The Evolution of Grass

The Evolution of Grass

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The Evolution of Grass



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Title: The Evolution of Grass
Pixel Artist: kevrhodes  (Level 1 Intern :: 97 points)
Posted: 5/2/2012 16:16
Palette: 13 colors
Statistics:  8 comments    3 faves    0 avatars

The making of a shaggy grass block for a friend's game. 

I'm trying to make it my own, but it's hard to stylize isometric blocks.  If anybody has any advice on how to do this, I'd be happy to hear it!

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kevrhodes (Level 1 Intern) @ 5/17/2012 17:24

I agree with everybody about the Minecraftyness of it.  I don't mean to plagiarize!  I will learn jellybeanfish's advice here.

Jellybeanfish: Thanks for the considerate response!  I certainly did not give as much consideration to the color palette as I should have.  These are some great grass block examples -- I especially like the 2nd, where the dirt can be seen through patches of grass.  And the bushier tiles are great, too.  I have a lot of reading/learning to do.  :)


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Partack (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 5/5/2012 20:34

 yep. makes me think of minecraft.  looks good tho.


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ImPirate (Level 1 Rookie) @ 5/5/2012 12:59

minecraft in 2D :D


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jellybeanfish (Level 4 Button Man) @ 5/4/2012 15:29

 Grass is definitely hard to stylize in pixel art, I agree! To be honest, the best way I can think of to suggest improving is to observe. Observe, observe, observe. Look through www.spriters-resource.com/ to find iso games you've enjoyed and check out how they did grass. It may seem counterintuitive to be looking at other people's styles to find your own, but honestly many artists' styles are born out of finding what they like about other peoples' styles and combining those elements together to make something original and fresh. At the least, it teaches you techniques you can use and gives you a starting point.  Obviously don't copy it ad verbatim or anything, but observation definitely goes a long way and has taught me a LOT about pixel art, especially when working with difficult perspectives such as isometry.

Check out tactic games especially for nice iso grass! Right now the biggest flaw with your tile imo is that it looks 'noisy' rather than grassy - the dark and light pixels look a little bit randomly placed. While the tiles are a little bigger than what you're going for, check out these two sprite sheets. The second exhibits several different ways of displaying grass, from sparse to lush, and it all comes down to very defined grass and, on the less 'lush' tiles, lots of vertical strokes. Try redoing it with primarily 2 vertical pixels instead of 1 pixel dots, try defining the lighter colors by having darker pixels right next to them for a feeling of more definition. The first game achieves its feel with a lot of dark color lit only by lighter pixels intermittently that form defined blades of grass.

Another problem is the palette. Grass is often a lot of different colors, not just one shade of green. Greens in general tend to be diverse from what I've found - all your green colors take from the exact same hue, whereas in reality green may be a dark, almost teal green in the darkest places and almost yellow in lighter ones. It has a lot to do with color temperature - shadows are often 'colder' colors such as a bluish green whereas lighter shades are warmer colors such as yellow-green, etc. It's a lot to learn, but you can achieve more natural colors this way. Palette study is important here. Of course, it also depends on the light (the cold fluorescent light of a hospital room isn't going to feel or look as warm as the great outdoors), but when your light source is presumably sunlight it's good to experiment with and keep in mind.

Hopefully some of this makes sense, haha. I'm just an amateur so I might be talking out my ass, but maybe this helps some.


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jellybeanfish (Level 4 Button Man) @ 5/4/2012 15:10

It has a pretty obvious minecraft feel, dude, it isn't just the blockiness. Maybe not intentional, but the color palettes and style feel similar to the default Minecraft block. Not that that's a dig at the guy, and for all I know it could be unintentional, but it does bear some resemblance. It's not just because it's blocky.


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Dusty-Drake (Level 1 Rookie) @ 5/4/2012 14:15

 Because everything blocky is minecraft.


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Elastico-Gadget (Level 2 Kukyu) @ 5/3/2012 13:03

If you want to develop your own style you should probably step aside from the Minecraft design. Your last pieces are very much looking like adaptations of Minecraft blocks and terrain design.


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Revolver1 (Level 1 Rookie) @ 5/2/2012 19:36

you might get a better response to a question like that on the forum. lot's of wip advice going around there :)


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