Original subtitles

Hey, what's up guys Nelson here.

And today we're going to be continuing our top down pixel background

with a limited color palette.

In the last video we developed our scene through some thumbnailing

and experimenting with a new color palette.

So I have my color thumbnail

my town guide notes and my rough color palette.

All figured out from the last video

if you guys haven't seen it.

but yeah, we're ready to start rendering now.

I'm going to first start off with a 4 x 6in canvas at 72 DPI

since it's going to be a 4 x 6in postcard afterwards.

I play around with canvas dimensions in image image size...

and change it to 375 by 250 pixels.

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The ratio will still be good for a 4 x 6 postcard,

but I wanted to lower the pixel density of this drawing

because I find it's best for the look I'm trying to achieve

the small details are like 1-2 pixels wide

while bigger things are much more detailed.

I'm going to copy over at the colored sketch I made and put it onto my new canvas

It's a bit too big so I'm going to scale it down to fit into the canvas.

I also copy over the color palette and make a smaller version

so I can put off to the side for easy color picking.

So based on the five planes we established in the previous video

We're going to go through them one by one and start laying out the line work for each.

I put the sketch on the lower opacity

so it's easier to see, first with a ground

we wanted to find where the road and pond are located.

And we want to organize into the layers we talked about last video.

The ground the background with the buildings at the top.

The middleground with the items on the road

the train and the foreground with the apartment buildings in front.

I'm trying to aim for modern-looking Japanese apartment buildings.

And these are just rough guidelines for how the assets layer on top of each other

and they're going to change depending on what assets you add

based on if it's behind or in front of something.

So the focal point of the scene is the train crossing.

So I want to put extra care to this area and luckily, I have a model train I bought a while ago

so it's really detailed and perfect to draw from

It's great to have a bunch of small things collected over the years

that you can use for drawing, and having an object you can spin around and hold in your hands

and look at from every angle is infinitely better than trying to find pictures of it online.

So I take around half an hour to draw the train and the train crossing

including the tracks underneath.

For the tracks, I just made a pattern of three wooden planks

and duplicate them throughout the scene

so I don't have to try each one meticulously.

What's great about a limited color palette is that I don't really have to think

about what colors to choose anymore since I already chose them out in the beginning.

I also modify the colors of the train to fit my scene

so I switch out the dark and light green to the dark red and yellow in my palette

and they work out really well together.

And this is what I mean by switching out colors to work for your scene

since there's no green in our palette, we have to adapt it to our own scene.

So right now I have the train and the foreground buildings done.

I want to make a rough outline and fill layer of each plane

to at least have a rough idea of where everything will be placed in the end.

There's going to be some overlap.

So it's good that we separated them into groups.

So you can see each plane fully and turn them on and off if you need.

The groups are going to contain all the layers on each plane

and will be really useful organizing all the items we'll eventually put in.

After that, I want to tackle each plane carefully

and make a new layer for each item.

I'm working on the utility poles right now and they'll go along the tracks.

They're going to be placed behind the train.

So usually I will work on what item fully before moving on to the next one.

So I don't have to keep going back and forth as much.

Remember to label the layers to what they are, to keep organized.

I tried my best to keep items on a single layer but if I'm working with multiple layers for one item

I merge them all together once I'm finished and keep it all organized.

So I'm going to continue rendering each section

piece-by-piece and slowly bring everything to life.

I'm constantly checking my list of items and figuring out where to put them

making a layer for each object

and I'm also cross-referencing using VillagerDB to get a good idea of how the item looks like

and how I can modify for my own palette.

I like how in Animal Crossing there's different color versions of the same item

and it really challenges me to make my own coordinated palette.

While I render these items, I'll answer a question. I get a lot from people.

Is it okay to draw fanart?

I think it's absolutely okay.

There's this weird preconception that drawing fan art means you're less skilled than an original artist.

Because you're drawing from something that already exists

therefore, there is no artistic creativity.

but that's a super negative way to look at the situation.

Say you want to work on a really popular video game.

Let's say League of Legends as an example.

The company reaches out and things are really talented.

They want you to work on the splash art for a new Champion skin coming out

you're over the moon that you received this opportunity,

but you're unsure since you haven't really drawn their characters before they

they of course, well have a quality standard to meet

and they'll want you to match the developed style that they have already.

So it looks consistent with the rest of their spash art

which is totally understandable.

But what happens when you can't match the style or quality standards?

the client won't be as happy with the result and most likely won't be working with you again.

Sure, they were interested in your talent.

But the reality of it is is that they want someone to get the job done to their liking.

And this is happened to me a couple times

where they're interested in my portfolio

and my talent behind it,

but sometimes it's just not a good fit

because I can't match the style as well as somebody else can.

what I'm saying is that drawing fanart can actually lead to really great opportunities

and I think it matters more so that you're truly passionate about

making fan art for something so you don't get burnt out easily.

make things you love!

one day those clients will notice you and you could be working for them too it's

it's one thing to directly trace over fan art,

but it's another thing to take an existing IP and reinterpreting it in your own way.

