Mod: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)

[zepath]

Bump & FYI: Nova Deus II has been updated with new content.

[Wauthan]

Many thanks once again Zepath. I must say that your skill continues to improve with each new release. I think I'm ready to provide critisism now though and I hope you will take no offence.

The arch druid sits in a very strange pose, and his steed is so uniformly grey that it appears almost ghostly. Perhaps the man could rest his empty hand at his side while "passive" or wield the sickle in his left hand?

The arch mage looks great indeed. So good in fact that the added owl looks out of place and unecessary.

"Khorne" appears to be a tad bit too interested in his axe. I think that the unit would look better if he kept the same downwards facing pose in both the images.

The great enchantress is a very brave effort. The pose and concept are both very good but I'm not sure that the result lives up to your vision. I was expecting a "younger" version of the crone when I downloaded your mod. You can't go wrong with pointy hats when it comes to unisex magewear.

The lord of fertility is a wast improvment. But don't you think he would look better if he had his right hand clenched into a fist in both images?

Personally I don't like the concept of the world tree. I feel that it would be a lot more suitable for a novel map design rather then a pretender. In my game I changed the name and description to fit a more generic, and smaller, "Tree of Life".

The colors on the sphinx makes it look a lot like it's mythical namesake, rather then a giant stone statue. Nothing wrong with that of course but I was hoping that you might feel the inspiration to create a "living" sphinx as well.

Thanks again for sharing all your hard work and I hope that you feel that it was worth the effort.

[zepath]

Wauthan, thanks for the detailed suggestions. A lot of the things you mention were actually intentional.

I took the upper body of the Arch Druid from the "Wanderer" hero of Marverni who is essentially a very powerful druid. His pose is the same as the philosopher-types of Arcoscephale and all the Druid-types of Marverni and so I thought it jived well with Illwinter's art for similar druidic mages. Perhaps if his left hand were glowing with a little magic power or carrying a leafy branch?

You just like the Arch Mage because I gave him a pointy hat. I get it. So much for Archimedes the grumpy owl, eh?

In my original conception, "Khorne"s axe was to be dripping sweet, sweet blood into his mouth and thus make his preoccupation with the thing more about quenching thirst than unhealthy obsession. I never got around to that, but since you mention it that is one improvement I will remember to make.

The enchantress is simply a re-coloring of a mage commander from my elven nation mod Sylvania. I plan to take her down a different route in the future so don't consider the current sprite final in any way.

The Lord of Fertility has an open hand in his primary sprite because I wanted him to appear generous and inviting. A clenched fist just seemed too angry. Instead he says, "Come, have some of my tasty food, and we'll make nasty love."

The World Tree is another port from my Sylvania mod. I thought a proper Yggdrasil pretender belonged in Dominions and that was my attempt. Of course, you've changed what you don't like, which is what any user of the mod is free to do.

Perhaps a paler color on the Sphinx? More like the new Sacred Statue?

Were you neutral on the new dragons? I couldn't decide if they were sweet or too "D&D"...

[Wauthan]

The new dragons are hellasweet! I just thought that I ought to be more restrictive with praise, for fear that too much of it all at once might go to your head.

Heh, really should have caught the Sylvania ports. Tend to be a bit narrowsighted when evaluating mods. I'm actually not sure what color that would suit the sphinx. The one you're using is fairly close to the original. Might be that I've easier to envision the present day version rather then how it looked "in the glory days".

Do you make your graphics from scratch or are they based on images from other games?

[zepath]

Wauthan, glad the dragons are well-received with you! At the moment, I am trying to find the right look for a new Dracolich and Carrion Dragon based on them.

Per the Sphinx, I've tried a new coloration for the body and face that is almost identical to the grey seen on my new Sacred Statue art. My intent with the Sphinx was to have it appear, like you say, as it was "in the glory days". It was originally covered with a plaster to give it a smooth surface and painted. Illwinter's Sphinx looks more like the rough, worn monolith that we see today. I'd prefer it to look as glorious as it must have been to the generation who came together to build it.

Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Only one of my sprites is based on a pre-existing image. The new Sacred Statue is based on an image of a statue of Nike, Winged Victory, that I pulled off a Google image search.

[Wauthan]

zepath said:
Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Well I for one appreciate your efforts. Me, I couldn't paint a bogbeast even if my life depended on it. In the silly Avatar mod I made for domininions 2 I used some extracted images from old "abandonware" I found on the web. I managed to clean a few of them up a little, and resize them to fit into the game, but I eventually gave up since... well... Lets just say that Windows Paint is sort of frustrating to work with and the bmp to tga conversion didn't work well.

I've attached the images to this post in case you, or someone else, might find some possible use for them.

[zepath]

Wauthan, I remember the Avatar mod! It didn't ring a bell until I looked at the .tgas, but I downloaded it and used it from time to time in Dom 2. I don't have the .dm file any longer, but if you're down for it and can post that file as well I could update and integrate some or all of the pretenders from Avatar into Nova Deus II. I am particularly struck by the two larger, generously-clawed pretenders and remember them being some sort of long-dormant sleeper type of thing in your Avatar mod. Those would be neat to bring back and the art is great for 'em. Let me know.