It's awesome to see you posting some stuff here. Check out some of my work on here if you get a chance. I've sent you my port before. Oh and good luck on Mango!
This is great. In my opinion, you should do more characters in this stye. I was trained by a great painter who worked for Disney, and he described his theory that each piece of artwork has some mix of three principles: line, mass(otherwise known as shape) and form. Successful designs prioritize these three principles often utilizing one as the primary, one as the secondary and one as the tertiary. I think this has a strong prioritization of line and shape and more designs in this style would work well.
Thanks for the comments. If you look closely, actually the entrails are exposed on its midsection, I have them very low contrast because I didn't want the gore to be over the top. As for the gorilla comment, yea gorrilla was one of my inspirations. These are supposed to be upper level zombie brutes, so I thought it would be cool if they were mutated by necromancy into something more monstrous, because drawing a muscular human zombie seemed generic. I also used deformities as inspiration.
You and I have talked about this plenty and I know I have been one of the nagging voices urging a switch to a larger sprite size for the sake of detail and player immersion. I think the comparison speaks for itself. It will take extra time to make models (which I can help with) but there are other modeleres in the community and blender users outside of the free gamer community who would likely be willing to help especially if we had awesome concepts and a good looking game to show for it. Detail isn't everything, the aesthetic of the game overall and it's gameplay is whats important, but I know the extra room for detail would allow us to do some cool stuff, and make textures more visible.
I totally understand and respect your desire to finish out the Averguard story arc, and I think you should do it if it would make the transition to more detailed visual assets more natural for you. If creating the short game first takes the worry and personal controversy out of making the new sprites, I say go for it.
I have to disagree a bit about physical builds. I make brawlers all the time, they obviously take more damage, and there might be some balancing that could still be used, but there's something to be said for the fact that most of the most annoying monster powers are ranged, and that if you engage a ranged monster in melee it starts attacking with melee. I much prefer to face most bosses, ice skeletons and fire antillons with a brawler than with an archer.
I did mention before though that I though that it might be useful if melee did slightly more damage, or if you could move slowly while using the block maneuver to give sword and shield a boost.
This looks great. To be honest, the renders of the model were a bit difficult to make out before, so thanks for redoing it. You can really see what a good model it actually is now that its got better lighting and texturing.
I think the whole idea of civilization crumbling could be really cool.
If you're gonna go with the corrupted oligarchy then I think it would be really cool if you had sort of a fable element, where the theocrats have been trucking with dark powers for ages to allow for their people to enjoy immortality, presumably from some fell power. Perhaps you could incorporate some of Lamoots ideas, so you have the hero dwelling in the city state of these Theocrats in the Earth region, and they have been laid siege or at war with spirits(elementals?) and men from other kingdoms and regions for decades or centuries, presumably, or at least say the theocrats, to steal the secrets of immortality. These spirits and men attack because the Earth regions theocratic cult is essentially allowing Undead beings from unspeakable hells to feast on the life force of the land in exchange for immortality, only now the effects are really being felt and people from many lands cannot survive, and now even the Earth kingdoms people are falling to undeath because so little life force is left.
You could also have an element where the Mages are beginning to discover the unholy pact the Theocrats have made, and so the undeath is blamed on them and they and their warrior bodyguards are put to death.
Or even more interestingly, maybe the player is a Theocratic Loyalist, young and unaware of the true nature of his religion, who becomes captured transporting the bodies to the outskirts of the city walls, and so believes he must return to his kingdom and regain his standing until he discovers the truth that has been hidden from him.
I think this could fit in nicely with Lamoots ideas about needing to restore the balance of these elements, and start a new cycle. I think it could also provide some very subtle but pleasing social commentary about the woes of not considering the implications of our actions when we overuse our resources.
Diggin' it.
Added the .xcfs. I paint pretty straight forward, so they're nothing crazy, but I hope everyone enjoys.
