Big Fantasy Mockup
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17526
Printed Date: 23 October 2025 at 12:49am
Topic: Big Fantasy Mockup
Posted By: Damian
Subject: Big Fantasy Mockup
Date Posted: 20 November 2013 at 1:51pm
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I'm going to use this thread to show my progress.
Right now I've fleshed out the basic shapes and I think it reads as a tree house. I want to first figure out what the scene needs to read as a populated place before I move onto any details. I've also sketched some characters for reference to the size of objects. Everything is very basic, and nothing represents what the final outcome will be, specifically the colours I've used. 
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Replies:
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 20 November 2013 at 6:02pm
| With the right colors, this can end up being completely amazing. the stages are very early though, so I can't give much criticism yet. Hope you finish it. |
Posted By: H|F
Date Posted: 20 November 2013 at 6:59pm
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I will be watching this thread for sure!
Looking very interesting in this early stage!!! Keep going ;) |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 21 November 2013 at 2:12am
It just dawned on me that with two of the characters I've sketched, it looks like I'm going to make a Winnie the Pooh game mockup  I'm not btw.
Thanks guys. I'm going for Snake, Fools, and Dan Fessler type of quality. I'm sure some of that will show as we go. Although I am as always choosing my own colours! Maybe thats setting the bar up to high, but I guess we'll see. Edit: PROGRESS!! 
I can see this is going to be a very long project :) I am determined to get through it though. |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 21 November 2013 at 10:52am
And another update :)
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Posted By: AlexHW
Date Posted: 21 November 2013 at 5:46pm
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I'm liking where this is going. Considering the house thing is attached to the tree, perhaps the tree should have more shadow under the house and more light towards the base? |
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 22 November 2013 at 6:25am
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Great progress, though I'm not sure I like the purple next to the window.
Side note - is the roof on the right supposed to look like an owl's face?
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Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 22 November 2013 at 6:42am
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I agree about the purple, I'll change as soon as possible.
Yeah its meant to look like an owls face, as it will be an owls house :) Edit: Completely missed Alex's post. I'll have to mess with the lighting, I didn't really give it much thought. Thanks. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 22 November 2013 at 6:44am
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Focus more on areas/clusters this time when coloring, k. ------------- |
Posted By: AtskaHeart
Date Posted: 23 November 2013 at 3:35am
| Looking good so far! Would be nice to see some blueish shadows for some areas. |
Posted By: Reo
Date Posted: 23 November 2013 at 6:48am
| I'd consider ditching the dithering it seems to run counter to the style/quality you're aiming for. also I agree with Aska that tinting your darkest hue towards blue would work well. I'd also consider adding another color between your two lightest browns. Something with a more interesting hue to make the piece pop more! But what you have so far looks great! You've improved so much! |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 25 November 2013 at 6:52am
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I've had two very long days at work. But todays a short one, so back to Pixel work.
Jal, I'll try my best. Atska, sure, will get some blue in there. Reo, Good call, I'll sort that out straight away. OK, So I spent a bit of time, not to much, but some time messing with what you guys have said. I'm not happy with the results yet. This is a process, so I'm not worried about the here and now, but more about the final result. 
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Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 27 November 2013 at 1:44pm
I'll be working on this as much as possible over the next week. But after that I'm away for two weeks. Here's some progress.
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Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 7:31am
| Everything is rendered beautifully and has a great natural homely feel. Aside from the lowest set of planks on the house though (the ones that are pointing down, kinda), the rest of the house looks a bit dirty, and doesn't seem to match the warm colors of the rest of the piece. |
Posted By: Naimad
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 12:37pm
| The actual house looks like its gonna fall off, maybe you can add more tree wood under it. If you want it to look populated, try adding strong, hard lights (yellow probably would be best) from any crevice or window that leads to the inside. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 1:25pm
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Namiad joined today to praise Damian....hmmmm :/
*You better be concentrating on clusters and not opening a new account to praise yourself...tell me its not true :| ------------- |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 1:51pm
I'm confused... Namiad is Damian or is it the other way around? 
Pretty neat WIP so far though. |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 2:05pm
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Jal, Haha, I better go delete my Osnolaj account then :P In all seriousness though, it isn't me. I value my spare time to much to bother with that sort of thing.
Naimad, Thanks for the critique. I am slowly trudging through what everyone has said so far and I am mindfully trying to correct things. Colour wise I'm more worried about selecting decent values and then rendering. I'll switching up the colours later stage though, or if it really bothers me, as I go. |
Posted By: Naimad
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 2:18pm
| Nope, we just happen to have the same name. Haha |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 28 November 2013 at 4:51pm
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Guys I didn't really supect I just thought I'd bring it out in the open to be safe and stuff.
Damian is a regular and has always been beyond reproach. Naimad, welcome to PJ :) Peace, Osnolaj :) ------------- |
Posted By: H|F
Date Posted: 04 December 2013 at 11:05am
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Just noticed the creepy faces in the windows Lol
Where's an update man? |
Posted By: SuperTurnip
Date Posted: 07 December 2013 at 6:23pm
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Love what's happening so far.
