Thanks a ton bros!
'Preciate the feedback!
skydereign wrote: The question now though is what is the character style going to look like? The building you've done looks very 3d, and at least compared to the concept player image, stands out a lot. This is probably due to the more realistic, and more evident lighting of it, but also more fundamentally because one was a 3d model, while the other wasn't. So for consistency of style, we would need to have the other game assets (player included) be rendered out in a similar fashion, or probably easier for our current skill sets apply some filters to tone down the environment graphics. That way we can more easily make a matching drawn art style.
Hm.. yeah the two styles clash a bit, don't they? I originally put the concept image there for scale, hadn't even given the style of it much thought. I do think the 3D stuff will give the game more visual depth, perhaps rendering the character out in 3D isn't a bad idea? Probably a bit too ambitious, as it will take a buttload more work with modelling/texturing. However, I actually find animating in blender a lot easier than the 2D animation programs I've tried (don't have enough $$$ for flash, so I can't count that). Don't wanna sound like I'm touting blender, but that's the way it is for me
Anywho, regarding some kind of filter, we could posterize the renders (which basically reduces the amount of colors) making it look more sprite-ish but also making the graphics considerably uglier if not done right.
I did some quick tests with heavier outlines and posterization, though gimp doesn't have the best quality image effects. I don't see these particular filters as being what we go for, but are they somewhat going in the direction you had in mind?
Cartoon filter__________________|_________________Cartoon filter + hue adjustment.
A third option would be to paint color over the clay render with gimp or whatever, to give things sort of a painterly look? Or even outline the images manually?