Hand painted Side-scroller (critique welcome)!

WillPowell

01: Bridge

02: Over-World

03: Huts

Here's some art that I've been creating for a 3D side-scroller project, it's based on a hand painted/ World Of Warcraft art style.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

WillPowell

Here's a couple more assets and areas I've been working on:

Mushrooms

Old World 01

Old World 02

Again feedback is much appreciated!

Weather

Cool designs, what is the sidescroller game about?

hublus

Great work, nice use of colors. Looking forward to next updates.

AndrewCothill

Everything looks great so far!

One thing i notice is that i find it hard to make out details on your purple scene. I think you're losing a lot of your great texturing under the whole screen being purple. Maybe try adding some colour variation with yellows in there. I think places like Dalaran and objects Draenei armour are good examples of seeing purple balanced nicely with yellow  

Hope that helps!

zachagreg

You've got some great exaggerated forms and pretty attractive coloring on all your pieces you've shown. I do believe the Over-world is too uniform in it's lighting right now I don't know if this is just a general first pass or not or how you intend to do lighting but it comes across as very flat.  The mushroom diorama you have has a much better sense of lighting and ambience to it than the over-world does. 

zaha

Lovely style.

I have to agree with @AndrewCothill though that the purple scene is just too homogenous. It's hard to make out form and details. I agree that some color variation fits your style judging by the other works you posted. In addition to yellow you might consider some more brighter highlights using a pinkish color.

WillPowell

Thank you guys for the feedback, it's super useful, updates will be coming soon!

Definitely going to see what I can do with the feedback about adding in some yellow and pinks, referring to Draenei for that is a great idea. As well as looking into lighting the Over World differently as it does look quite flat.

WillPowell

Weather said:

Cool designs, what is the sidescroller game about?

The game is about a blob who's trying to find the last of his food supplies before winter, but to do so has to fight his way through the Mush-people that inhabit the world who are trying to keep it from you!

A link to the Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PortobellyGame

WillPowell

I've been working on some of the lighting and colour feedback that I received, here's the result:

Old World 01

Old World 02

Old World 03

Over World 01

Over World 02

Adding some yellows and toning down the extreme blue/ purple colouring in the Old World, as well as sorting out the lighting in the Over World to make it look less flat!

What do you guys think?

zaha

I think it looks way better now. IMHO you should go a little bit further with the contrast/strength of the glowing elements, but it's definitely a big step forward.

zachagreg

Much better in both scenarios your Overworld has some depth to it and I can see where things are in the background versus mid and foreground. Also that grass looks like its got some volume to it now, which is excellent.

One thing that stands out to me currently is the water in both areas. The water in your river on the overworld is transitioning a little harshly right now. I would suggest either breaking up the edges with small and medium sized rocks and pebbles towards the banks of the river or doing a painted edge mask to show foam or the waters edge. Similar thing going for the waterfall area it looks like you've got particles handling the mist from the fall but not so much the resulting water agitation on the water itself.

Example:


It can be subtle though. You should be able to get most of the edge stuff via a depth mask and a tiling foam mask.

The distortion on the waterfall is great though, don't change that

Odow

Another thing that is easily perceptible, It's like you change your artstyle depending on the thematic. your mushrooms and your vegetables house looks like they were made by 2 differents people.

PraxisPixels

this is looking sooooooooooo rad! I love the ideas you've got going and your textures are looking fantastic. I think the best crit that I can give is that the castley / dungeony looking scenes are very monochromatic. I'm not sure how far along you are on this, but I think adding some additional props and other assets would be beneficial.

You can also try playing with more material variations, so like all those repeating trim lines etc. Maybe if just one of them was gold or a different metal or wood or something it would help break up the sort of monotony that you have going. 

Overall this is great work!! I'm super excited to see what you do next

Wendy de Boer

Really cute project! Can't wait to see more.

I think the water in your overworld seems out of style. I think it would be better with a more stylized, painterly look. I also agree with @zachagreg that it needs some sort of shore effect on the edges.

WillPowell

Awesome, thank you all for the great comments, I've been pretty busy finishing up other areas of this project as my uni deadline is due in a couple days time! I will be trying to make as many of these changes as possible for when I posts the final images to my portfolio! Defo taking note on the water, it does feel out of place as well as some more contrast within the Old World.

I'll be posting the updates here and after that will most likely be calling it a day on the project, all the feedback has been super helpful and I've been trying to incorporate when and where I can
Thanks again guys, very appreciated!