I think the one thing that could be improved is the form and material of the window frames. They look a little ambiguous, like you drew "frames" rather than "painted frames made out of knots in a large tree where a branch fell off". It might be a good idea to increase how specific you are at these places in your drawing, because "frames" doesn't feel right in a drawing of such obvious skill and competence. Hope this is helpful! |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 31 January 2014 at 2:57pm
I have't worked too much on this. I've been busy and putting this off to do other things. A lot still needs doing.
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Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 09 February 2014 at 11:36pm
I've been contemplating redoing the entire top area. I think I tried putting to much detail into some things while using to many colours. That and the woods lighting doesn't seem to make to much sense to me now :/ Anyway, for the sake of progression, an update.
Oh, and the bear is still very much a WIP. The legs look odd to me, any suggestions would be welcome. I'll get there eventually I think, but for the life of me I need fresh eyes to point out the problem. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 10 February 2014 at 3:07pm
| You'll be doing PJ a huge favor if you finish this xD. Please finish it! |
Posted By: LunchPolice
Date Posted: 10 February 2014 at 4:17pm
| Amazing work! I'll be following this. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 10 February 2014 at 5:22pm
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Don't go by drawing man, he's a foo. Take your time, good things always do. *remember them clusters and being clean. ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 13 February 2014 at 5:46am
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Well, this is well above my skill level, but just for the sake of bumping the thread...
- What kind of background did you have in mind? It's hard to get a sense of the lighting and colours without understanding the surroundings, especially the weather. The grass looks like it's hit by sunlight, the background is grey and the candle seems to give off a lot of light, so I'm a bit confused. - I think your bear's legs look unusual because he's bending his knees a lot. If you google "standing bear" (real life references) and "cartoon bear" (erm... well, cartoon references), I think you'll be hard pressed finding a bear with its knees bent like that. Looks great on the owl, not so great on the bear, IMO. 
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Posted By: BottleGnomes
Date Posted: 13 February 2014 at 4:12pm
| Try making the stomach of the bear less symmetrical so you don't lose the perspective. |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 14 February 2014 at 5:04am
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ADrawingMan, Lunch Police, thanks guys. It's nice getting a bit of positive feedback, time to be productive :)
Jal, no pressure 
Originally posted by CELS
Well, this is well above my skill level, but just for the sake of bumping the thread... Ha, nonsense and thanks. Originally posted by CELS
- What kind of background did you have in mind? It's hard to get a sense of the lighting and colours without understanding the surroundings, especially the weather. The grass looks like it's hit by sunlight, the background is grey and the candle seems to give off a lot of light, so I'm a bit confused. I've got an idea of what the finished picture looks like in my head and so have already answered these questions subconsciously, so it didn't occur to me to tell you.  This scene takes place in a forest, with big thick trees, that have heavy, big canopy's, not too dense though, some light does comes through, and when it does it's a very strong sun light. The candle light isn't supposed to be very strong, I haven't refined the fall off light yet :) You'll get a better example of this in the next update.
Originally posted by CELS Thanks loads! That genuinely helped a lot. I made a few more changes to make it look more bear like. My brother compared the previous iteration as platypus like. - I think your bear's legs look unusual because he's bending his knees a lot. If you google "standing bear" (real life references) and "cartoon bear" (erm... well, cartoon references), I think you'll be hard pressed finding a bear with its knees bent like that. Looks great on the owl, not so great on the bear, IMO.  It still has some way to go before I'm happy with it though.
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Posted By: reis
Date Posted: 14 February 2014 at 11:15am
| I love it! Shadows too much good ... |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 10:23am
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I've got time off work, so have more time to get back to this.
I've gone back and looked at some comments to try and fix a few things. So here's where I'm at. 
I'm still working heavily on the tree house bit, I just can't seem to come up with a good pallet for it. |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 10:58am
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Suggestion: The thing is in the forest, so it is quite dark right? The trunk is indirectly lit, the branches above the treehouse lit by the sun so could be much brighter on top... The difference between the tree colors and the house colors are too subtle imo, with a bigger difference it is more comfortable to my eye.. There should be some inbetween to make them connect, but you can fill that up with dark shadow (in my edit they both have the same darkest color) Anyway, quick edit on the palette:  ------------- |
Posted By: Daruda
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 1:08pm
| The darker version is really better...And it's an owl house. It's supposed to be dark. (?) |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 3:16pm
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Thanks Daniel. I kinda decided early on making this that I'd try to use a simple light source, so I'm treating the scene as if it was an overcast day. But if only because doing what you've mentioned is logical, but a pain in the ass to render when you're not used to doing art at this size. Or at least thats what I tell myself.
I'm also trying to create a fairly vibrant, saturated image. But what I can see from your edit is that the tree trunk is way too bright, so I'll tone that down. As for shadows, I'm really struggling getting the house right, I want to show volume, but I feel a dark shadow is a bit to much. So I'm going to play around with the pallet and try and introduce a colour that acts as a brighter shadow but still looks right, if that makes sense. |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 3:45pm
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Well, you could put your tree back on a mountain top instead of in this valley, that would do the light and saturated idea just. However, it also reads as 'in a dark forest' because it is a seemingly dead tree! And dead trees are dark and hidden... At bright spots a new tree would have emerged super fast! You can still have a vibrant scene by adding a lot of vibrant elements on a dull object, such as greens but also more parts of the tree house (staircase?), but it is quite tricky with a dead tree at the base!  ------------- |