Hi all,

I'm currently working on creating a mock-up of a dungeon crawler with a unique perspective angle (one-point ** thanks DaLk and Eishiya for pointing out my error** perspective, not isometric, nor is the angle 45 degrees right towards the middle).

I have a lot of the assets in place that I created myself, but my biggest struggle is creating bricks along a wall that has a vanishing point. I've attempted to create it myself but despite my best efforts I cannot make it look natural.

Here is a mock-up screenshot (without any bricks):


As the hero moves through the "dungeon" 4 sections of walls (on the left and right sides) will show up depending on how the map is laid out.

(with sections removed)


I've tried emulating various styles, and creating brick textures on 128x128, then skewing them in photoshop to fit the perspective, but alas, I just can't make it look good.

I'm a particular fan of this kind of "painting style" or "blob style" (not sure on the technical term)
(made by Viiolaceus)



Either it could be a singular wall that I can break up myself into 4 pieces, or you can create all 4 wall assets (I only care about the bricks on the walls facing in to the alley, not the sides of the "cube")

Feel free to shoot me an email at Kitsune910@gmail.com to discuss pricing or if you need more clarification. Thank you for your time :)

Hi! :D

I originally was replicating a style seen here on the upper walls (from the game, "Murder" by Peter Moorhead):


I had drawn lines (following the perspective rules) and added a highlight and bottom shading (here is the texture flat that I had previously played with).


I realized quickly that with so many lines and darkness, the hero doesn't really stand out against the bricks and becomes a muddled mess (especially at the farthest away point).

I started discovering art styles that use forms then going back in to fill the details, giving it an almost painting look, but with added dithering to give it the feel of pixel art. One example is by DYA Games (look how they did the floor, I love it).



I realize that as the walls get farther you lose details, but despite constant playing around I cant seem to replicate that style or have it look good.

To answer your questions Eishiya:
1.) You wrote that you have two vanishing points, but I only see one in the images. Will you also need bricks for walls with another VP?

Only one vanishing point. (My mistake on that one)

2.) You wrote that there are 4 segments, but since the VP isn't in the middle, you actually have 8 unique wall segments that need bricks. Do you only want one wall textured, or did you just not notice that they're not symmetrical?

I was hoping that I would get one wall segment done and can apply it, but according to your advice that wont be the case and will need 8 different wall segments

3.)You said you tried drawing bricks and then skewing those. Could you perhaps show how the unskewed version looked, as a style reference? That way I or another artist could use that as a guide to keep the art style consistent with yours.

See above for the unskewed reference :) I realized I want to go a different style route, similar to how DYA Games does their bricks, or the mountains I linked in my original post (or the background artwork from the game Chasm):



Notice how it almost looks like it was painted, but maintains a pixel look? I would love to replicate that feeling with my brick walls in this alley, so that it makes the hero really stand out (who has harsh very defined outlines).

I have trouble recreating blob bricks as you referred so thats why I'm here. :)

No I greatly appreciate all the help, anything that can help make this scene feel more alive.

Usually with dungeon crawlers, the light is right on the hero and the end of the corridor is usually darkness (since the hero can't see too far).

I have the unique challenge where I want this "dungeon" to take place during a sunset in an urban alleyway. So there tends to be a lot more light (mostly the sun). But if I only have the sunset, the hero (which should be the focus) would be in a darker part of the alleyway.

I did have the idea of using street lights (perhaps up on the wall?) to be within each "square" of the grid (this will be a grid-based dungeon crawler, much like Eye of the Beholder or Shining in the Darkness)

The thing is I've tried so many different styles and techniques because it is a unique perspective, and a unique sense of lighting and I'm just absolutely struggling.

I've tried using a 3-d engine with the textures pasted on, but it doesn't look right to how I see it (it looked almost like Doom textures which I wanted to avoid). I know there are a lot of 2-d tricks you can do to give the appearance of 3D but still have that aesthetic of a classic 16 bit game.

Thank you! My goal is to create a game that I would want to play.

I think with this scene in particular I'm struggling because the rest of the game, (which takes place in a forest, and in a dark basement) you can use a lot of tricks (Such as overlapping trees, or the essence of darkness) to mask the jaggies.

Overall, I'm not super worried about Jaggies because famous games such as Eye of the Beholder has them (but you don't really notice).


I know it wont look perfect, but I wanted to tap into a talented artist who can complete this task, and feel the "blob/fill in" technique would probably work best (and use cool perspective tricks to give the appearance of bricks in the distance).

That sort of effect would be good, but it doesn't make much sense to have the walls get darker towards the sun, does it? You could have the same effect but with shadow towards the viewer, and have the detail level get lower towards the light.

This is the process I'd use:
Choose your colour ramp for the bricks. Set up a guide (distort a simple brick template into shape, don't have anything like shadows or highlights on it), make sure it's the size you want. I made mine white here since we're working with dark colours, and it's important for the guide to be easy to see. It's at 50% opacity on top of everything else. I just randomly distorted this one, but for yours, you'll want to make it so that the bricks align with the wall segments, so that your corners can look natural when you cut sections out to make the side streets. I chose four colours for the ramp for this example, but you can use more if you want them.


Cover the area with the colours from your ramp, so you get something like a smooth wall. The transitions don't need to be straight, so just hand-plop them in.


With a large-ish brush (2-3 pixels at least), fill in some bricks near the colour boundaries, essentially using them as a form of dithering. You can be messy here, you can always clean it up later, and being more organic here can help you give your wall more character. Don't be afraid to have some bricks be isolated from the main mass of their colour - think of it like dithering, which uses plenty of isolated pixels. You may want to have the dark colours creep in more at the bottom, where there is probably even less light.
Do not use a smaller brush on the small distant bricks. Their shapes should be indistinct, so it's okay if they're inaccurate blotches.
Do not "over-dither" here, leave lots of solid areas. It's more important to suggest texture than to actually show it all. If you show everything, the wall will be too busy. Plus, you can add more detail later.


Time to add a bit of detail! With a 1px brush, add some shadows and highlights that creep in further than the whole bricks did. It helps to lower the guide opacity even more here, and to toggle its visibility frequently.
As before, don't overdo this step, it's fine to have solid areas with no distinct bricks at all.
This is also a good time to clean up existing bricks and make their corners less sharp.


I think I did a bit too much detail in this example, and I should've had more whole-brick "dithering" in step 3 instead.
The 2nd colour contrasts too much with the third, which makes the wall feel noisier than it should. Easy fix, but I left it in so that you could see. Low-contrast colours can be a big help here. For the long distance you're covering, you'll probably want a bit more than 4 colours, to avoid high-contrast areas. You'll probably want lower contrast colours than the ones I chose in general.
If you have rounded light (like in the ladder example) rather than just a straight "gradient" like this, you can get more interesting shapes too.

Lastly, you can (and should!) break it up with other details. Fire escapes, posters, lamps, graffiti, use it all to your advantage! Not only will it help the wall look nicer, it'll help build out your wall, too. I recommend making several variants of each wall section, so that the player has more landmarks in the alleys than just turn-offs.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the size of the bricks should also determine how you create the "dithering". With tiny bricks, use the whole brick, so you're using the bricks as big "pixels" in the "dithering". With large bricks, such as the examples you gave, you can use details like the shadows cast by those bricks, cracks, etc to create the light/shadow patterns.