[Gooseman]

Hello all! As im sure you can all see im new on the forums... and i just wanted to get some opinions on the art that i am doing for the game 'The Siren Sings'. Personally i havnt got a clue what to make of my own art.. it looks alright...
Anyways as i have said, feedback would be much apreciated!

[RuneLancer]

That's not too bad. :)

You should avoid using gradiants so liberally, though. They cheapen the overall look of things. You've got the right idea with the boards on that barn, though: give it some texture, some depth. It's especially evident with the logs and the trees, and they look rushed because of it.

The sprites don't look too bad, but their stance could use a bit of work. The whole "legs spread, arms held away from sides" look makes them seem like they have a large, pointy stick up their backsides. ;) Try closing the legs and straightening up the arms a bit more, and don't be afraid to stray away from making them so symetrical.

Otherwise, sounds pretty good.
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[Nephilim]

That looks pretty good to me. It's got a nice crisp look to it. I especially like the ice and the windows on the house.

I agree with RuneLancer that you could make some big improvements with the small tweaks he mentioned. Don't be afraid to hand-draw things that you'd be tempted to make a gradient on.

Your characters are nice and distinctive - they don't just look like the same guy holding a different weapon. Good work on them, although I agree with RuneLancer that you could slightly change their pose to make them look more natural.

Keep up the good work - it looks like a game that would be fun to play.
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[Gooseman]

Ok then. Thanks for the positive feedback! More textures and less gradient... yes i definately need to work on that. I feel the logs look too.... neat. Hopefully i will be able to improve things soon. I best get to work....

I like the characters. But the stick up the arse comment is very true!

[LeoDraco]

While your overall perspective looks good, there are only two problems I see with the tileset: first the snow is far too uniform. While a close up of the image shows that you have some sort of texture to the snow, it is far too subtle to really stand out. Perhaps darken it some, and add a few more tiles to add to the variety? Second, for the ground to have that much snow covering it, everything should have some dusting of white. So, your house and barn should have snow covering the eaves, the bushes to the left of the house should, as well as the logs and the dead plants, etc.

About the sprites: assuming they have the same dimension as a given tile in your map, you may want to either offset their feet a few pixels from the bottom of the tile, either in the sprite themselves or in the map engine. It looks a bit unnatural to have the sprite fit perfectly into a little box.
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[Ren]

[Gooseman]

If it can be sorted out in the engine then that's good for me, Ren!

I have been working on a couple more textures.. an improvement? I think so! Still working on the fir trees and the snow. I will give everything a dusting of snow when i have finished the basic tiles i think..

[Ren]

See, miles better! Hokay, now one thing you've got to look for in tile art is noticable repeating patterns - see that circlular irregularity in the wood? Neat addition, but you should also be able to see that it looks odd when it reoccurrs noticably. Try varying the size, shape, and position of it, and removing it totally to remove that effect.

Also, check the snow at the bottom of the house - it's in shadow so it should be a shade or so darker. That's just nitpicking though.
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[Nephilim]

Yup, that looks better, all right. You pick up on pixel art issues quick - I imagine your tileset is going to look pretty awesome for the final game.
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[RuneLancer]

Nice, very nice. :)

The improvements are very, very good. The logs and the boards on the house now look like they have a coarse grainy wood-like texture to them and look much more realistic. The darker shading on the shrubs gives them a more realistic feel as well (the other ones were too bright and stood out quite a bit.)

You should make multiple versions of the same time with some variation thrown in to avoid too much repetition. For instance, the road could have the occasional tile with a broken brick or chunk of snow covering it more than in other places. Or if you have multiple layers in your map, you could create a few transparent chunks of snow to overlay here and there.

Very good progress :)
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[Bjorn]

Nice progress. One could also combine the texture and shading, I think I prefer the look of that:



Though ultimately even this would be done manually, I guess. :-)

[Gooseman]

Great! Glad you all like it! I have been improving the snow and the fir trees and i should post an even better version later today...

I hear what your saying about putting a broken brick tile along the path, Runelancer. Helps to break up the monotony..

My bro will be programming in the layered tile thing so that should make things easier and hopefully i can get more variety in.

Keep the opinions coming! they are hel;ping me progress alot! :)

[Hair Machine]

[Gooseman]

Right. Here is a slightly updated version. As you can probably see I have made a completely different snow tile, new fir trees (which i am not entirely happy with; I think the perspective is wrong), slightly changed roof and door on the house, I have also removed the slight tiling problem on the house that Ren mentioned, I have made use of the new layering stuff and I have put a crack and somem algie on the path (which i don't think is done very well but i can improve them). Oh yes i have also put a slight bit of gradient on the pile of logs.



Bjorn, can i just ask how you did the gradient thing for the logs? Did you do i all manually or use some sort of tool? I wasn't sure quite what to do.. i used a lighten/darken brush.. it just didnt look quite right.

So.. What do people think of the new stuff?

[Nephilim]

Your new trees kick ass. The shading and texture of the snow is better. In this particular picture, there seems to be some confusion about where the light source is - shadows are falling behind the trees in the upper left corner, but in front of the house, but that's probably not a tileset issue, just how this map is drawn currently.

My only other crit right now is that "V" shape on top of the house - it doesn't seem right. Shouldn't the lines go down from the gables, instead of from the apex? I'm not grokking the geometry of the roof.

Major, major improvements, though. Your tileset is looking very sweet.
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