Hey David,
It's awesome to see you posting some stuff here. Check out some of my work on here if you get a chance. I've sent you my port before. Oh and good luck on Mango!
This is great. In my opinion, you should do more characters in this stye. I was trained by a great painter who worked for Disney, and he described his theory that each piece of artwork has some mix of three principles: line, mass(otherwise known as shape) and form. Successful designs prioritize these three principles often utilizing one as the primary, one as the secondary and one as the tertiary. I think this has a strong prioritization of line and shape and more designs in this style would work well.
Sorry for the art lecture lol.
Thanks for the comments. If you look closely, actually the entrails are exposed on its midsection, I have them very low contrast because I didn't want the gore to be over the top. As for the gorilla comment, yea gorrilla was one of my inspirations. These are supposed to be upper level zombie brutes, so I thought it would be cool if they were mutated by necromancy into something more monstrous, because drawing a muscular human zombie seemed generic. I also used deformities as inspiration.
You and I have talked about this plenty and I know I have been one of the nagging voices urging a switch to a larger sprite size for the sake of detail and player immersion. I think the comparison speaks for itself. It will take extra time to make models (which I can help with) but there are other modeleres in the community and blender users outside of the free gamer community who would likely be willing to help especially if we had awesome concepts and a good looking game to show for it. Detail isn't everything, the aesthetic of the game overall and it's gameplay is whats important, but I know the extra room for detail would allow us to do some cool stuff, and make textures more visible.
I totally understand and respect your desire to finish out the Averguard story arc, and I think you should do it if it would make the transition to more detailed visual assets more natural for you. If creating the short game first takes the worry and personal controversy out of making the new sprites, I say go for it.
I have to disagree a bit about physical builds. I make brawlers all the time, they obviously take more damage, and there might be some balancing that could still be used, but there's something to be said for the fact that most of the most annoying monster powers are ranged, and that if you engage a ranged monster in melee it starts attacking with melee. I much prefer to face most bosses, ice skeletons and fire antillons with a brawler than with an archer.
I did mention before though that I though that it might be useful if melee did slightly more damage, or if you could move slowly while using the block maneuver to give sword and shield a boost.
This looks great. To be honest, the renders of the model were a bit difficult to make out before, so thanks for redoing it. You can really see what a good model it actually is now that its got better lighting and texturing.
I forgot to sign in for my last comment, ha. No problem, critique is how we improve as artists. The face looks a lot better! Good job.
I think the whole idea of civilization crumbling could be really cool.
If you're gonna go with the corrupted oligarchy then I think it would be really cool if you had sort of a fable element, where the theocrats have been trucking with dark powers for ages to allow for their people to enjoy immortality, presumably from some fell power. Perhaps you could incorporate some of Lamoots ideas, so you have the hero dwelling in the city state of these Theocrats in the Earth region, and they have been laid siege or at war with spirits(elementals?) and men from other kingdoms and regions for decades or centuries, presumably, or at least say the theocrats, to steal the secrets of immortality. These spirits and men attack because the Earth regions theocratic cult is essentially allowing Undead beings from unspeakable hells to feast on the life force of the land in exchange for immortality, only now the effects are really being felt and people from many lands cannot survive, and now even the Earth kingdoms people are falling to undeath because so little life force is left.
You could also have an element where the Mages are beginning to discover the unholy pact the Theocrats have made, and so the undeath is blamed on them and they and their warrior bodyguards are put to death.
Or even more interestingly, maybe the player is a Theocratic Loyalist, young and unaware of the true nature of his religion, who becomes captured transporting the bodies to the outskirts of the city walls, and so believes he must return to his kingdom and regain his standing until he discovers the truth that has been hidden from him.
I think this could fit in nicely with Lamoots ideas about needing to restore the balance of these elements, and start a new cycle. I think it could also provide some very subtle but pleasing social commentary about the woes of not considering the implications of our actions when we overuse our resources.
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