I haven't actually commented here, but have been lurking and watching the development. I seriously love the style you have got going on here particularly you mechanised enemies.

The Bumblebot: I love the overall composition and especially the design. Nice powerful sting that beast has. As for CrazyMLC's comment about the smaller caliber.. I think that would best be left to a Waspbot cousin of this one. The rotors still have slight readability issues though.. I had to look at all the various images of it to fully appreciate them. Are both rotors spinning the same direction? Just wondering if making one clockwise the other anti-clockwise would help or hinder.

The Deathbot: Beautiful movement - especially the 'taunt' animation. The only thing that I find awkward is the huge amount of flash on the hull. It seems rather excessive for the size of gun mounted on the top.  While it might give a great effect when you only have the one enemy (like you did at the time) I can't help but feel this 'huge' flash will diminish the fear induced by potentially bigger weaponry on later enemies. In fact, the guns do seem smaller than the cannon on the bumblebot yet the kick and flash are much stronger.

Buildings/Scenery: The almost toy-like appearance works so well and adds so much charm. I can almost imagine you posted scenes as a panoramic 360° scene from walking around the top one such large building.

-Z-

Just thought I'd throw in a quick edit. Initially because the turret seemed to have the wrong light source and I couldn't help but have my eye drawn to it. Also tried to take out some of the very long straight highlights - that at a small size, with such high contrast overpower any other details the tank has. Then I fixed the perspective of the roof rivets, and added a couple of odd details to the side of the tank. Lastly I did adjust the palette slightly to try and remove some of the sharp contrast  and to also allow the greys to be used better amongst the oranges for shading. I also changed the single use 'green' from your palette to a darker orange/brown to use in place of most of the inner black lines.

I won't claim my edit is all that great - or even that it is better. As a tank.. I'm not overly keen on it..  as an edit.. I think it at least addresses a few issues even if not providing the best solutions.



-Z-

At the moment, despite the texturing it still appears very 'thin' and flat on every side.

I've made a couple of quick edits to part of it:

• added some highlighting to edges (window frames / door frame / beams)
• made the main beams stick out a bit more than the panelling
• re-did and simplified your chimney brickwork. Your brick-offsetting is very minimal in your chimney. Usually bricks are placed centrally over the gap between bricks on the row below - not just slightly to one side. You do not need to use so many colours.

It could really use more contrast - i.e darker shades for the front-left face and more shadowing under the eaves of the roof, next to main support beams etc.

Still.. hope this gives you a few ideas.



-Z-

My first comment would be about the lightsource. It seems to be confused somewhat.

If you look at the darker sides, (top right slope and top corner slopes) This would suggest a lightsource from somwhere between bottom left and bottom.

If it was exactly bottom-left then the right corner slope would be the same as the top corner slope, if the lightsource was directly from the bottom, then the top-left slope would be the same as the top right-slope. So whilst it is neither, the lightsource suggested (from the shadowed edges) falls somewhere between the two.

If we now look at the lit edges, then it would suggest a lightsource somewhere between directly left, and bottom left and, again, not actually exactly either, but somewhere between.

Hmm.. so which is it? The lightsource indicated by 'lit' faces differs from that suggested by the 'shadowed' faces.


As for the angles of the slope, that is ok (and even verging on the 'good' side of 'ok') - if you are planning to have a very uneven hilly surface. However, if the slopes are only few with larger flat areas, then a slightly steeper slope might help emphasise the fact that there is a slope involved.

You will really need slightly more shades of green than you are currently using, with a wider range than you are currently using to correctly shade the ground with increased contrast (for the faces).






-Z-