Murdoc

Anatomy looks near perfect. The lower part of the torso seems a bit long though, and the hips seem too small.

Heh, I had a feeling Impostor was Kusy. >.> > Never listening, never improving, always brushing off input as rude. > > Never change guys. Stay the way you are. You are perfect. This is not my attitude, and as far as I can tell it's not the attitude of most here. If I showcased my first attempts at any sort of digital art (started pixel art around 2004) it would be plain to see I've at least learned a few things. Are these the best examples of any sort of improvement? No, but in my defense (yawn) I didn't put an enormous amount of time or effort into these photoshop experiments. If I knew you were gonna show up to the party, I might have worn a tux and spent an hour on making perfect lines. (little joke) The only advice that I can really take from you (because it's the only constructive thing you said), is to practice shading using different levels of opacity. Something I will no doubt experiment with as I have other methods, and also a technique I'm aware of. While I'm on the subject I might as well ask: Has it ever occured to you that people tend to ignore your critique because your approach is dictatorial, and more rigid than any artist I've ever met? You sound more like an art critique than an actual artist. I know you're a good artist (I've seen your work), but it's like your sleeping with the enemy and wonder why we're resisting your approach. Call me crazy but it seems like you come back to Eclipse just to make a point that we're losers and you're awesome. You're either extremely cynical or just butthurt with eclipse and our "bad" productions. I recall you saying about two years ago that pixel art is a dead artform. Meanwhile, Terraria remains one of the highest selling games in the Google store. Anyway, I'm not sure why this thread has turned into Artageddon but I have bigger fish to fry like learning how to art. Hue hue. Thanks for caring, Murdoc

For my second experiment I did a similiar scene, utilizing different techniques. Instead of heavy use of textures, I used various brushes to create texture, and shaded using the dodge & burn tools. Critique is always welcome. 

> Looks pretty interesting, though the trees are very weird shaded and the texture is bad, same goes for the rock or whatever is that :D > > As for characters, well they look however you wanted them to look, are pretty ok, but the Wizard's robe shouldn't be shiny like that, only if he is wearing some kind of blue rain coat. > > > > 1\. Have a source light wich will affect ALL your Objects not only your characters. > > 2\. Keep in mind the materials for the clothes, what they are made of, not all of them are shiny like that when you have a light source. > > 3\. You need to work more on textures and how to shade them properly, don't over complicate things, don't add useless effects. Thanks for the constructive feedback. The inspiration for this particular "experiment" (we'll call it that lol) came to me after watching a youtube vid, where some guy was using similiar (albeit probably a little more polished) technique for sprites and other background bits. Personally, I'm not too happy with the way textures generally work on pieces but then again I only have the default ones installed in Photoshop so who knows. I also didn't spend very much time on the shading as I was really just playin around to see what a quick attempt might look like. As far as the discussion about mouse vs tablet. I have a tablet actually, and I have to say that it's really only good for tracing lines over a picture you've already drawn on paper and scanned. Could just be me, but whenever I use the tablet for drawing the lines come out worse than when I use a mouse (something that could just take more practice of course). Sometimes it's better to not have outlines at all, in which case a tablet is not required. Thanks again, Murdoc

I like your techniques. Never heard of using burn/dodge for shading. Very cool! P.S - did you draw with a mouse!? hehe

In this thread I'll be periodically showcasing game art that I attempt in Photoshop. **Experiment 1:** In this one I'm playing around with textures and cartoon styled, minimalistic painting.  **Experiment 2:** Here I abandoned textures, and used various brushes to paint the background and sprite. 

Some city graphics I've been doing. Took me awhile to get the shading and feel I was looking for. This particular mock-up is just one in a set of other tiles, that will be used in a future title. 

> wait for autotile xD > > > > You haven't see the tileset yet True. I'm looking forward to it! XD

You need better dirt to grass transitions. Also try to add some texture to things, not just simple shading.

> ^ Pepperoni > > > > < Fun stick > > > > v Sausage ^ Carries a small stick < Carries a big stick \/ Speaks softly

> How good is the Wii U? Take a look~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SBNPl8IHpk

Looks fun. Trying it out now. Edit: Played around for about an hour. Did the tutorial and made my way into the town. It seems like an alright game, but I find it's too much of a Runescape knock-off and the lag is pretty bad.

Nice looking engine. I like that it has android support. Something out of the box.

