Defense Art Topic!

[jimmynewguy]

The game I'm making is called defense, but I'll spare the details about that since this is mainly just an art topic. Criticize everything I post here so I can get better at art! I notice that a lot of people around here are really good at stuff like this so feel free to post!

Definitely will be more to come soon.

[SuperSonic]

I recommend using a different color pallete for the different things in your game. Like you could use one pallete for all of the workers and fighters. Then use another pallete for all of the vegetation. That way you could avoid the problem of your player being the same color as the ground

Also, I have a little bit of spare time right now. Since your graphics are so small, I could probobly make some for you if you want

[jimmynewguy]

if anything can you make me a complementing color pallet? I've used this one for buildings people and the grass so far... That would probably help the most! Also, should there be any shading if the sprites are this small? I avoided it as of now but then again that's my number one downfall after animation

[SuperSonic]

if anything can you make me a complementing color pallet? I've used this one for buildings people and the grass so far... That would probably help the most! Also, should there be any shading if the sprites are this small? I avoided it as of now but then again that's my number one downfall after animation

Really, you could just make the ground pallete darker than all of the others and that should work pretty well. Also, you should try to avoid shading with sprites this small. It tends to make them look messy. Only use shading for bigger sprites or for realistic detail

Btw, I can animate those flags for you. Do you want me to try?

[jimmynewguy]

Yes please! I loaded the pallet in photoshop and changed the brightness to -30 so I'll use that for ground, thanks!

[Jagmaster]

I'm wondering, for the left/right movement for the worker. Would it be very difficult to show the the side of the body instead of the front? That would make it look less goofy, however, it would pain in the neck to code. Now that I think about it, it might be better to leave it the way it is due to the smallness of it all. Just seeing them here in their sprite strip makes them look like they're doing calisthenics (no offense intended). But again, since they're really small in the game, they'll look okay like they did in the demo. Later on, I'll make a sheet to try to illustrate what I mean.

I don't know if this was planned yet, but it would be cool if the castles were modular, that way the imps could attack the various sides of your wall, and make it more challenging to defend. Not really an art comment but wth.

Whenever I do sprites nowadays, I draw them big first and then shrink 'em down to the size I want, then trace around them to get the shapes and everything right. I don't know how much that'll help though.
Like I was going to say before, I can help with graphics, but the pixel art really isn't my preferred style anyway.

[SuperSonic]

Yes please! I loaded the pallet in photoshop and changed the brightness to -30 so I'll use that for ground, thanks!

No problem. And does this work?

I can help with other stuff too if you need it

[jimmynewguy]

Thanks sonic that's 500505050X better, but I'll probably mess with it a bunch to make it look like an epic flag thing. Not sure what I mean by that making it look more like a flag actually helped a ton, don't know why I made mine a block? Well this is what it looks like together so far:

@jagmaster
Well yea I agree with the whole side view people thing works here since it's all simplistic. Plus how annoying is it to have people moving, attacking, standing in 8 directions for a more RPG topdown sorta look. The coding comes easy at this point in the game. (Besides the AI coming soon) so all that would be sweet if it weren't for the drawing. Plus this feels more readable. Not sure what you meant by modular? But it will be solid and "3d" as in the y value determines the zdepth so the people will be able to go behind/in front of buildings and such. Just not inside them. Plus I like the goofy walk and no offense is taking ever! I like critique so the game can come out good for once. Then I can change my sig!

[SuperSonic]

I like the screenshot. It looks very promising. You should add other things to gather resources from (like in Age of Empires)

Then I can change my sig!

Haha, yeah

[SuperSonic]

Will this game have a story?

[jimmynewguy]

Will this game have a story?

Probably not, but you never know! thanks for saying it looks promising! And for being genuinely interested in it and in helping me! +1

Here's my take on the flag after you made it flagular, I just watched a flag flap in the wind animation and realized it really just does the wave!

[SuperSonic]

Dude, that looks nice

[Jagmaster]

By modular, I mean having the castle larger and broken into sections, each with it's own "Damage variable". That way the imps or whatever could try to break into a wall or something and you'd have to repair it.

And yeah, I like the goofy walk too. He needs to keep his sixpacks in shape by exercising doesn't he? (When will I stop?)
Frankly, I have come to the conclusion that anything I would try to make that small, wouldn't look very good at all. So grats there.

If you see duplicates of the image, it means my computer was being a retard and it took me like 20 minutes to reply due to the computer locking up.

[Jagmaster]

Epic?

Epicly Epic.

[SuperSonic]

Epic?

Epicly Epic.

No, it's Epicer