Five story pics

Kopter

I aim to make five images that presents the background story of a RTS game project we have in school.
I am bound by the text describing the scenes, the original concepts of characters and the overall style.

Still, I´d be very grateful for any input or critic to help me out driving these guys to new grounds. They are in progress, so show no mercy!


Story1
This is where the brother and the sister are playing around in an idyllic sort of mexican village scenery. The brother is of cyan color and the sister is more yellow. Kids are playing in the background. The image is at the moment left at this state to see if the following images can pull the whole thing further.


Story2
Here, av evil alien tribe has started the invasion and all the kids are being killed as a chill and blue nightlike mode is turning in.


Story3
A few days has passed, as the alien tribe has settled in the town. A monkey god (see also the statue) is lurking around the dead bodies. The image has a gloomy sad mood.


Story4
The monkey God brings the dead siblings to his lab and starts reconstructing them (to a more militant state). His ambition is (of course) to recapture the town and destroy the aliens. A gloomy mood.


Story5
Back to life the siblings are heading back to the town led by their recreator to stir up some action.

Snader

I think you're interpreting the colors literally, when you shouldn't. I think you would be better off having the kids in just colored clothing, and even then not use just pure flat colors:

Perhaps toy around with hair color a bit, but make sure you have some color variety in the whole character. For example, note how the white visors vastly improve the alien designs. For the rebuilt characters you could add a subtle hue to the skintone, but i would still not go as bright as you currently have.

Do you have a character artist on the team? Ask him to help you out a bit with the designs.

I would have the aliens actively assault the 2 main characters in the second frame, this would convey the events more clearly. Right now the foremost alien almost looks as though he's a city guard mourning the kids.

If this is going to end up as an animated cutscene, here's a small idea: when the main characters get killed, have a moonbeam hit the statue to signify an important event.

Now onto the technical part of the drawings

source:http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
Make more efficient use of your brushstrokes. Yo can focus detail better that way, and make everything look a lot cleaner. (Clean as in, the painting, not as in the environment lacking dust) Not to mention it'll let you work faster.

I also see a bunch of copypasting. This really breaks it down, because the images become visually repetitive and boring. Most obviously the entire village in shots 1,2 and 3, but the kids in 2 and 3 are the same, and the monkey in 3 and 4 look the same. The monkey isn't the same but the pose is a 90% match.

Which brings me to poses. They're lackluster and timid. The guard being pulled on doesn't seem to put effort into getting loose. Check the same tutorial for some info on flyswatted characters, and how to prevent them. In fact, go and read the whole thing


Also, what might be a good idea is to make a simple 3d model of your scene. I just took 5 minutes to make this, but it gives a good idea of the perspective, proportions and shadow directions. You could use such a scene to easily make different angled drawings that still have the same composition. Of course you could go and make it more detailed as well, such as posing characters

Kopter

Yea! Thank´s a bunch! I´m on it as i write! Brb!

Kopter

I´ve spent too much time at this already, but I´ve learned a lot!
Here´s what will end up in the game, due to lack of time I have to let them go. I´ll do better next time. Thanks Snader!

Kopter

Thanks for watching my first thread! Ithought I´d just upload the so-called final final version of this suite to close the box (not that much of a difference, some vignette framing and minor tweaking of the colors).
Now, with this lession behind me I venture out in the world of unmade images and look forward to my next move here on PC!








All the best!

/ Kopter