Like I'm doing right now with this artwork

but that's just my opinion.

You should be able to do what you love.

So now I'm going to work on the trees.

The trees are a really iconic part of Animal Crossing

and we're going to draw the whole thing so we can duplicate it throughout the scene.

Looking at a tree from Animal Crossing.

It's made out of 3 blobby round spears and a tree trunk.

So I'm just going to draw a rough outline of how it looks like first, to get the overall shape

right before adding more details.

This method helps define the structure first

before getting too lost in the details.

When I'm drawing the leaves,

I want them to be arching out and around

like I'm putting paper mache on a round balloon

and I found this visual helps me to conceptualize it like a 3D object.

Afterwards we want to color the leaves.

So I use the magic wand tool to select only the dark red.

I'm going to use the orange and yellow to make it look like

the top area is brighter and more lit up.

I'm also going to put some apples since the game has fruit trees

apples are also a good seasonal fruit to convey autumn.

After I finish one tree, I can duplicate it all throughout my scene

and the trees might have to go on different layers depending on where I place it.

It's already looking pretty good.

We have most of the foreground and train crossing finished

Now it's time to work more of the ground and upper area.

I decided to make a deck on the pond vertical to show more of it

and I'm planning to put a villager standing on top.

After that, we can start working on the sidewalk leading up to the market

I decided to scrap the house idea that I had before and just have a farmers market

and some stairs leading up to something else.

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Because I had so much sidewalk as tiles

I decided to scrap what I made and make it into a 16 by 16 tile.

So each one is really exact.

It'll also be easier to duplicate and be more precise.

I usually don't do this but my OCD is kicking in so I know everything has to be precise for me.

Now I can start making items of the actual market.

I decided to make two stalls; one for fish

since we're by a pond, and one for steamed buns since it's really chilly outside in autumn season.

I also have a couple of fruit boxes and containers with shellfish scattered around

to complete the market scene.

Now it's looking really good. We have most of the planes completed.

I'm also taking the time to put a grassy texture all around

the ground layer with a couple of weeds, and mushrooms scattered throughout the scene.

It makes the ground really alive looking and full of life.

Because the pond is the same color as the road

a good way to separate the two and make it look like water

is to add a silhouette of a fish some ripples from waves.

And a little splash from a fishing line that I'll be adding later.

These little details convince you that this is water rather than pavement.

Afterwards all that's left to do is add small little details like

grass growing between the cracks of the sidewalk

and fallen leaves on the apartment buildings and roadside.

Which makes this place feel much more lived-in and more convincing

I'm going to keep working on this and add some more shadows behind every item.

So everything looks like it's in place.

Once we have everything done we can start adding the characters.

I already have a rough idea of where I want to place the villagers,

which is why I left some areas intentionally blank looking so they have a place to sit or stand.

You'll notice that I chose villagers that already kind of match the color

and theme of autumn season.

So the first villager I draw is Genji and he's fishing on the dock.

He's much more visible now that the dock is vertical.

Genji is around 22 by 39 pixels

and I really enjoy that size for pixel sprites

you get just enough pixels to convey how he looks like Next up

Next up I draw Beau waiting by the train crossing. Is colors

His colors perfectly match the autumn palette

which is why I chose him.

I also wanted to draw Daisy May too

since radishes remind me of warm dishes that I have during the Autumn season.

Her colors need to be modified to fit the pallet.

So I use the Cool Greys to replace her blue dress

and red to replace the green leaves of the radish.

The colors looked a bit unorthodox, but it works with the rest of the scenes

color palette already.

I also draw Maple walking down the street

so you can only see the top of her head.

She's a brown bear, but we don't have brown.

So we'll replace it with a dark red and it'll still read properly.

I also draw poppy on the apartment rooftop relaxing with a cup of hot tea

and I thought her design was really cute.

Especially when she wears glasses.

Since she's a red and white squirrel,

it really matches the scene's color palette.

I also thought well because it's Autumn season

Halloween is right around the corner too.

So I added Lucky standing right beside Beau at the train crossing.

And I thought I'd get a good laugh out of that.

With that, we have our finished top down scene.

I had a lot of fun making this and it was a great exercise for me

learning about how top-down scenes work

and how their scaled properly.

I definitely want to make a top-down video game someday,

and this was really good practice for that.

When I was talking about using color and how I like using all the primary colors in some way.

This is a really great example of

the yellows are the highlight and what's most vibrant of the scene

while the reds are a bit darker

and the blues are subtly in the grey roads and the water.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this video.

I can't wait to see your limit a color palette backgrounds to

I tend to speed through my paintings to the more interesting parts

because most of the time I'm just focusing on one item for a long time

and the whole video by itself would be over five hours.

And I don't think that would be very useful.

But please let me know if I forgot to mention anything

or if there was a technique you're curious about.

In the next video will be going over some tips to organize your files

keeping them nice and tidy

seeing the next one and take care.