Just wanted to update as I widened the background and added a few things.  I want to improve this pic as much as possible but I'm not really sure how to go about doing that so any pointers and/or advice would be much appreciated.




Edited by 2D4Me - 04 November 2014 at 8:09am

Thanks for the reply.  I agree on the road texture needing improvement, I'd like to fix it up a bit, but it will be challenging as its supposed to be a dirt road and I have no idea how I would make a more convincing dirt texture.  I actually like the way the rocks came out but perhaps you're right, I'll play around with them a bit to see if I can come up with something better.  

@jalonso

First off, thank you for taking the time to comment.  I can see what you're saying about over doing it with the pixels and to be honest the foliage was irking me the whole time.  I had gone through several different foliage designs and arrived at that one but was still not happy, plus I think it clashes a little with the style of the tree trunks, and now I see why, over-pixelling.  Would you say the same about the grass in the foreground or is it the picture as a whole?  I might have to change that too if I change the foliage.  Would you be able to provide me with an example or two of the kind of leaves that you would apply?  I know you told me to check out "fool's" gallery and I did, but I also thought I would check out yours too and it turns out you are a fantastic artist as well, I hope I can learn from you.  I also think I struggle with consistency, meaning that different parts of the picture, certain objects and such, don't necessarily look like they belong with the rest of the objects, as if it were done in a slightly different style and so its not as cohesive as it should be, not sure how to remedy that.  Thanks again.

I am going by your statement that this is designed to be a game BG scene instead of a real life scene.
Beyond all the over pixelling and uncontrolled coloring you have an issue here that is working against you. Lighting and depth. The farthest back trees have the same lighting and definition as the foreground trees.
I think you could vastly improve everything if you divide the scene onto planes and then color/pixel each 'layer' as its own where the foreground has more clarity and as each layer goes back you simplify so that you improve the depth. While it needs a bit of cleaning up the sky and clouds layer is good and reads well. Making every layer up with more and more definition and detail should help. For example, the blue layer should only have enough pixelling to suggest what is there. We don't need to see every brick in the house and the tree trunks need no detail other than some shadow/volume.
The green layer gets a bit more detail and is basically the layer that 'blends' the blue and red layer extremes of detail.
The red layer is probably the only place that leaves, trunks and dirt can be the most detailed, but again. We don't need to see every grain of dirt to see it as such.
As for consistency. You need to pixel with more precision. While I think dithering is not a good choice here that's a design choice and entirely up to you. However, if you go with dithering as you have in the foreground tree trunk than you have to pixel all dithering equally because the balanced dithering on the big foreground tree trunk with the scrappy dithering on the tree top just looks awful. I see the scrappy is you trying to show the leaves but we don't need every leaf. Its clear its a tree and thus the viewer will see leaves even if you pixel none.
Think 'suggestion' more than realism. Its a game BG not a RL scene :)
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Just noticed its your BD...




Edited by jalonso - 05 November 2014 at 6:35am

Ok, I did a partial revision which took longer than I anticipated due to being quite busy recently, but here it is.  I redid the biggest tree in the left foreground in a new style trying to apply the advice you had given me.  I further worked on the revision and added back some dithering and lighting as a middle ground option which I like the best of the three.  I will give you all three versions of the tree so you can compare, the original tree first, then the revision, and then the final revision:






What do you think?


Edited by 2D4Me - 10 November 2014 at 9:18pm

The light source is coming from the right/east of the tree, I know the lighting differs a bit from the original tree.  As for the canopy, yes, I agree, it could be a lot better, the thing is I was trying to simplify it and was worried if I put more work into it or added another color that it would become cluttered and unnecessarily detailed again.  

Also, about dithering, I know you say you don't feel the pic needs it but I've been looking at both versions and the dithered one just seems a little more alive, less flat, the lighting especially seems better, I don't know, maybe its just me but the dithering seems to add a good quality to the pic, when I tried adding lighting on the revised tree in the style of the new tree it seemed off, like the tree was unnaturally shiny or like it was made out of another material and not wood/bark.  

Hmmm, no, though I like that pixel art's sky, I don't like the tree, grass or foliage, it's a little too cartoony for what I'm trying to do.  I updated the tree comparison post with a third version which is me adding back the dithering to the tree, but a cleaner dithering than the original, do you still think the second version is the direction I should go in?  I actually like the third version best, especially the tree trunk which I think is the middle ground between the first and second.

I'll probably redo the foliage though since I still haven't found a style I am really happy with.


Edited by 2D4Me - 10 November 2014 at 9:15pm

Ok,

I redid the foliage, made some new rocks, and put a tree in the distance so you can see if I got the whole foreground/background objects thing down correctly, here ya go:

I think it's very nice, awesome work.

My humble opinion, if not corrected by wiser pixeljointers:

I feel like there's too much contrast, mainly because of the clearer green tone, way too bright to my taste (both in herbs and trees).
The rocks may look more real in a not so pure grey, maybe a little more of red component, and or green in the grey palette...

Also, as suggested, colder tones in the distant components of the landscape improve depth sensation.


Edited by dyluck - 16 November 2014 at 10:10am

Great addition! Only one comment - I don't think the clouds would be as tilted.

I think the amount of colours you're using is fine. If you add more colours, I think they should be mostly blues to help you with atmospheric perspective (fading stuff in the background). But, before you worry about adding more colours, I think you should work on unifying the ones you already have, so that you know what other colours you still need.

@eishiya- What exactly do you mean by "unifying" my colors? Are they not unified? Can you give me an example?

@limes- Yeah, I read that whole thing long before I posted in these forums, it's helpful but I sometimes prefer direct feedback.

The way the colors are don't give a feel of depth, The colors in the background should not be so ambient. see here.

Ok, another update, I tried to work in some of the advice given to me and I played with the color palette and added a couple additional colors, I also got rid of most of the dithering going on just to see how it would look:

I adore the trunk's shading! Also proud of you for working on the 'further away, less detail' stuff. c:

Still super bright colors IMO. Here's some fiddling:



Keep at it though, you're making big strides.