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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Topic: A house and clouds
    Posted: 11 December 2011 at 5:25pm
I've been really dumb lately. I've been making a lot of random wip's and I had forgotten the reason I was making them which was to try making things i'm not good at and to learn and improve. After realizing that I decided to make a house and clouds which are two things i'm really bad at: 
I'd really appreciate help with this so I can continue to learn and improve and i'll try my best to not do dumb things anymore.
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Partack
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Quote Partack Replybullet Posted: 11 December 2011 at 8:56pm
it looks very flat =(

there doesn't seem to be much depth in comparison to the blue sky behind the house.

try to work from a reference picture and maybe go from a slightly offset angle. frontal views can sometimes be the hardest of all angles to work with because of depth perception.

if you wish to continue with this same piece however, i suggest maybe bringing the clouds down a little and showing more of them in a scattered manner. the colours seem to suggest a cartoony kind of look. so use cartoony themes to make it work. (in relation to the clouds) , what i mean is seperate them and make them patchy instead of just one wall of cloud.

If there were that many clouds that you have now, it would be overcast and quite dark.

also, to help you visualise stuff, imagine how big the people in this picture would be if you were to draw them.

a house is quite big in comparison to a person

let that visualisation help you with the size of the clouds and anything else .

you may want to add a darker line on the sides of the house to separate it from the fence adjacent to it. the two seem to jsut flow together and as i said it all just seems a little flat and without depth.


one other thing, how come the house has no chimney? electric fire i guess? =P

any way, i hope any of this helps. good luck

Edited by Partack - 11 December 2011 at 9:02pm
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 12 December 2011 at 12:25am
Thank you for the help Partack:
I tried to change the angle, changed the clouds, added a chimney and changed a couple other things.
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cure
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Quote cure Replybullet Posted: 12 December 2011 at 12:32am
less concern about texture, more concern about depicting volumes by utilizing a strong light source. high-contrast volumes will be much more readable (and less flat) than low-contrast texture at this scale.

house is proportioned strangely. is it 1 floor? 2 floors? windows are kinda small.
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 12 December 2011 at 4:59pm
Thank you for the help cure:
I changed the shading, the size of the door and windows and most of the colors. It's supposed to be one floor but I can change it to two floors if that looks better.
 
Edit:I changed the roof more:
 
Edit2:I changed the shading more and changed a color:


Edited by Andrew-M - 12 December 2011 at 10:04pm
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Quote Friend Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 7:05am
have you considered changing the color of the clouds and the wooden face so they are more noticeable from the greenish blue sky?  
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 5:54pm
Thanks for the help Frost Butt:
I changed all of the colors, the clouds and some other things.
I think the fence is more noticeable now but the clouds still aren't...


Edited by Andrew-M - 13 December 2011 at 5:54pm
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Quote Friend Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 6:06pm
I think your house is nice n' cute, though the way you did the roof, it looks kinda glossy, which isn't very realistic of roof shingles.  Maybe references would help you with these kinds of things.  Can I ask why your clouds are mint green, instead of stormy grey or cotton ball white?
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 6:19pm
Hopefully the clouds are better now:
I'll try changing the roof soon.
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Quote Friend Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 6:34pm
I really don't know what I'm doing, so don't take my guidance very seriously.  
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 13 December 2011 at 8:04pm
Thanks for the help:
I tried to fix the roof, changed some colors and changed some other things.
 
I added a color and tried some things, mostly with the roof. Does it look good or should I remove it?
 
Edit: I changed a color:


Edited by Andrew-M - 13 December 2011 at 9:08pm
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 14 December 2011 at 9:55pm
I changed some colors and a couple other things: 
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 16 December 2011 at 3:03am
I changed the grass and changed some colors:


Edited by Andrew-M - 16 December 2011 at 3:27am
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 18 December 2011 at 4:15pm
I changed the grass, ground and chimney:
Does anyone know what else I should change? I honestly don't know what else to do...
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 22 December 2011 at 9:41pm
I changed the grass and ground, changed the colors, lowered the roof and changed a couple other things:
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 23 December 2011 at 10:23pm
I changed some colors, changed the roof and changed the ground and windows:
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jalonso
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Quote jalonso Replybullet Posted: 23 December 2011 at 10:36pm
The colors could be a bit better.

•I find the composition is your biggest flaw here.
•The 2 clouds being that balanced and 'even' is a poor design choice. Maybe one cloud and some chimney smoke?
•The front-view angle of the house makes the path look poor because it has a different perspective.
The lighting/coloring of the grass reads wrong because it comes across more as light, yet noting else is lit this way.
• The path in these colors is boring, use the cloud and sky colors for this, maybe with the lightest brown if you need a bit more color on it.
• Brown house, brown path, brown roof, brown window = boring
• Also left side of window has 3px and right side has 1px to house edges...tsk, tsk.
• The fence is behind the house but is still bigger than the windows and even the door. Is this a dog house?

