Bcadren's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[My Complete Indie Game Tribute]

Very good Isomorphic perspective, but you still need to work on your shading. I know most the smaller characters on this piece have no shading (stylistically necessary since it wouldn't work at that tiny of a size)The giant eyeball (Lower left) is also very over-dithered. The VVVVVV guys don't look well grounded; more like they are floating near the bridge than standing on the bottom. World of Goo guys are probably the best here while same larger objects like the worm are under or incorrectly shaded (the worm's segments shouldn't be all shaded identically). Large areas of quiet pixels, for example on the killer toaster from Cave Story; comes out more like a line drawing than pixel art.

ScepterDPinoy responds:

I wouldn't want my art to be rushed but It was a mistake that I accidentally have time constraints. I should've added shadows on those people on the left side back in 2013 whoops. Anyways thank you for the constructive criticism.

[SSMM Demake Game Pitch]

Done. Just:

It'd have to be not THAT red heavy for a CRT effect to work. [Part of what I do if I'm making a CRT effect is phosphor separation (putting red, green and blue channels into separate pixels like the pixels of one of the old monitors; which were isosceles triangles made up of these.)] Course, CRT effects aren't NECESSARY; but they help the retro feel. Also, scanline effects are going to want to be in code so they animate smoothly instead of being drawn in and looking artificial (like it would if this wasn't a still).

BUT, this would be relatively easy from a programming standpoint besides old television effects.

What's BBICOK mean anyways?

Mechanics are basically DODGE scrolling levels made up of elements; except (a) boss fight(s) where you actually have cannons?

Only negative thing I can say from a pixel art quality standpoint is that the word "PWNED" is a bit...jaggy. [Outlines don't line up well.]

ScepterDPinoy responds:

I used Perspective tool. My mistake.

[The King of the Portals]

Bit of honest criticism:

The lake and ray beam having a similar (same?) shade of cyan is a bit confusing.

I like the anti-outline (brighter instead of darker) it's not something you see much.

The characters read relatively flat compared to the isometric environment. The chest of the AngryFaicKnight in particular appears more flat than volumectric and overall the two styles clash more than compliment each other. It's almost like a (very good) isometric war game; with characters from Street Fighter cut in without being blended well. It really is the shading on the characters that is my main issues with this piece though; I mean how is the cable on the CathodeRayBot's ray beam let from below? Some of it is literally trying to convey specularity (shininess) and volume with limited pixels; but it almost feels pillow-shaded in a few areas (the Knight's Shield and Breastplate; for example).

Overall; I like the concept and there's a lot strong in the background and composition of the piece; but the differing styles of the characters and the background collide a bit and the shading could use some work to make the characters feel less...flat.

ScepterDPinoy responds:

Why thanks for the constructive criticism you mentioned. Could it be a best choice that I should go deeper watching art tutorials on the internet rather than wasting money to apply at art class? Also I was aware that the Angry Face Knight looks kind of flat along with pillow shading of what you mentioned, a bane for some artists that left mistakes when posting.

[Adventure Time 8bit Mockup]

Could work. Two player only or would one player control both characters?

JinnPixel responds:

One player, Jake would just follow the player's movements like in "a boy and his blob"

[Game Center CX Kacho ON!]

I would say it's undershaded, but I think that the intention is to pull of the EGA look, which it does rather well (Circa 1989-1992 graphics card that could only have 16 colors on screen at a time) I do get the feeling that detail density does still vary a bit too much. The small sprites are beautiful and readable; the larger sprites have large areas of no detail that make them appear more flat. I'm just not sure...particularly about the big pink...thing, the flying famicom and the strips of bacon?

In short: foreground characters are strong; smaller sprites are strong (especially the explosions); but the pink creature seems a little too flat to me. Even with the color restrictions I think its shading could be better handled.

ScepterDPinoy responds:

Why thanks for the tip. Those bacon on the back of the boss was the seaweed in the water level from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the nes.

[Dark Souls 2 - Forest of Fallen Giants]

Really cool for a concept, but I feel the character art is a bit -too- detailed for a real game. Especially since it's sprite. Not only does that high of resolution/detail mean it will take you a lot of work to animate (if you keep the detail level); but it also means your game will suck a lot of processor power and memory (especially memory) with the sprite animation and probably would have a difficult time having more than 4-5 animated {foo} on screen at a time. That said, backgrounds and statics could keep that detail level; I'd really recommend some parallax scrolling to make it come to life.

At works as an art though; mostly. Anatomy on the figuresis a little awkward in places, especially the green knights arm and both of them feel dwarven for some reason (short for their broadness); I don't know if they are actually short or if that has to do with my perception of their hips compared to their necks. Shading seems a little hit-or-miss as well as I'm staring at the figures and can't really detect their internal lightsource or even intelligent ambient occlusion. The foreground lightbeams could be an interesting render effect if your engine can handle partial alpha in it's layering algorithms, but I feel for a final game, your animated characters need to be both more clearly shaded and a bit less detailed.

Are you just going for a side-scrolling action game like Shadow of the Beast, Altered Beast or Golden Axe on the Genesis? It conveys that sort of feeling also, I'd look into those if you haven't for the amount of detail the figures should really be bearing. Modern games -can- do more than back in the retro era; but it's mostly more work than it's worth. The low resolution of those classic titles is absolutely gorgeous without taking TOO much art-time to be worthwhile.

As a concept. 4/5. If this was in the actual game, 3/5 for the lack of good shading in the figures; though I'd still be stunned to see that detail level animated.

bluemagma responds:

Hey, thanks for the long response dude, always appreciate some good old CC.

The Light beams are going to be done with some GPU perlin Noise and GLSL, it's actually really simple once you get the hang of it, I've been experimenting with it with Three.js for some 3D moving heightmaps.

EDIT: And here it is! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=645760252172087

The gameplay would be a sidescrolling action sword game, reminiscent of games like Nidhogg and Castlevania. As for sprite size, we're currently experimenting with different sizes to help show off the magnitude of certain bosses (and make it easier to make more assets since I'll be dealing with smaller sizes), so don't worry, I caught that. This is by no means the intended final product, I generally work on concept screenshots of games I'm working on to get a grasp of what needs to be done, so expect finer detail in later iterations.