Pixel BG

[ChillTaco]

I just realized I may be screwed when It comes to The backrounds. I had planned to make it like megamans, then I realized Im no good at that kinda junk. IM only good at things like trees... I can only make nature. Man made stuff flys past me for some reason.. looks like a baby made it. AND I JUST TOTALLY REALIZED THAT NOW> I mean jeez, gunna have ta use free assets I GUESS..... NO #@$% that. I really thought I could do it to. Its wierd it took me a second to figure out how to pixel tree,bush, sky... but BUILDING.. BUILDING NUUU.

Im actually pretty genuinely pissed. It dosnt look awful PROBABLY, but I kinda quit when I got to the green one case wrong perspective angle. I stuck a couple of my tiny character sprites in der, you know, to see if they looked ok. I think maybe I should simplify the trees to something like this. They dont match the buildings at ALL.

Maby dat simple style is alright. Do you guys think its all right?

[King-sama]

Nope, it doesn't look ok....that tree look like cotton candy to me....give it more....leaves balls? I donno what you guys call it and also make the leaves group bigger (I maycolor on top of it if you want me to)
Good luck with it!

[SundownKid]

I suggest you ask around in a more Pixel art centric forum, like Pixeljoint for example, or TIGsource. They should be able to help you more. This is mainly illustrator-centric since it's a more visual novel focused forum.

I think the biggest problem I can see about the tree is that the shading looks... scribbled? Like it was just hastily drawn in without rhyme or reason. Pixel art isn't like illustration, it takes more attention to detail about the placement of shading.

[truefaiterman]

Unfortunately I don't have pixel-art tutorials in English to look for, but I can tell you this needs a lot of polish.

The trees don't look right at all, as SundownKid stated they feel scribbled and random. The foliage needs to be way more volumetric, with a clear shape for the chunks of leaves. The simplyfied version actually feels better in that regard, but it's too "twisted" for the simple and cartoony look you were trying to achieve.

About the buildings, are all of them part of the same picture? If that's the case, the perspective is completely different in the blue one compared with everything else. Also, the shading in the pink building needs some softening, the edges are too extreme, some anti-aliasing will help a lot.

The characters... I actually like the one in the right, it has personality and is well defined. The one in the left feels too stiff. I don't want to discuss his colours because the background in this forum is pretty light, and that affects a lot when defining pixel-art.

The block in the right is a tile-set, right? I'm not sure if it loops well, but I can tell you right now that... it makes no sense to me. Same as what happens with the leaves on the trees, it needs a more defined shape.

My advices are to look for good tutorials out there (I'm sure there's a LOT), and take a look at specially well done SNES games (Seiken Densetsu 3 is a personal favourite for me, or the indie game in developement hell called Card Sagas Wars).

I hope I haven't sound too harsh, I understand that pixel-art is very hard, and it can become frustrating. Keep up the effort and you'll see improvements!

[ChillTaco]

Yea, The blue guys is probably the only sprite I put any effort into Spent a hole 10 min on that one. Im actually happy you like it as its my most beloved sprite/character design. I didnt put too much effort into the Baseball player, mostly cause it is well... a baseball player? Not awesome android that wants to destroy the world, I planned to make up for his stiff body with some kick a$$ animations. But yea, I was pretty lazy with the kid. Im not gunna lie, I just made a face and put it on a butt.

I didnt much like the big tree cause it was big. SO I just kinda scribbled in and said hey! That looks like leaves if you squint. ... Buildings are bad. I designed them... separately ? well not designed just made blocks and colored them in lol. Squire is not a tiles set but it sure looks like wan, I just kinda mixed in all the shades of green to see how they looked together.

Maybe I should expand my horizons. Most people I worked with only wanted my character sprites.... so I never really practiced what goes behind them. I thought you know since I understood peoples inanimate objects such as town or brick should be a breeze.... NOPE>

Ill keep at it though, I don't have anything against free assets but when you want something to look a certain way you kinda got to do it yourself. Ill keep in mind the advice.

And thanks again for the thinking my lil blue guy was cool. My last group wasn't very enthusiastic with him and I was depressed about that for about 2 hours.

[hiko27]

I'm not that experienced with pixel art, but I did try it one time. Plus I have a friend of a friend who does this, so I've seen pixels a whole lot. The thing with your tree is you're doing two things. You got lazy and didn't plan what you're drawing (ie you just drew a tree without really thinking of it in detail), and you tried to make it detailed. The tree looks like it's burning in green flames, which looks cool btw. But anyways, I suggest you try drawing trees in pencil or just anything aside from pixel for now. Get the feel for it, understand how to draw it. Pretty much, "how do you draw a tree?" If you can answer that question by being able to draw a tree, then you can try translating it to pixel.

There's pretty much two ways you can go with pixels: You can either go simple, like old school pixels, or detailed like the ones you've been seeing around on the internet. But you can't make detailed pixels without planning them. Heck, you can just go and draw something in pixel without planning it out first. Create sketches, get your foundation right then and there, then work on pixels. It's like a house, if you mess up on the foundation, your whole house is screwed.

Also, with not being able to draw other stuff: Just keep at it. You gotta remember every artist has been bad at drawing something. If you think you're getting nowhere with the stuff you know, then go look up tutorials. Study those objects you want to draw. Practice drawing them. If you're having trouble with perspective, try drawing perspective grids and the vanishing point to help you.