Style advice.

[sare]

Currently I'm in the phase of making the pictures/programming for my game.
I'm testing out the compatibility between the sprite and background... and somehow this doesn't feel right for me. Can anyone give me advice?

btw, I'm a huge fan of Huke, so I'm trying for the sketchy/grungy style.

[mugenjohncel]

Let's see... first the characters are drawn Huke Style, grudgy and simple but the background is very well detailed so attention is shifted heavily in the background. Two ways to approach this... re-draw character in much more detailed manner or redo background in Huke Style...

"POOF" (Disappears)

[15385bic]

Agree with mugenjohncel
the styles clash

[sare]

Taking mugenjohncel advice, it turned out like this.

I decided to scrap the idea to copy Huke's style and go with my usual style (actually I'm much better at soft, watercolor-ey style).God rid of the textures used in sprites (it actually made it harder to paint).
I also reduced the background detail.

What do you guys think?

[mugenjohncel]

What do you guys think?

Let's see... Mmm... the BG is still way too detailed though I know there is not much you can do to it since the BG "is a detailed photograph subjected to filtering"... though the reduced detail made it look somewhat good enough with the sprite...

If you'd allow me I'd like to produce a sample using your characters and make some recommendations... I'll be waiting for your confirmation...

"POOF" (Disappears)

[sare]

Well, the idea was that I want to emphasize the place setting. I've played Umineko and was turned off by how heavy the bg was processed. I wanted to use the background as part of the story setting, which takes place in a modern town but still retain a lot of medieval flavor. Which is the reason why the background was quite detailed.

Some bg's have 'otherside' version of them, where the normal place seen in standard scenes distorted into half-tone, monotone world. This is where all the action scenes take place. I intend to put more details into these 'otherside' bgs, but it seems it would clash with the sprites.

I attached some files in this post. Feel free to experiment with them.

I worked on this pretty much by myself (story,sprites,bgs, programming and perhaps music?) so your advice was really helpful.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Another problem is that you have real people in your background, and that's going to heavily distract from your sprites.

[sare]

Much better?
This filter effectively blurs our real people, but at the cost of the minor detail.
But at least the characters stand out a lot more.

[Omnificent]

Looks better, the only thing I'd suggest is turning up the brightness a little on the background to match with the washed-out colors of the sprites.

[JustAnotherMe]

Looks better, the only thing I'd suggest is turning up the brightness a little on the background to match with the washed-out colors of the sprites.

Seconded.

It's a unique style, I gotta admit I like it!! xp

[sare]

Main menu screen. It looks a bit cheap. Any ideas?

[Aurehan]

Main menu screen. It looks a bit cheap. Any ideas?

That actually looks pretty professional to me. O-o Buuut the texts seems to be running off the screen in some of the options, like the description under volume 1 in the first picture and under start. Maybe leaving some room between the text and the actual box would be a good idea.

[Widget]

Don't use cutout filter, they never work well.