Feedback for Indie Game Art

[DapperDave]

Hello. First time sharing any art here. I develop an indie RPG series (wondering if anyone will know which one from these screenshots) and I'm not a great pixel artist but I'm getting better. This is art for the second game in the series. I had the idea of actually posting my work here to see if I could get any suggestions on how to improve it.  I don't know what kind of feedback I'm looking for yet, just anything in general right now.

Here the entire image of the environment

http://postimg.org/image/manz5dnrn/




Here is it up close, how it will look in the game.


http://postimg.org/image/fzdnt4shr/



I included some characters for reference. The blue background will be replaced by a parallax background I'm working on.


Thanks for all your input!

[Natis]

Um... Not sure if it's just me, but your images aren't working. Perhaps try uploading them again?

[DapperDave]

Um... Not sure if it's just me, but your images aren't working. Perhaps try uploading them again?

I can see them. I'm image linking to postimg.org and providing the links. Don't the links work at least?

[Kelvin]

The second link doesn't work. As for the first, that's a huge pic. Gonna take some time to look over.

I will say this: those characters look out of place on that map. The perspective is very unusual for what looks like orthographic sprites, and the realism of the environment clashes with their rather stylized design.

[Vipershark]

Fixed the image links.

[Level 1]

I can only see the first image, but from what I can see, the characters look sorta like detailed versions of Mother 3 Characters. while the background looks like an RPG Maker tileset was used

[DapperDave]

I can only see the first image, but from what I can see, the characters look sorta like detailed versions of Mother 3 Characters. while the background looks like an RPG Maker tileset was used

What do you mean by RPG Maker tileset as opposed to any other tileset?

[E-Man]

I think what he means is that the background looks like it's not using any assets you or your team created yourself. Instead, it looks like it was pieced together with pre-made graphics found in certain game creation software.

[Level 1]

I can only see the first image, but from what I can see, the characters look sorta like detailed versions of Mother 3 Characters. while the background looks like an RPG Maker tileset was used

What do you mean by RPG Maker tileset as opposed to any other tileset?

As opposed to original content that you and your team could have taken time to create. Like E-Man said, they look generic, and uninspired, this usually happens when game devs use default assets. I am using the RPGM software for my own project, and I've found it to be really satisfying to use my own content, yeah, it's not easy, and it's usually not fun, but once I see them all working as they should, it's all worth it.

I guess what I am saying is that maybe you and your team should reconsider the idea of using more original content.

[DragonDePlatino]

Don't you guys think you're jumping to conclusions? This doesn't look like a pre-made tileset to me.

Anyways, you've got a good basis here, but your palettes leave a lot to be desired. There are a lot of straight color ramps here, and they would look a lot better if you used a little hue-shifting. Also, the tiles themselves don't look like they are pixel art, because a lot of blending and downsizing was done when drawing them. Try avoiding these tools, and sticking to ones that leave sharp pixels, like the pencil or fill bucket.

As for the characters, I can see some sparks of personality here but their palettes look pretty dull too. Try applying some hue-shifting to their palettes too. And in case you're looking for a good way to do that, check out this tutorial from PixelJoint.

[DapperDave]

Don't you guys think you're jumping to conclusions? This doesn't look like a pre-made tileset to me.

Anyways, you've got a good basis here, but your palettes leave a lot to be desired. There are a lot of straight color ramps here, and they would look a lot better if you used a little hue-shifting. Also, the tiles themselves don't look like they are pixel art, because a lot of blending and downsizing was done when drawing them. Try avoiding these tools, and sticking to ones that leave sharp pixels, like the pencil or fill bucket.

As for the characters, I can see some sparks of personality here but their palettes look pretty dull too. Try applying some hue-shifting to their palettes too. And in case you're looking for a good way to do that, check out this tutorial from PixelJoint.

Thanks for the input! I didn't know what those terms meant, but I'm looking them up and I'll see if I can learn something. But can you explain straight color ramps?

[DragonDePlatino]

Better yet, I'll show you with an image! An image is worth a thousand words, after all.



The image on the top is a straight color ramp, and the one on the bottom is a shifted color ramp! Both of these ramps serve their purpose, but many would agree that the bottom sphere looks much better. The sphere on the top only has colors of solid red but the sphere on the bottom shifts its hue as it becomes brighter. It starts with a purple-ish hue of red then becomes more orange as it becomes brighter. But why purple, red and orange? Well...if you look at the color wheel, purple-red-orange are all next to each other, and purple looks darker than orange so it would work better for the shading.

You don't have to hue-shift as much as I've shown here, though. I've exaggerated the technique a bit for my explanation.

[DapperDave]

Better yet, I'll show you with an image! An image is worth a thousand words, after all.



The image on the top is a straight color ramp, and the one on the bottom is a shifted color ramp! Both of these ramps serve their purpose, but many would agree that the bottom sphere looks much better. The sphere on the top only has colors of solid red but the sphere on the bottom shifts its hue as it becomes brighter. It starts with a purple-ish hue of red then becomes more orange as it becomes brighter. But why purple, red and orange? Well...if you look at the color wheel, purple-red-orange are all next to each other, and purple looks darker than orange so it would work better for the shading.

You don't have to hue-shift as much as I've shown here, though. I've exaggerated the technique a bit for my explanation.

Thanks! I think I get it. Is there any specific part of my image that you would definitely apply this technique to?  Like the tree tops for example? Or just everything?

[DragonDePlatino]

I'd hue shift pretty much everything! The technique works on everything from sprites to tiles, though with some things it's best to practice a bit of moderation.

The only problem is, like I said earlier, a lot of the graphics here are not pixel art. If I look at just your treetops alone, I can count about 90 unique colors. And when you have this many colors, you cannot do things like hue shifting. So that's why when you're working with pixel art it's best to use as few colors as possible. Take the famous Secret of Mana 3 tree, for example, which only uses about 8 unique colors for it's treetops:



It's also another good example of hue shifting, doing a ramp from blue to green to yellow.

[Vipershark]

I fixed the image links in the OP... again.