![:]](./images/smilies/pleased.gif "Pleased"){kind=small}
I have prepared an scheme with some details to give you guidance. I hope these are helpful to you
However these sprites are not meant to be used absoultely: you might use them if you like them; but you can try to improve your work by yourself to get a similar result. Off course, everything I have "improved" could be improved; there are other artists quite better than I am around these forums; and they might find that something is wrong.
Some of these advices are very important, keep an eye for these:
From left to right; from top to bottom:
> The posters: you changed the color as I told you. Now they look much better! Now this is not a relevant step; but a tip to reach true mastery in sprites drawing
Never leave a big part of a surface with one same color. If you have too many pixels of the same color together, the sprite is likely to miss detail, or look too simple.Take a look at the original TTD sprites: rarely will you find two equal pixels together. Also take a look at the walls of the buildings, the surfaces, the outer walls and the roofs that you drew yourself: they look excellent, because their surfaces are textured enough with a variety of color tones.
There might be exceptions, though, and you don't need to follow this blindly...
> The panels & flag: I made 2 versions the way I told you earlier. They have the Company Color blue. This will make every new industry built have a random color in these parts. However this is a matter of taste, you could use any other color.
In any case, you should not use such a bright yellow color in only one tone: always try to add texture mixing at least 3 tones of one color.
> White / Black
important Take special care with this, and any artist reading this should also keep an eye: Don't use pure white: RGB values 255,255,255 ; or pure black: RGB 0,0,0. The clearer color for in-game sprites is RGB 227,227,227 ; and the darker is RGB 8,8,8.The pure white is actually present in the palette; but again, if we take a look at the original sprites of the game, none of it uses the pure white or black in them.
I know that when you are drawing your sprites, the 227 white will look too dark and grey; but once in game, it will perfectly addapt to the environment and look like it's totally white.
> Yellow beams: The bright yellow will look out of place when applied on depending which "materials" For example, on a steel beam it will not look good. At least not as the main color.
However you might use some bits of the bright yellow on the parts that are in the light side of an element to make it look shiny.
Also, you'll notice that I added texture to the crate to the right, and replaced the pure white in the panel on the left side.
> chimney: You also followed my advice and improved the texturing of the white parts, improving the "round" volume look of the chimney.
However, for an advanced level, you have to use more colors:
important When you are drawing a round or cylindric shape, the texturing is not the same as for a flat shape.I said before that for a flat shape, 3 tones of a color should be enough. But for a cylindric shape, the amount of color tones increases. This amount depends on the size of the cylinder you are drawing: it's not the same a train tanker and an industrial tank.
For a cylinder this size, 5/6 different tones should be enough.
Actually you used 6 tones of white , which is why you improved a lot the look of it
But the red part remained in 3 tones. There is also a little problem: I see that you tried to add noise making the color columns irregular in the center. However, the pattern is regular, and that spoiled it a bit. Here comes again the matter of the "materials" If we use clean bands of each tone when drawing the cylinder, it will look as if the surface is shiny, smooth and even; as if it was made of glass, or polished metal. But if we are drawing something made of hard steel, stone or concrete, we have to add more noise: each color band has to use more than only one tone of color.
The screenshot just looks too awesome!
