Art Style Feedback Request (Updated 4/20/2014)

Update 04/30/2014

Thank's everyone for all the suggestions and feedback. I have a lot better idea, having spent a bit of time on it now, and wanted to up some images (now that I can ).

Not image 3, agree to oily.

1 or 2 is fine. I would however build the game first and do artwork last.

RPG is one of the hardest games to build, and you will find yourself changing lots and lots and lots of aspects of the game, thereby changing what assets are used, not used, style etc.

Get the playability polished, then make it look pretty.

Use free assets as place holders.

Yeah, just using some photoshop filters does not make a style, and as DUTOIT hinted, doing artwork first is putting the cart before the horse.

DUTOIT,

Thanks for the feedback. I had not considered that approach really. It makes perfect sense now thinking about it , I'll definitely keep it in mind now though, thanks.

Newt,

Was that a pot shot at photoshop with 4k posts? Hehe, I'm not sure of your meaning unless you were just seconding DUTOIT's on his post. I'd love some feedback regarding the actual images though, should you have any.

Of those, the first one is the best since it looks the cleanest. The others look a little too photoshop filtery.

Of course, it's a bad idea to design buildings without a background. You can put a lot of work into something and then find it doesn't fit the rest of the game. Work on landscapes and buildings together so they go well together, or at least have a placeholder background that's close to what you are going for that you can test with.

Thanks Drew

I spent a few minutes and slapped a quick foreground/background on it. (I probably should have done that in the first place lol). Gives a lot better picture of the differences for sure. It's looking like the clean might be the best bet so far.

links up

With the backgrounds added in, it's a toss up of 1 or 3 for me depending on which kind of style you like.

1 has more outlines so it gives more of a cel-shaded look, which may or may not be what you want. The style of the game will determine that. If you get rid of some of that black texture on everything, it may help make is smoother.

2 has a bit too much texture to me. I don't think it helps.

3 is more organic and smooth which I like. I did not pick 3 originally because it looked way too overexposed. I think it is improved now though I would still be careful not to make it too bright.

Now that you have more of "scene" than just a building sitting there by itself, you can continue to tweak and make better decisions. I always like to come back to things in a few days with fresh eyes. Also, feel free to try and ruin it and come up with happy accidents. I do this all the time, which is why I love digital. Make a backup and play with it until it breaks, and you may discover something you didn't think of.

Very cool, and apologies on the late reply.

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback, this is giving me a great jumping off point on sprite style to build around the game and use in the assets. It also gives me a better idea of what other gamers/developers out there might want to see/play.

On a oops note, I managed to chunk my scene file it seems. I'll try to build another with the those two styles, but a little more finely tuned, and upload links here in the next hour or so. I've been tinkering around tonight and trying to fine tune it a little. I'd be glad to hear what you think if you don't mind checking back in a few

New scene up, with options 1 and 3 from the last batch (cartooned/cell shading and oil paints). I couldn't get a good look from the handpainted style, but I'll tinker with it tommorrow some.

For me scene 1 is the "best" followed by 4,2 and lastly 3.

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Thanks Rampack (love the name). I like 1 overall best too. I'm going to play around with (2) some more today hopefully. I think it would be neat too, after fixing the washed out shadows and desaturation a little.

I played around with the image's last night and may have accidentally fixed the oil version. New pic's on it up (style 3), let me know what ya think.

That new image 1 with the green background is looking pretty nice.

Like I said before, come back to everything in a few days with fresh eyes, and you will see things you didn't notice before or you will get ideas you didn't think of. And keep experimenting. I have a huge collection of art from various sources that I use for both motivation and getting some ideas for art direction.

Thanks Drew

I enjoy tinkering with it, but doing it fresh is great advice. Thanks for all the helpful feedback, and agreed, I'll run off and finish up the game intro sequence eventing for a couple of days.

OK - 1,3,2,4.

How about taking 3 and overlaying (I don't know the correct term) it over 1 but then setting the opacity of 3 down to a low percent so you just get a hint of the cartoon showing but still have the detail of 1 ?

I think I see where your coming from Rampack, I'll try that after breakfast and see what happens