Bookcase Tutorial by Radnen
From Spheriki
So you might have made a sprite, and a tile, including a wall, and now you want to furnish it? In this tutorial we will make a bookcase. A very simple geometric structure that can be applied in any home you make. I will teach things about outlining and flipping.
Contents |
Draw a bookcase
In this tutorial I'll teach you how you only need to draw half of the bookcase to complete it. I am going to use my bookcase from my game Tyberia as a guide.
Outlining the bookcase
What we can do is make only half of it. Let's start off with the framing:
To make the center pieces we can copy and paste the bottom part.
Then we can flip it.
There, you've completed the bookcase.
Coloring it in
Now we outline it in a dark color close in proximity with the darkest shade of our 3 color color palette. And fill it in with the midtone.
Notice: this bookcase has 2 midtones. The second midtone is the highlight of the first midtone. Make sure you remember that, otherwise you might use another 3 color palette which increases your total color palette and the complexity of the work.
Now, we fill in the relative shades. The bad thing about this part is there is no easy way to explain shading. Just keep a clear idea of where the light hits the piece. For this object the light is coming from the front. And we want it to get lighter as it gets taller.
Then we fill in the highlights. Notice, how it acquires a wood-grain like texture. Pay attention to these texture methods when shading your sprite. I used small-lines and dithering to create the look.
Finally, we can flip the left-half here to bring on it's look.
Finalizing the sprite
Now to test out if it works, we can try it out in a home environment. I'll use the floor tile and brick tile from a previous tutorial to test it's appearance.
Remember: It can always be edited here. When mirroring something you'll tend to get some odd pixels in the center of the sprite. I would go ahead and re-dither it or change up the middle a bit, then it won't look as bad. Of course, you can now fill it up with books and items. Go ahead and be creative!
