your palette is extremely saturated right now, especially the orange building. desaturate the oranges. where is your lightsource? And unless this building is on an alien planet where 8 suns light the sky, then yes, you need shadows. the tree needs work (a ball and a stick?), google images of trees. the last three tiles of the sidewalk are a different length than the rest. the door is off center. why don't the bushes wrap around both sides of the building? dithering the grass creates one color at 1x, so all it accomplished was looking like one color but taking two to do it. try a real grass texture. the stiff, inorganic lines of the vines bother me a little, and i think details like vines should be saved for later on in the piece. not sure what's going on with the grey area where the grass meets the pavement.

Edited by ThereIsNoCure - 13 July 2009 at 1:57pm

This has certainly come a long way! But there are still a number of issues, and grass is not so important at the moment. Grass tends to be boring anyway, I'm sure you'll find more interesting stuff to put in all that empty space. Your little grass tile is not bad by the way, it has volume.

Speaking of empty space, I think it would look far better on a much smaller, but controlled, ground patch. Parking lots and grass, well, that's boring unless you fill them with stuff.

There are still important shape, color and light issues.

The central part of the building is not symmetrical: the door and windows are shifted to the left. Because the right aisle is hiding a bit of the central wall, what you see as the middle of this wall is not the middle!
Also, why are there only 3 rows of windows? There is room for one more at the top. But a more interesting possibility would be to reduce the height of that central part, by 1 story. That would make the bldg more interesting.
The horiz space between windows changes randomly (15, 16 or 17 pxs), it's enough to give an uneasy feeling.
I don't like so much that there are the same n° and spacing of windows on the narrower right side. Get them closer? have 5x4 on the front sides? Make the aisles square?

Windows and door are completely flat: give them some depth. Windows are also very small, but this might be the architects choice ;-)

The railing is still not good, far too uneven, and I think it was better in a light color. First, you should check the low roof wall it is supposed to be set on. It is itself far from uniform. Then put the railing posts along the middle of this wall, not at the edge, and space them regularly. You have to calculate the interval before, to make sure it comes OK at the angles!

There might be some detail on that roof too. Your former boxes were not very good, too big, but think of smaller ones, with a technical look: elevator shelter, as well as chimneys, pipes, air con, tv.

The building would look better if it was not exactly on the grounds corner. The hedges would look better if they were a little apart from the building. And check the hedge corners, you have problems keeping corners iso.

Vines are a distraction.

The outside grounds wall has no thickness.

The alleyway has a problem. I guess it is tiled with square tiles, but since the alley is sideways, the short lines should not follow the 2x1 iso persp. Try 3x1 or 4x1.

Lamp posts: one is inside, one is outside.


Shading/color:
There's not enough contrast between the lit and unlit sides; also make sure to shift saturation and hue on the darker sides, not just lightness.

If the central part is deliberately of a different color, make it really different! Think architect!

No pure greys, please...
Why not make the outside wall bricks?
Why are the inner sides out the outside wall darker than the outer sides, regardless of light?

Grass and hedges are much too green.

And, if you want to give real depth and light: things cast shadows. Choose a direction light comes from (left side, 45° is an easy one to start with), and put these shadows in. On the walls, roof, ground, hedges.

Keep going!

Thank you guys for taking your time to help me  TNHX

CAN ANYONE HELP ME WIT MY SHADOWS PLEASE???

Very very quick n dirty edit:


btw I counted 52 colors

Edited by Club Beuker - 18 November 2009 at 2:30am

(left, right, back, and front in this post is relative to someone standing in front of the building, facing the road)

Don't go crazy with the dithering like that. Just use solid, flat shades.

You've drawn your shadows as if they're being cast by completely flat structures, like billboards. If your light is coming from back-right, the shadows would be cast not just in front, but to the left as well. Currently it's like only your front faces are casting shadows.

I would suggest making your light source coming from completely straight-on behind. You can follow the iso lines and your life will be much easier.

Lastly, the hedge to the immediate right of the door is out of perspective. You need to learn to be more precise and careful. I don't know much about iso, but I do know you need to develop a bit of fussy nitpickiness about the SCIENCE behind it in order to be good at it.

EDIT: Raising the sidewalk a few px will fix the perspective issue Walrus pointed out.
EDIT2: Actually, no, you'll need to lower the bottom of the hedge there and where it wraps around the bldg, I believe. I think this will also fix the perspective problem I pointed out above.

Edited by Hatch - 18 November 2009 at 7:33am