IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview - Page 5

DonCorazon · #41 September 5th, 2009, 10:47 AM

yeah, it was no joke. just an illustration of how stardock products remind me of someone that, you think you are understanding and relating to, but then they say something and you realize you are on a totally different page.

lets see who gets it - blizzard?

or stardock?

hehe, well, like i said elemental "sounds" good, but if they think Manfred the Doody Shoveller or the Weaponless But Well Armorered Warrior is what gets people "juiced", well then i am not going to get my hopes up.

i better start getting my clicking fingers in shape for Diablo III...

LDiCesare · #42 September 5th, 2009, 01:55 PM

On the other hand, individual units in Elemental don't need the same level of detail as those in Diablo. Plus there's always a difference between 2d concept art (or sketches in the case of Stardock) and the 3d result. So it may still look good in the end. Although I have little doubt Blizzard games will be much better-looing than Stardock.

quantum_mechani · #43 September 5th, 2009, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

lets see who gets it - blizzard?

or stardock?

To be honest I find both styles a little off-putting.

Foodstamp · #44 September 6th, 2009, 05:05 AM

I like the overall art style of the game.

Concept art is a lot different than the end result.

For instance, in 0 A.D. we went from this:

to this:

I know this is just one example, but Stardock is a fully staffed paying studio so I am pretty sure the end result will be acceptable.

Sombre · #45 September 6th, 2009, 07:19 AM

Considering it's concept art released to the public, I think it's an absolute garbage. If a paid artist did that I hope they had a deadline of 30 minutes for 10 sketches or something, because I think there are 13 year olds doodling on their desks that could do a better job than that.

If I was in their marketing team I would be demanding they take that **** offline.

Foodstamp · #46 September 6th, 2009, 12:34 PM

I still disagree. I think it is hard to concept for the final look they are going for. The art team chose an artist, Alfonso Mucha, who would be very difficult to mock up starting art for. His style is completely different than anything we have seen in a game before and I could see how the concept art team could run into an issue of the concept art being more detailed than the abstract finish.

Keep in mind too that at the very least Stardock's space games have looked terrible all the way up until a few months before release.

To give you some examples of the final result they are going to go for, here are a couple of pictures by the artist whose style they are trying to mimic:

Here is my favorite painting by the artist:

and here is one from the seasons panel:

The concept art may not be pleasing to the eye, but how do you ask someone to mock up something in this style? Especially considering I have only ever seen one piece Mucha has done that portrays a man, and all of his images are very basic, the artistic styling primarily being the flowing of the bodies and color.

Finally, who cares what the concept art looks like as long as it conveys the point to the 3d artists? Probably the only mistake Stardock made was publicly displaying the concept art for fan critique.

They should have just had a guy come in and do some Warcraft looking stuff for the publicly released concept art.

LDiCesare · #47 September 6th, 2009, 12:48 PM

Much as I think the guys in armor don't look good for a 2D drawing, they are certainly ok for a 3D artist to work from.
However, the guy with a shovel has a real problem in terms of proportions. If the 3D guys model a shovel that small, it will look ugly.

Foodstamp · #48 September 6th, 2009, 01:13 PM

I agree with you on that, and the more i look at the concept art, the more I agree it could have been done a lot better, even for the end style they are going for. Maybe it is like sombre said and they were under a ridiculous deadline, or maybe the guy doing the concept art normally doesn't do that kind of stuff.

I think I know which guy is doing it, if you go to stardock's website, there is a gallery of guys working on games, and one of the guys is working on 2d icons that look similar in style to this concept art. Maybe they told him to do it even though it is not his normal field of expertise?

happygeek · #49 September 6th, 2009, 02:17 PM

The last couple dozen or so remarks seem to me exceptionally odd -- not because I have different aesthetic tastes than most of you, but because we are all here playing Dominions3, arguably one of the best MP fantasty TBS games around -- and (arguably) the game I have played longest with the worst sound and graphics I have experienced since 1990.

I cannot imagine anyone liking Dominions and caring a whit about its looks or sound (I have to turn the sound off).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think it's an absolute garbage. I think there are 13 year olds doodling on their desks that could do a better job than that.

Sombre · #50 September 7th, 2009, 07:42 AM

Dom3 graphics (those actually made for dom3 rather than relics) are much, MUCH higher quality than those sketches. It's true that it doesn't look amazing. But it doesn't look horrible either. It just looks low budget and basic.

That concept art looks horrible. Not low budget. Just terrible. I mean it would be a fine effort for a random fanart amateur with no training or skill as an illustrator, but to come as publically distributed concept art for a game?