Hey now I totally put an overlay layer over my copypasted protagonist!

Totallynotsamefag!!V1AJL5LzHl 2009/09/15(Tue)16:29 No. 2816 ID: 962d6b
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(again, we are completely ignoring facial expression, please assume all circles are faces)

Ok, for starters let's just show 2 'faces'.

Nothing different right? If you imagine a face on either they would probably be equals.

It's part of the subconscious mind that does this, if they seem to be on the same plane, they aren't seen as superior or inferior to eachother, they are just 2 people.

Totallynotsamefag!!V1AJL5LzHl 2009/09/15(Tue)16:40 No. 2821 ID: 962d6b
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>>312615
yea, nice to have a civil discussion with you too buddy


now here, there is a face dominating the scene over the next, but why is it that this center one seems to do that?

It's just with how it's placed, people always will look dead center before they start looking into the corners.

Totallynotsamefag!!V1AJL5LzHl 2009/09/15(Tue)16:49 No. 2823 ID: 962d6b
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Next up, shadows and lighting seems to be ignored. I know it can be hard (now I'm looking at you 64f8ae ... you jerk) to get this done right, but it can mean the difference in any intro scene between all of /quest/ wanting the big bad to be their waifu and someone truly imposing and scary.

let's see if I can express this with my scribbles but I really doubt it.

Totallynotsamefag!!V1AJL5LzHl 2009/09/15(Tue)16:51 No. 2824 ID: 962d6b
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meh, kinda works.

Totallynotsamefag!!V1AJL5LzHl 2009/09/15(Tue)16:58 No. 2825 ID: 962d6b
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while shadows can help make something seem more evil, brightness and colors can easily make it seem nicer or better, as expressed by this crap.



Well, that's about all I have to say, I just hope this got you guys thinking (except 64f8ae clearly) and I wish you luck with using these themes in your quest....

and that I could have gotten to my computer faster before I lost my train of thought...

Anonymous 2009/09/15(Tue)17:23 No. 2828 ID: 18212a
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Baxter does not care for your opinion.

(Seriously though, advice is always welcome. Actually, we could fill this thread with art tips and stuff. If we can get someone more qualified than myself to contribute too)

You see severe/intense lighting a lot less in quests because it takes much more effort to completely recreate the scene everytime, and speed is often a major factor in running one.

If you notice, the greater the skill of the artist, the greater the use of light, value, hue, and tone show in the quest. Quality is tempered heavily by speed, and many of us wish we could manage to include more detail without sacrificing a ton of update time.

Still, you have provided us some food for thought and I'm sure a great many will at least subconsciously keep these "meta" elements of questing in mind when drawing up the next frame.

You probably won't be surprised to find that these (and other) tricks and techniques which apply to film also apply to comics. Actually, those who study them sequential arts are often advised to read up on cinematography to broaden their horizons.
Since quests, I think, are more or less a sort of interactive real-time comics, I would highly suggest questers to do a little bit of studying on the subject to brush up their game.

Anonymous 2009/09/15(Tue)19:11 No. 2846 ID: 12bd87
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As a film major myself I agree with your assessment (which seems to amount to "use more lighting" and "set the scene") but I feel it applies differently to this medium than it does to film.

This medium is in many ways an offshoot of drawhoring, and both rely on a compromise of artistic quality for speed. Questing is a bit slower so it provides a bit more time to draw, but ultimately the focus is on progression with enough art to get by. Better art is always appreciated but a quest that spends too long on art will sacrifice everything else.
So lighting, which is incredibly time-intensive in art compared to simple line drawing, is often a necessary omission.
Personally I don't use it much, even more infrequently now that I'm doing a less-serious quest, but in RubyQuest I had a few opportunities to employ it. I felt it stood out and had even more of an impact because it was so rarely used that when it did come up it was striking.

As for setting the scene, every image not used to advance the story requires time for little more than effect, and though it may ultimately please the audience with increased atmosphere, it can also seriously annoy people to have control taken away from them for too long. Thus exposition and diegetic atmosphere must be delivered quickly and dynamically, lest the interest of the players wane.

>>312646
I suppose Ruby Quest also had the factor of areas to allow for more detailing. Since it was played out in a limited space with a lot of revisiting you could afford to detail. And I'd bet the fixed viewpoint for most every area helped as well.

Anonymous 2009/09/19(Sat)16:22 No. 3056 ID: 8e18cd
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I'm trying my best to do it. It's very hard to balance lightning and time spent on a picture. Usually I pre-render the lightning in the scene and adjust the lightning of the objects/sprites with ADD/SUB layers. Good lightning may make the scene appear to be very visually pleasing.

Anonymous 2009/09/19(Sat)16:25 No. 3058 ID: 7eda8b
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>>312623
>it can mean the difference in any intro scene between all of /quest/ wanting the big bad to be their waifu and someone truly imposing and scary.
To my knowledge, /quest/'s criteria for wanting a baddie to be their waifu is "does it have a torso?"

I'm hardly an expert on lighting or anything, but it's fun using darkness to hide things.

I just sort of read this, after some thought.

I use lighting quite often. I will be using it a whole lot more as I progress.

This also branches into some color theory as well (as you can see in the ending example).

Colors, lighting, and positioning can make a world of difference in a scene.

The downside is that if you try to do it, and you don't know what you are doing, you can completely betray your intention.

This isn't exactly art related, but could you successful <s>tr</s> questers give some pointers on how to succeed in characterizing your characters?
I have a nagging suspicion that mine are only characterized in my head and come across as bland and uninteresting.

>>312902
Being unfazable and super-cool is the enemy of a rounded character.

I know it shouldn't bug me but this is partially what's putting me off starting my own quest, I can draw stick figures sure, but I don't have the artistic ability of many here or the way of putting a spin on things like JimQuest and the top down pixels. (love it by the way)

And yeah, I read the thread of the person that was worried about the same sort of thing, it ought not to really matter if the story/plot is good but it still buzzes at the back of my head.

Reka!zCiuXQBmHU 2009/09/20(Sun)18:54 No. 3110 ID: cd08c0
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>>312902
> give some pointers on how to succeed in characterizing your characters?
A simple way to do it is to just take one driving goal or feeling, apply it to a character, and then crank that up to 11.
Later on you can add smaller bits to their personality based on what you want them to do, how they react, or random brainstorming, but the initial idea will give them a concrete base to work off of, and help cement them in people's minds.
It also helps keep a recurrent theme for that character, which lets people recall them more easily.

>>312910

I want to point out here that this only works if you want a certain kind of quest. Real people aren't defined by just one quality - one or two might stand out, but people are way more multidimensional than that. One of the biggest pitfalls writers find themselves in is making a character centered around one thing.

If you're hoping for memorable caricatures, this isn't an issue. If you're hoping for more serious, "deeper" characters, it will only hurt you in the long run.

>>312914
Well, you can always start with a single quantifier, then add more as the story goes on.
A sneaky thing to do would be to do that for everyone; the ones that stick around naturally add more complexity as time goes on, while one-appearance characters are simple and easy.