I'm drawing this game mockup as a free time project around other work. I don't have a particularly large amount of experience in pixel art so I thought i'd post regular WIPs here in case anybody could give me some useful advice on colour choices, pixel placement etc.

Thanks for checking my topic =]

[EDIT 12:46- 14th July]







Edited by capnbubs - 14 July 2011 at 4:46am

I made some background tiles. Would you say the grass being too busy at the corners was a stylistic opinion or does it actually hurt the look? because I'm quite fond of it.

I was thinkin doing a similar tile setup to terraria would make a level editor nice and easy, I was hoping it was far enough from terraria's style to differentiate it. So much for that xD

Here's an update on the scene mockup and the first animation for the little character!







Thanks, happy to hear it!

There's some animation for ya.


Edited by capnbubs - 08 July 2011 at 4:28pm

heh yeah i thought at first that was artistic license but i think if you actually plan on making underground parts to it then just copy and paste the dirt texture everywhere it belongs.

Also i saw no answered your grass question - i think its totally pro really just as the rest of your work I will deffinetly be watching your gallery!

So far no crits really other than nit picks...Did you make that animation in a matter of minutes btw???

EDIT: This is a nitpick but i did want to give one crit lol but the sprites run i think is way to light and fast for the suite he wears.

Edited by vlad61 - 08 July 2011 at 9:20pm

Added some bits, I was thinking these boxes would contain building pieces like bridge tiles, you have to carry them over to where you want to use them.

I think the tiles look awesome, but when it's all assembled in the mock-up, it all looks too blocky for my taste. It looks like a huge dirt-covered industrial complex.

By the way, if that cube has a function similar to the ones in Portal, I demand to play this game. I also demand that you make a companion cube easter egg.

I think the background looks great. The gradient sky against the monotone horizon reminds me of the old classic Scorched Earth. Speaking of the sky, are you sure you don't want to reduce the number of colours, maybe try some dithering? It's just that the whole art style seems to have a very limited palette, except for the background. (Apropos, the tree looks amazing. Wish I could do that with so few colours)

The bottom corners look a lot better. I didn't think such a small change would make such a difference. My next question is; when you look at the second layer of foreground, or the immediate background, I don't understand why you need to stick with the blocky format of the foreground. I understand that the foreground needs to be squares because of gameplay, and you don't want the hassle of rolling hills. But why should the second layer follow the same pattern? Wouldn't it be better with some round edges and/or 45 degree lines?

The cloud looks great, except for the middle part which kind of looks like an organ. I probably wouldn't react if it was part of a bigger piece with a photorealistic approach, but when everything looks very cartoony, the hyperrealistic cloud looks out of place.

You are so good and i hate you for it! One thing i noticed is that your perspective on the bridges

What is it supposed to be? Its not very clear

The only problem I have is with the second animation you have here. While the one before it looks of decent length, the view in the second one...eh, the gun seems to be much too exaggerated, thus appearing a bit less than double the size of how it should. If you could just alter that by a few pixels, I'm sure that would help quite a bit.

Otherwise, what all you have here is amazing.