>>7601902I always found it helpful to first draw a rough outline of the environment you want to pixel. It allows you to determine perspective and architecture of the picture. I'll give you a rough order of operations.
Don't think about occlusion to much just yet. If you're drawing the inside of a room, draw outlines for the WHOLE room. It's not that much work, but will help you when assessing the scale and orientation of objects.
Now is a good time to think about the base colors and mood as well. Let's say you're aiming for a comfy night-time pape. You decide for the room to be dimly lit. For moody papes, some degree of pastel might do the trick. Add the colors to the surfaces you have created. If you've already decided on a texture, write that information down.
Next up, pick an objekt you want to place. Let's add a TV. Pick a place and orientation (see how the base outline comes in handy?), again, go for outlines. Make a white screen and a black border, nothing more. Give it its own layer in your GFX software
Repeat for other objects until you're happy with your layout. Don't forget the layers!
Now, let's add detail! Floor might be wooden, take a reference picture of a wooden floor and try to replicate it. If the TV is on, some kind of show or videogame could be playing. Do it in any order you like, keep the colors pastel to fit with the mood and experiment. You might even want to add more objects, which is fine as well. What's on the shelf, books? And where's that videogame console anyway?
Next up, occlusion. remember those layers? Just arrange them in the right order. If you feel the need to fine tune some things, that's cool.
For lighting, you gotta experiment depending on the light source - but be sure to give each light source its own layer and be sure to store shading of your objects in that one, not in the object's layer! Overlapping light sections may require additional attention.
This workflow works great for me and I hope it works for you.
