Live Background Development Series! (SPOILERS)

[Lambonius]

Here's a new (I think the last) version incorporating a few various tweaks based on the feedback here.  They're pretty slight, but you can pull this version and the last version up in Photoshop or GIMP on separate layers and flip back and forth between them to see the changes more clearly.

Added a bit of door frame, back from the old concept sketch.  Made a few adjustments to the angle of the front wall of the house to make it a bit more lined up with the fireplace.  Adjusted the highlight from the opening in the roof on the debris in the house to (hopefully) lessen visual confusion with the back wall angle.  Made a few small adjustments to the top of the chimney to make it look a bit broken.  Added some suggestions of more debris in the house, and a few other cracks and details to suggest that the house is in really bad shape (obviously .)  And added just a few hints of haze to the backdrop--really don't want to fuzz the details out any more though, because this is pretty consistent with the way background details look on all the other screens in this area.

Anyway, I think we can chock up any other wall/house angle issues to dilapidation. 

Any other questions or thoughts, let me have 'em! 

[s_d]

Damn, I think you nailed it, buddy.  It's incredible how much of a difference those small, subtle changes make... the hole in the roof has depth now, where before it was some missing tiles.  The cliff-side wall is only stubs of beams and a couple of plaster panels, but in the mind's eye, it frames out the house.  Great work, Lamb, and thanks for letting us inside!  I imagine it's not the most fun thing in the world to share something you feel is unfinished with a bunch of strangers (especially being an artist, so there's the whole perfectionism and emotional investment thing).
It's appreciated by at least this Random Internet Person (and his family).

[janx]

Damn, I think you nailed it, buddy.

Yep, what he said.

I am not an artist, I actually hated art, what you have done is inspired me to want to play the game even more. All this behind the scenes stuff is fun to watch.

Keep it up, and can't wait to sneak a peak at what else you are working on and BT allows you to share.

[Lambonius]

Thanks, guys!  Glad you guys enjoyed it.  I'm always happy to discuss my work, and it's fun to get new feedback on it from a different set of folks.    I would have drawn it out a bit longer, but those big chunks of time come along so rarely, so gotta make use of them!  Most of the other states in Bt's video were done in the same afternoon.

I'm not sure what we've got coming up next for the art production series--we'll have to have a chat and decide what to do.  In the mean time, I'm busy chipping away at my next set of tasks, and our other artists are posting new stuff daily--this game really is coming along at a nice pace. 

[s_d]

If it's much more drawn out then you lose the "fresh eyes" aspect of sharing it with us... then we get too close to it.  I'm thinking the art team might consider this the proper/correct length.

Start with a concept sketch (or better, the Steve Sketch that kicked it off, if one exists), followed by the first-pass "penciling".  After that, we saw four iterations in-progress, and Bt animated it for us.  Lastly, we saw the final version.

Depending on how much re-work goes into it, this seems like a great template for another art series to follow.

I hope more folks chime in, though...

[Lambonius]

Hey everyone.  I wanted to post the "final" final version of that background.  This one has been tweaked a bit based on feedback from Jerm and my own observations.  Just a few little changes to make it fit better with the screens around it on the map.  The most obvious change is the brightening of the grass color (this is the standard, yellow-green color of the rest of the plains screens--I inadvertently made it a bit too dark before.)  The other major change is the softening and pushing back of the mountains with a bit more bluish atmospheric haze, and brightening up the sky a bit.  The result, I think, is a bit of a greater sense of distance.  Anyway, this should be it--just wanted you guys to see what we consider to be the final version of this piece. 

I'm currently in the process of doing a "consistency pass" over all of the screens that have been done from this area thus far.  There's always subtle little differences, even when the same artist is doing an area (as in this case), and we want to make sure the art style from screen to screen feels as consistent as humanly possible.  So anyway, that's that.    I have some other fun stuff I'm working on, too, but I can't reveal anything more for now.  Suffice it to say that work on the game's art resources is coming along nicely. 

Thanks again for all the support!