Suggest some improvements/things to work on

[Shaneaphone]

Amateur. Not very good at art. Any tips on approach to making scenes? Or Ways this could be improved?

Please don't be shy!

[RootBound]

The overall number of elements and the spacing of them looks pretty good to me in terms of composition, and the details you've chosen to include are effective.

Biggest issue is perspective which is tricky for uneven ground because you don't want it to look like a flat plane.

I altering the angle of the work bench to match the perspective of the crate would go a long way to making the perspective tie together as it's the element that feels most "off" perspective-wise.

The holes might also look better if they are less wide at the back since that side is further away.

As far as color, lighting, and texture, there could certainly be refinements there but a lot of that depends on the art style you want.

[Shaneaphone]

Ah yes I see your point. The ground especially. I'll try altering the bench to start.

Thank you

[Snarky]

Looks nice!

One thing that jumps out at me is the tangent between the lowest tree branch and the left side of the nearest pit. Try to avoid edges that line up: they tend to flatten the image and even cause "optical illusions" where they seem to be part of the same object. Now it almost looks as if the pit is hanging off the tree.

Is the area under the blue tarp on the right a region accessible to players? The way it is laid out, it seems like characters would have to walk off screen to reach it. (Unless the entry is hidden behind or under the tarp, which is also not ideal.) But I think it looks too tantalizing to not be accessible.

I'm also a little unsure of the scale. If you place a character in the scene, do you feel like everything is the right size? It looks to me like maybe the tent and crate are massive compared to other objects in the scene.

Sure, there are various other things you could improve, but there are lots of AGS games with much worse graphics than this, so don't let that hold you back. This is already good enough, at least for a first game!

[AndreasBlack]

Tips? Look at this legend how he does it. I've even emailed him a while back and he gave me some tips, my art has improved a lot since. However he doesn't go into much technical details i had to figure out a lot myself, but it definately helps to get a way better look on your pixelart if you like his style that is!  

My absolute best advice is to start with the EGA palette! I wished i had done that sooner! Cause it really opened up the ability to sense what colours works together for highlights/shadows in the pixels universe. Since you are limited to just those ugly 16 colors, and that's really good for practice, and getting creative with the limitations as Mark says in his video here

[Shaneaphone]

Ah man. I'm really glad I summed up the courage now. Some expert eyes with amazing insights - so very helpful thank you!

Your comment has given me an idea. If I make the tarp roof an object that gets removed on a hotspot I can make a sort of 'inside' view. Something I've never tried and it sounds easy to code so I'll give that a shot. I actually know exactly what you mean, it does seem like you'd want to walk in there.

Scale seems ok as the main character at this point is only 15. I've animated her and I think it will work if I have adult characters that really have a size relative to the tent door etc.

[Shaneaphone]

Ah wow. Didn't know who the man was. Wowzers. Very inspirational stuff. Limitation causing increased creativity is something I've always agreed with to some extent. Thanks for the heads up. I would watch the whole video but I am currently toasting to myself over the birth of my son that just took place. Such is my dedication I thought I'd check out how my crappy scrawling could be improved in the settling dust here. Thank you.

[eri0o]

Hey, even if your art you think isn't good or whatever, but if you can make all the game art feel the same, so it's consistent, I would say have the entirety of the game being consistent is better than not. Say you nail down to some awesome backgrounds but then add some character sprites that are in a different style, I think it's worse.

Overall I would focus on finding your own process and then just keep it for all the art you need.

[newwaveburritos]

Not every day you hear someone recommend the EGA palette lol.

I will say that I love dithering but the reason (aside from a creative or stylistic one) is because you're trying to represent a color you don't have in your palette.  So, it's seems strange to me to have a low resolution image, dithering, and a large color palette.  With the foreground tree you've got a gradient of quite a few colors but you use the dither patterns on the ground.  To my eye I prefer the dithering but I'm a dithering guy.  Working with a pre-defined palette is good advice though.  That's what I started with (EGA) and I never moved on even though I have to use magenta a lot!

[Shaneaphone]

It's born out of curiosity not intention. I just think it looks cool and am basically using it to try and create some perspective and lighting. After watching that video that was posted there I might approach it slightly differently. All super helpful.

To cut a long story short, I just finished my first game. At the end I was faced with the prospect of redoing the art. Although I did lament making the new art (making new stuff is fun for me, remaking existing images? Not at all) I did notice that quickly. The consistency is key.

It doesn't matter so much for my comedy game (and is sort of intertwined with the point of it) but this game I want to be more serious so I'll take all this feedback and plough on slowly and happily.

[AndreasBlack]

So you're saying your not gonna re-do the graphics similar to this that i'm working on? It just takes five minutes!