Messages

[Best Idea:]

Best Idea: Darth â€" for being inventive enough to not only move away from the typical indoor hospital, but to shift in time too (and actually being historically accurate!).

Best Design: Zooty â€" the sketchy style, skewed objects & mind-numbing colours makes it feel very deranged. You've made an unpleasant room which suits your aim perfectly. Great story about the patient XD

Best Functionality:Arcangel â€" clear graphics, easy to see & move around, plus a number of fun objects to play with ("Bed goes up, bed goes down...").

Best Technique: Cpage â€" it really grabbed my attention (and wouldn't let go). It's easy to tell what each part of the image is, while still looking detailed & moody. Nice contrasting mix of subtle red/green too.

[Neil Dnuma]

Results:

Congratulations to Neil Dnuma, on a very well-rounded image

Idea: Mordalles
Design: Neil Dnuma
Functionality: Neil Dnuma
Technique: Neil Dnuma

Happy New Year everyone!

Voting has now begun (and will take place over the 29th & 30th) so please nominate an entry for each of the 4 categories. The results will be announced on the 31st so long as at least 5 people have voted, otherwise I'll extend it.

Nice entries everyone I'm amazed at what you guys can do with just a mouse â€" it would be hard enough to achieve that with a tablet.

Those are some great image manipulations Taffytom XD Thanks for sharing.

What do you mean 'not an artist'? :P It looks awesome â€" a very funky style and well drawn. ProgZmax's suggestion about the intersections is the only thing I can think of that might improve it, but even that's dependent on the effect you want (they make the lizard look more 3D, but less natural).

It's an interesting scene, and certainly very striking. I think the main problem I had when looking at it was that I couldn't work out what it was â€" the checkered billboard being the main culprit (at first I thought it must be a decorative screen on the back wall of the noodle bar, until I realised the bar was a separate building in front). The bar itself was the last thing I noticed, since it has much less contrast than the rest of the picture. Usually the foreground would have the strongest colours, especially when that's where you want viewers to focus.

One way to fix it: add atmosphere. Eg. objects further away look more like the colour of the sky (and have less contrast) than those close up. With such a dark sky, I'd also expect the noodle bar area to be much darker except for where you have lights.

The following is a quick example of what I mean:

I'm guessing there's a foreground object that extends up the right hand side, so you might want to decide what shape it is & seperate it from the background.

[Topic:]

Topic:

A STEP TOO FAR


Guidelines:
There are many ways to interpret this theme, so get your creative juices flowing

If you're stuck for ideas: your background might show a physical step too far (eg. tracks leading off a cliff edge), a moral one (eg. an unscrupulous research lab, such as Dr Frankenstein's), the remains of a party that got out of control or a room/house designed by a decorator who didn't know when to stop.

There are no size or palette restrictions.



Voting: (thanks to Loominous for the system)
Voting will take place on the 29th & 30th of December. Please give one vote in each of the following categories:

* Best Idea - The underlying idea to the background. Doesn't neccesserily have to coincide perfectly with the theme of the week, just strike you as interesting/amusing/inspiring; a place you'd really enjoy visiting within a game.

* Best Design - The style of the picture, architectural, landscape design, best mood, most evocative etc.

* Best Functionality - How well it would work when adding sprites, including appropriate walking distances, good angle for character sprites, clever walkway solutions, easily understood exits etc.

* Best Technique - How well the ideas are executed in form of rendering.

I've allowed a bit less than 2 weeks for entries, in case people are too busy to vote over New Year's, but let me know if you need more time.

Since I wrote out these comments before realising that voting had ended, I figure I may as well still post them. There were so many inventive and high quality entries, and it's great to see such a large number of participants.

Idea: SteveMcCrea â€" I loved the word play, and enjoyed your very creative take on the theme. There are so many movies that deal with futuristic, human apocalypses that I'd forgotten the world was already post-apocalyptic.

Design: Neutron â€" it immediately made me feel like I was playing an 'infiltrate the war camp' game. The colours really contribute to the mood. (As a side note, your pixel skills are insanely good).

Functionality: Floskfinger â€" great choice of object sizes and layout. I know it's an ironic thing to say, but your image had a real 'human scale' to it

Technique: Neil Dnuma â€" your art style is charming and vibrant, and the idea is expressed so clearly. I can imagine coming down a hill in a game to find this amusing scene.

---

Steve: My art website's been down for over a year unfortunately. If you like I can PM you when I get my act together & upload it (which will hopefully be before I restart uni).

Thanks for the comments everyone (and to Andail for the interesting topic). I'll make sure I post a new comp soon.

Both those images look fantastic, especially the daytime one! My only crits would be to do with the lighting. The sun in the day image looks like a long, vertical oval because of how the white extends right down to the horizon in that part. It would be more realistic to have the white centre of the glow smaller & circular (eg. see http://www.fotosearch.com/DEX130/ph026_020/ ). With the night image, it's only the light beams in the front-middle that look odd to me â€" I don't think the moon beams would be that bright or clearly defined at night time, given that the moon's mostly obstructed by clouds in the picture (hence any non-lamp light would be dim) plus the fog would diffuse light (so areas of light & shadow would blur together a lot).

The lamp's lighting and the rest of the images are great. I really like the textures you've used.

Those are great backgrounds. I love Neil's Bigfoot/Godzilla idea, and that Venus fit a cockroach into hers.



2x:


And another 'post apocalyptic diner' ('scuse my bad taste, and the fact that this isn't an entry...):

Those sketches (especially the Unknown Soldier ones) are looking great Cluey. You seem to have picked up on using the tablet quickly - some people find it hard to adapt to drawing on such a different surface.

Have you tried using different layer settings when colouring? Adding a noise filter (like you did) can be a quick way to get a bit of texture into a drawing, but if you want a more hand-drawn effect then putting a texture onto a layer above the colouring & setting it to overlay can also work.

[Best Idea:]

Are contestants allowed to vote? If not, just treat this as a comment instead.

Best Idea:
Renegade Implementor. The idea that there's a Bed & Breakfast (along with an entire other world) below ground really intrigued me, and impressed me with its uniqueness. [Have you produced any games containing this underground empire, so I really can visit the place? =)] Seaduck's idea for a B&B accessible by hot air balloon stood out as well.

Best Design:
Renegade Implementor. Out of all the entries, this one evoked the strongest mood for me â€" I really felt as though I was in that unnerving, spacious-yet-oppressive cavern. Also, the style of the architecture (the unusually patterned, elevated road; the lamp; the large, neatly constructed building) made it obvious it was part of a larger civilisation, rather than just an odd home for someone, which also helped create a nice context.

Best Functionality:
Krysis. I was tempted to go with He-Man's, but I was impressed by the way Krysis managed to do something a bit more complex (show 2 sides of the building at once) and yet still have very good functionality (the exits are extremely clear, plus the walking distances & angles would work well).

Best Technique:
Andail - it looks lovely. The brushwork's in the great middle ground between being sharp/pizellized and airbrush-smooth, the colours go well together and there's great atmospheric depth. My next favourite was Krysis - amazing, professional work with such a limited palette.

Definitely Rel, as he was the only one who interpretated the whole theme different from the usual house-standing-somewhere-thingy. Actually this was the only entry that made me laugh out loud.

'She', actually . Thanks muchly though. I'm glad my warped sense of humour worked for someone.

Interesting topic. I would have enjoyed painting a treetop or woodside scene, but the idea of the following amused me:


large:


Hopefully it's not too subtle â€" adding bones seemed like overkill.