story art

Production of artwork for the game by regular contributors takes place here.

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LordBob
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Re: story art

Post by LordBob »

It's good to know that they please you. These illuminations really are faster to make than the average portrait, so we should be able to cover the whole campaign rather easily one the base frame showing the book is done.

I've just finished another illumination, which would illustrate the Night of the Fallen Stars : it's only a couple of hours depending on the complexity of the letter + drawing.
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zookeeper
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Re: story art

Post by zookeeper »

LordBob wrote:It's good to know that they please you. These illuminations really are faster to make than the average portrait, so we should be able to cover the whole campaign rather easily one the base frame showing the book is done.
Cool! The usual problem with story art is that we get an image here and another there, but usually not complete sets for any single campaign (the only current exceptions being Liberty, DiD and TB).
LordBob wrote:I've just finished another illumination, which would illustrate the Night of the Fallen Stars : it's only a couple of hours depending on the complexity of the letter + drawing.
I don't have any complaints about that one except it might be a good idea to make even the red part of the meteor have a distinctly larger head and thinner tail, or to somehow make the tip blend with the yellow flaming parts. Currently they give me an impression a bit more like flaming sticks rather than flaming meteors leaving trails.
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Re: story art

Post by thespaceinvader »

One issue strikes me: are these illuminations supposed to represent specific letters of the roman alphabet? If so, there will be image localisation issues... But if not, then this is a great concept =D
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Re: story art

Post by zookeeper »

thespaceinvader wrote:One issue strikes me: are these illuminations supposed to represent specific letters of the roman alphabet? If so, there will be image localisation issues...
I don't see why there would be. They work both as letters or as general shapes, and there's no important meaning to the letters used. The fact that you need to ask whether they represent specific letters or not IMO shows that whether they do or not isn't really important, and thus it doesn't hurt if they're shown for people using a completely different alphabet. If they're going to be used as part of an image of a book, then people who don't recognize the letters can simply figure that it's elvish writing.
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Re: story art

Post by thespaceinvader »

I was more wondering whether the intent was to use them as illuminated drop caps for a book-type appearance for the 'diary' element of the story - assuming that the pages of the diary would be visible as story images. But using a non-roman script (or even no script at all, and a generic handwriting scribble in lines) for the pages would work fine by me.

Great work LB. I really like the style here.
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Re: story art

Post by kitty »

Nice work and certainly an interesting style!

The dunes in the first one could use a a bit more texture but the second one is just beautiful, I love the graphical simplification of the meteors.
I'm not so sure about the arcanthus like ornaments at the upper edge, they look a bit random. The geometric shapes echoing the tip of the feather you use in the first one work better.

I'm not sure if i overlooked a part of the discussion here - but how do you plan those to be used? As stand alone graphics on the standart black background? Or will you include them in kind of an opened book with illegible elvish script?
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Re: story art

Post by LordBob »

If they're going to be used as part of an image of a book, then people who don't recognize the letters can simply figure that it's elvish writing.
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: This is truer than you think : in an effort to avoid localisation issues, I am modelling the letters after the Tengwar Annatar font, i.e. Tolkien's elvish alphabet.

Kitty : rest assured, the first illumination is still in progress (speaking of which, should the picture display the desert or the homeland of the Quenoth Elves ? I intend to use it in the preliminary scenes).
The upper symbols in the second picture are leaves (thought it'd suit an elvish culture). Illumination really includes a ton of various geometrical patterns, secondary drawings...I'll try and add some curves so that my leaves don't feel all alone.

I intend to display the illuminations in an opened book, but it's easier to first draw them flat . :wink:
Last edited by LordBob on April 21st, 2009, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kestenvarn
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Re: story art

Post by Kestenvarn »

These are pretty stylish. :o
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Re: story art

Post by Jetrel »

:D I think this is a pretty clever, and also very professional-looking idea.
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Re: story art

Post by LordBob »

Reader beware, thread necromancy in progress ; with the orc series about to reach its conclusion, I'm coming back to older projects. If story art is still required for UtBS, I'll see this series through and may likely take care of any character portraits while I'm at it.
Unless someone eslse is already taking care of them, naturally :)

Anyway, illuminations WIP as a reminder of where we currently stand. The green one ought to serve for the intro, the red one is meant for scenario 1 and the one picturing dunes ought to serve for scenario 2
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zookeeper
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Re: story art

Post by zookeeper »

LordBob wrote:Reader beware, thread necromancy in progress ; with the orc series about to reach its conclusion, I'm coming back to older projects. If story art is still required for UtBS, I'll see this series through and may likely take care of any character portraits while I'm at it.
Unless someone eslse is already taking care of them, naturally :)
Nope, hasn't been other takers so far, so they're all yours.
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Re: story art

Post by LordBob »

Oh, that's good then. I noticed Zerovirus is reworking sprites as part of a "UtBS project" that's apparently run by Espreon and was beginning to wonder wether these images had gotten redundant :)
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Re: story art

Post by Jetrel »

Zerovirus isn't capable of doing something like this. He's fairly new to spriting and is catching on fast, but at the moment, spriting is his only skillset.
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Re: story art

Post by Iris »

LordBob wrote:Reader beware, thread necromancy in progress ; with the orc series about to reach its conclusion, I'm coming back to older projects. If story art is still required for UtBS, I'll see this series through and may likely take care of any character portraits while I'm at it.
Well, actually Espreon and I were hoping to get kitty to do the portraits, mainly since she's been involved with the UMC that is the direct sequel to UtBS and worked on a later version of one of the characters.
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LordBob
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Re: story art

Post by LordBob »

Mmh...Okay. I'll let you sort this out with Kitty depending on her availability. For now I'll focus on story art, though if need be, know that I'm two portraits from being able to begin a new project.
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