Scale, perspective and viewer logic applies to everything. Cartoony, small, fantasy, real or whatever you create.
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 25 December 2011 at 4:50pm
I just started but would something like this be better?
 
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 26 December 2011 at 3:15pm
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jalonso
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Quote jalonso Replybullet Posted: 26 December 2011 at 6:11pm
You are doing great! This last update looks so much better :)
I would still play with colors and composition a little bit more as I show in my quicky edits...

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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 26 December 2011 at 9:41pm
Thanks for the help jalonso:
Would you mind explaining why you have a bright line to the left of the windows and door and why there's purple on the roof and blue on the ground? Your edit is amazing but I can't figure out why
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jalonso
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Quote jalonso Replybullet Posted: 27 December 2011 at 8:22am
Your question is far too complex for me to answer in a simple manner. I hoped the visual edit would answer these kind of questions :/

• The bright line on the left of the windows and doors are to illustrate some depth and help add form to the image. Your piece is overall flat and highlights/shadows like these push things back or pull them out. A pixel width cannot be changed but carefully chosen colors can visually create half a pixel or 1.5 pixel too...no science this is experimenting.

• Purple on roof and blue (actually grey) on the ground and roof are design choices chosen to help lighting and mood. For example, grass is green and coloring grass would use a green ramp (light green, medium green & dark green) this is fine but tends to look flat and seamless. Because there is light and shadows the grass may be green but the shadows can be other shades, like blue, brown, purple, grey, etc. Likewise the bottom house is light brown and the front is this color because the sun is hitting this face of the house. However, the side is blue/grey because it is in shadow. The side you would think should be darker brown, and this is true but in this edit I used blue/grey to accomplish two things. A) it adds interest because of the color change and B) it helps add depth by 'blending' into the sky (background).

• There is purple on the roof...because I just used that shade and seemed to work :/   ...experimenting does good things sometimes.

• When choosing colors beyond picking colors that can be shared in order to conserve colors in pixelart you should also consider how colors work with each other. For example, a red object would use a red ramp (light, medium and dark red) if it is on its own and isolated. However, when a red object is introduced into an environment is should blend in and be 'part' of the environment. To do this your red ramp needs to relate to the piece as a whole. If this red object is on a green ground, for example, then your ramp would need to relate to green so your basic red ramp would be adjusted so the 'dark red' would lean to more of a brown. Or say you have a yellow object on a blue ground then your shadow color/s for the yellow ramp would lean to be greener or ochre instead of dark yellow. This applies to highlights equally. Making colors choices that flow with each other always makes art pieces look better and especially so in pixelart where you are always trying to conserve colors.

• Because pixelart likes the least amount of colors and sometimes is a requirement, then using 'neutralizers' in your palette buffer, soften and blend things. The basic/classic neutralizer is the color grey but any color can be used too (experiment). In my edit I used neutralizers. In the bigger one the side of the house looks 'cool' and the path to the door looks 'warm' but they are the same colors.

•...Bottom line...its all experimenting :|


Edited by jalonso - 27 December 2011 at 8:25am
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 27 December 2011 at 5:48pm
Sorry jalonso, I didn't know my questions were that complicated ):
Thanks for explaining though.
I made the chimney smaller, tried sharing colors, changed the clouds and a couple other things. I tried experimenting with colors but it didn't look very good...
 
Edit:I tried some things with the windows and door:


Edited by Andrew-M - 27 December 2011 at 9:00pm
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jalonso
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Quote jalonso Replybullet Posted: 28 December 2011 at 11:12am
It looks so much better than when you started. Good Job!

Whatever you do from his point make sure you have learned something and use that knowledge in this piece.

*Clouds are a little bit messy and scrappy. Clean them up a bit ;)
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 28 December 2011 at 7:42pm
Thanks jalonso, i'll try my best to do that.
I changed the clouds and ground, changed some colors, tried to make the grass, and changed a couple other things. I tried to make the grass like jalonso did in his edit but I think I might have done it wrong...
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 29 December 2011 at 4:15pm
I changed some colors, changed the ground, tried something else with the grass and changed some other things.


Edited by Andrew-M - 29 December 2011 at 5:47pm
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jalonso
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Quote jalonso Replybullet Posted: 29 December 2011 at 9:32pm
>>>
Looks great!


Edited by jalonso - 29 December 2011 at 9:32pm
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Andrew-M
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Quote Andrew-M Replybullet Posted: 30 December 2011 at 1:08am
Thanks jalonso, I couldn't have improved this without your help (:
I changed the grass and some colors.
 
Edit:I changed a color:
 
Edit2:This is finished now. Thanks everyone for the help.


Edited by Andrew-M - 30 December 2011 at 2:55pm
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