around to see what looks best.  So essentially start with a square or rectangle pretty much where you decided to put your object.  Now get a ruler and put it along the vanishing point, connected to the nearest corner of your square... now draw along the ruler until you've gotten the length you want or till you're off the paper... I wouldn't go off the paper though cuz it would probably cover a good portion.  Now do this for all 4 corners...  So now you have perspective lines from the vanishing point, intersects all corners of the square.  Now depending on how big you want it to be connect the perspective lines with lines perpendicular to them... or straight lines.  In other words draw another bigger square where the corners meet the perspective lines.  You've just successfully drawn a cube or box in perspective.  Now of course you can use it to draw whatever you want in it.

If you couldn't understand this let me know and i'll make a drawing to illustrate it.  Otherwise you can look at my thread http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=32136.0 - to sort of give you an idea of what I did.

Wow this is awesome, I wish i could speedpaint like that.  my first background took hours, and it's not nearly as finished as yours.

What kind of techniques do you use to do this?

Sparky - actually like what you did too... that's sort of what i was going for (chunky eyebrows and all)... but further defining the nose area has given him a bit more character.

Ben - it was fun...

Actually looks like I didn't do too well on the pants for the male in the small sideview...  It could still use some improvement, but at least the description is there as to why I did it.

This was actually my first attempt at a paintover and critique... 

Still nice work Ben :-)

Pierre - thanks for the compliment.  I do indeed intend to redo the lines in the computer (Well we'll see how shading and shadows go).

Sparky - Since i'm new to this stuff, i simply put almost every face on a seperate layer.  Yeah it's alot, but it doesn't bother me, the next background will probably be smaller, quicker, and such as I learn it.  I think part of my problem wasn't really doing a full rough.  I basically started doing them all on seperate layers, so I could probably do it that way next time.

Not actually using masks, in fact i've yet to learn how to use them.  Instead i'm using an option to "keep transparency" which means it won't allow you to draw on transparent parts.  It's similar to photoshops "lock" icon, layer lock.

Don't worry about repeating anything, I probably need stuff repeated to me enough times before I do it ;-)

Keith

First thing I did was to swap the eye colors.  I did this for a few reasons.  First, the green eyes on the male drew attention to them, since they were fairly bright it made the image look "prettier".  Not that green eyes on men don't look pretty to women, but they sort of added to that pretty look on the guy.  Secondly female's hair was red (ish... okay more like purple but gives me the impression of red hair), and I like redhead's with green eyes anyways :-).  The male's hair is sort of bluish, so I figured the eyes matched with it better.

Now on to image specific critiques.

The female image -


Firstly I cut off that black part under the hair.  Not sure whether you intended a shadow, a background, or just as an extension to her hair, but since it didn't look like the smaller icon then I just cut it to where to me it looked similar.

Next, I moved the part over.  In the original I felt the hair was a bit limp, and that the part was neither directly down the middle or to the side.  So I moved it even more to the side.  Plus it matches the shadow in the smaller image.  Next someone pointed out there's too much forehead, so I dropped the hairline down a bit.  Finally I added a little wisp of hair out the front, as if it's not entirely in place, just to give it a bit more character.

The only other thing I did to the female image, was to grab the red color from her clothes, so her lips would look a bit more defined, like she had on lipstick or something. 

I tried to stay within your color range but I did borrow from the smaller image the red for the lips.

I also removed the line from the bottom of her nose.  In pretty females we tend not to notice the nose much anyways, so this sort of makes her seem a little prettier.

I might would also given extra time thin out her eyebrows a tad and move them more apart from each other.

The male image -


Okay this guy needed some help (no offense Ben but you even said yourself it looks more female).

Hmm... Where to start.  Okay firstly I messed with the lips.  They looked too much like lips heh.  Normally you notice lips more in women than men.  So I basically reduced it to a line, and a line for the under lip.  This draws attention away from his mouth.

Then I worked the nose.  He didn't seem to have any part for the nostrils.  I defined this to give more shape because he's male, in essence, maybe making a little more ugly or something (you kind of get the idea, not really ugly but more defined because we might not think of a woman's nose becuase it's smaller and more delicate, but a man's nose is a little more "out there").  I hope that didn't confuse you though.

I did modify the eyes somewhat.  Firstly that line above, i sort of cut off the edges.  We don't want to think the guy has eyelashes as women usually will use makeup and men won't so our lashes are more plain, not to mention shorter usually.  The eyebrows were too thin for a male.  So I thickend them up.

Now the hair.  It had an affect on whether it looked more male or female, although the hair itself was rather androgynous but also looked more like a cap than hair.  So since I take it you were going for either a rounded or flat-top where there was no real part, i had to actually put in the hairline.  by bringing the center down more.  You'll notice from guys that are nearly shaved you just have a hairline, you don't have a part, because a part comes from growing the hair out.  I also added some height to the hair as it's sitting on top of the skull, not in it ;-)

Finally with the hair is the shading.  There's that "pillow shading" i keep reading about.  Where concentric rings of shading go out.  It just looked weird.  So I defined the hair direction.  Notice now he has some form to his hair.  I went with the flat top.  I removed the brightest color, so now it's down to 3 shades.  I took the next lightest and put that at the top of his hair.  Then used the next one down as a transition between dark and light.  Putting that middle shade all the way across the hairline.

Also the ears.  Since he's not covering up his ears with his hair I felt I should raise it, remember in my version he's got a flat top, most likely his hair was cut from his ears.  But I also felt he should have the sideburns a bit to go along with his look.

Now finally I modified the small images, well the side view small one.  I noticed that the chest was too high on the guy, they sort of looked more like breasts, however, even though front view may have been that high, the side just looks weird.  So I lowered the chest a bit, so now it looks more like a flat chest and thus more manly.  I also filled out the back area so he looks al ittle more chunky like he's got muscles.  (by the way i didn't change the arm side views, so I could have added more definition to his arm muscles).

Next the pants (or trousers if you're anywhere but the US).  They looked like flared or bellbottoms.  Since i'm assuming this isn't the 70's, and he's male, and his whole wardrobe is not trying to look like he's from the 70's I simply straightend the leg a bit.  I also filled out the backside a little bit more.  We don't want to give him the rear like the woman, because he's male... it's more umm square or something ;-).  So all in all I made the pants fit his image.  I left the woman's alone because women even today will wear flared pants sometimes, and it doesn't look all that odd.

Finally the last thing I did was mess with the face a bit on the small full body images.  They sort of looked female too.  Basically i started with the eyes, and tried to define the white part better.  Then I removed the "eye liner" because he's male.  Instead I just had the fleshcolored area cover that.  Then I lightened the eyebrows, and raised that whole thing.  I also raised the sideview and added a darker tone to the bottom of the nose.  So it doesn't look so petite.

One thing I could have done was added a little extra hairline to the small version, but that's ok.

There's all kinds of tweaks that could be made, but I think i've done enough for now.  Ben you can take it or leave it, i'm not an expert artist by any means, but at least I know a little bit about faces (i'm trying to learn to draw portraits).

Forgive me if I stepped on anything :-)

These are only suggestions.

Keith