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[HerrMyth]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here and I hope i'll become a regular in this forum 

I'm currently making trying to make a 2D pixelly platformer, which would be my first game, and I'm currently having hard time with making art, especially the sprites of buildings or such things.

I've done some "concept art" by sketching on paper, and i've numerized the result, but now i'm kinda stuck because I have no idea how to make a sprite from the sketch.
I've already done some sprites, but basically up to a size of 64x64 px, the sprites i'd like to make would require to be around 500*500 pixels and i'm not sure how to handle this task, dealing with a pixel-wise precision being quite hard as it's hard to actually see what you are doing with a sprte of this size


I've searched a bit but I havent found any tutorial/ tips on how to realize a building sprite with quite a big size.

Therefore i'm humbly asking for some tips, techniques or whatever to help me overcoming this problem...

For reference, here's the scanned concept :



and the "best" result i've got so far  , quite awful isn't it...



There's nothing to say about the result other than it's...ugly.

The issue is that i have NO idea on how to tackle the problem, i'm not an artist per-se (i'm the so-so dev doing shitty art kind of guy :p ) so i'm not really knowledgeable about techniques and stuff, so any help will be welcome :D

Thank you in advance

[Sik]

Looks handdrawn.

[Cobralad]

i think you should draw main character and ground tiles first. Background is the lowest priority in terms of contrast and visibility.

[Ishi]

Rather than trying to draw a single huge sprite (which can be really daunting) I would recommend splitting it up into smaller tiles. 16x16 is a common tile size used in many games and it splits the work up really nicely - 16x16 is a manageable size to draw, and once you've done that work (e.g. you made a piece of roof) then you can reuse it as much as you need to.

There are lots of tutorials here if you want general tips about pixel art. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=74.0

Regarding the image you made already, I actually really like the proportions you have on the building there, so you have a great starting point. You need to spend more time on cleaning up all the stray pixels (unless you are aiming for the scratchy hand drawn look) and have a good think about what texture and lighting should be applied to each surface.

[HerrMyth]

Thanks for your answers and the links  , I've restarted the whole thing from scratch, and...well redrawn everything.

I've read the tutorial thread, used the sketch on a low opacity layer as a reminder, separated the work in a lot of layers, made(and drank) a lot of coffee, and started to draw with much more carefulness than the previous version...

I feel the result (so far, as it's not finished) looks better, but there are still a lot of issues with textures and with adding a depth feeling, but here's anyway a wip version :




I've tried to use some tiles on the house roof, but I wasn't able to render properly the thatched roof with those, so i've done it without.

There are roof tiles on the bell tower, however it's hard to feel the depth with those and i'm not sure on how to deal with it yet.

As you can see the bell tower is not finished at all, it kinda looks inorganic and lifeless and the palette has to be reworked but as a first sketch (still a wip too, i'm just posting before going to sleep :p) I feel I'm on the right track.

I'll try to post the finished piece of art crap whatever for public lapidation critique :D

Cheers 

[Cobralad]

This is what i expected. Wooden elements are more visible than protagonist, they may read as obstacle. Maybe you should reduce contrasts on it or bring colors together.

[maruki]

This is what i expected. Wooden elements are more visible than protagonist, they may read as obstacle. Maybe you should reduce contrasts on it or bring colors together.

Yes, or make the character stand out by assigning it a primary color as an identifier.