> I commend you guys for your dedication, everyone has to start somewhere and I wont knock you for trying to establish a small indie company. I might add though, the moment I looked at this I was repelled to play it, I feel like it's a game I've already tried and for that simple reason a lot of people would probably skip this in an app store and search for something a little more interesting looking. > > > > From these types of side scroll games, there's limited capability as to how far you can stretch the concept, in the end they're picky, it has to be simple, but difficult (but not too difficult) and at the same time it has to be unique. Most of the best games are usually out of boredom, I wouldn't play this if I were bored let alone pay money for it. That's if I were a random person, I'll support the project because I just think it would be nice to help. But it's not fully developed and using this as a way to introduce other projects I don't think was the best idea. > > > > The point of an indie site is usually to use other games in affiliation to gather a bigger base for yourself, I think you should first start by focusing on seeking out unique projects even if they might be here from eclipse, offer to advertise their game with your growing fan base so far as they agree that their game be apart of your company. So as someone wisely told me, latching out for money at this early of a stage, not the best idea. Get a solid team established with a few products to show, make sure you're prototyping to see what people are more addicted to, then going after money would be a good thing. No one wants to pay for a "we might" finish and have it be a good project. The sharing of resources and connections are more important than money, for now. > > > > - Kid Best critique I've heard in awhile. Thanks for the comments as well. I agree with almost everything you said. We hope that in time we can establish ourselves well enough to be taken seriously. For now we are doing what you said and prototyping, seeing what catches peoples interests and what not. As far as this game in particular, we have made some more progress since the video. There are 4 enemies: Cats, Bats, Spiders, and Crows. And you can now obtain two different types of power ups: Gold Acorns which give you unlimited ammo, and "Flower Power" for invincibility. Besides this project we've been heavily working on another online title, but it's too early in development to release any information. All that aside. We are proactively listening and taking into consideration what people think about this game and our approach as a starting indie company. All critique is welcome, because we know we're not perfect. Thanks again, Murdoc

Nice art! I like how you did the panorama in photoshop.

I like it. The drummer and guitar player are tight. If I could suggest, throw in some demonic throat yelling contrasted by melodic singing that have line hooks to keep people interested. I would do both but I'm on the east coast yo.

Not bad. But what are you doing to further the project, besides altering stock graphics? From your post I see that you need people to do just about everything, but nothing about what you yourself are doing. Possible applicants will want to know what your contributions are. That being said, why not try and learn some of these skills yourself? It will only help you in the future. For example, writing isn't really that hard as long as you know proper grammar and have an imagination. Same with pixel art. There's no reason why you can't at least attempt doing your own art, even if it turns out bad at first. Read some tutorials and take notes. As far as the concept itself. I think it has potential. But there really isn't much character at this point due to lack of a good story or features that might stand out from any of the other games.

"Meridian 59" is the closest thing I can think of:  A few dozen people still play, though it's pretty ancient. [http://www.meridian59.com/](http://www.meridian59.com/)

I'm rather amused by how the term innovation is being brought up as though a game can't be successful OR fun without it. I'd say put it out there guys and see where it goes. The same people who whine about a game not being original, are often the same people who play WoW (a clone of Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot) and think it's something unique and special. Since when did game development become "if it's not entirely original it sucks"? I could list about a thousand games right now that borrowed ideas from other games. Like ANY media industry (movie, music, games, books etc) the concept of borrowing ideas from past successes is not only common, but nearly pivotal. Great idea!

Hi Blure. I'd like to request a logo for ["Gates of Endar"](http://www.eclipseorigins.com/community/index.php?/topic/129252-gates-of-endar-alpha/) .. Preferably something in yellow and aqua to match the current GUI, and reminiscent of the 8-bit era.

[Gates of Endar](http://www.eclipseorigins.com/community/index.php?/topic/129252-gates-of-endar-alpha/) will be a good eclipse game once it's finished. Two years ago (when it was called Escalon) we had a great turn out for players after we went live, and the feedback was positive. Since then the game has evolved both visually and mechanics wise. To date we've created close to 100 maps with a decent amount of content, and will soon complete the first of many provinces. Beta phase will begin on or about April 1st. Til then, you'll just have to wait for this awesome game. :P

Vast improvement in the colors. It would be nice to see some trees that are as least as tall as the house though, and with more volume of foliage.

These are the actual graphics that are used for the models/structures in Minecraft, not just a "version" of them. Having said that, there's a couple reasons why they don't look right. One, they're meant to be used as textures for 3d obviously. The second, much like the first, is that since they were made to be used in a 3d environment a top-down perspective is non-existent (ie. there are no borders to indicate depth, and tops of objects look awkward when placed on the vertical axis).

The trees are a bit flat. They could use the more of the darker shade underneath the tree branches to round them out. Personally, I like the darker replica for a background. But the overall palette could use an increase in brightness, possibly contrast. Other than that nice work!

The word depressed makes me depressed