[c + c] Sheepdog icons

[pgil]

Woah, I haven't posted here in a long time. 

So I'm making some achievement icons for a game.  I want to reward players with cool art, so I want to spend a little extra time on these, and ask people to critique them. 

First, I want to know if they're readable.  Can you tell what's going on in each card? 

Next, I want to know if the design of the cards is good.  Are the colors good? Does everything work together?

Also, let me know if you see any room for improvement craft-wise.  I'm going for kind of a painterly style, but I'm wondering if parts might be too sloppy/noisy.

[Facet]

Aha! I think I've both played & enjoyed the game in question here, If you'll excuse me playing creepy internet detective a link for those who haven't

All the cards read ok but I think more of a focus on the dog as oppose to the scene would be helpful for consistences sake in the middle card; maybe an action pose/ motion blur would work better.

Colours are a little washed out for my tastes but nice. Regarding achieving a painterly style I'd ditch more 1-px lines and little details in favour of broader strokes & shapes.

I love Border collies! In my edit I moved the nose up a tad considering foreshortening of the muzzel, gave the right side of his face a little more body, made the ears perky to better describe the intended emotion (happy), introduced the green of the background into the shadow of the fur to suggest reflected light, widened the grin and introduced 'superman hair' style blue-gloss. Left it pretty rough to allow for room for your own stylistic mores.

I should really be doing new-years type stuff but I love your understated, meditative games and chiptunes so I hope I can help!  



Edit-forgot some stuff also my colours are bit over-dark/saturated

[pgil]

Cool, glad you liked that game.  I'm working on a Flash remake with improved graphics, more levels, and some other little things.

Here's an update on one of the cards:


I liked what you did with the ears, so I fixed those. I also made his hair look longer and made some quick changes to the palette.   I'm liking it a lot better than the last version, but there's definitely still room for improvement.

I agree the greyhound one is a little out of place, but I like the scene.  Or rather, the idea of the scene (a border collie beating greyhounds in a race). Maybe I'll look for a different way to illustrate it.

[Facet]

Great, looking forward to a new game!

I still think there's more you might take from my edit, new expression reads more like taking voyeuristic pleasure in something over the viewer's shoulder more than proud/content ; the squint, pupils being situated towards the bottom of the eye and 'eyebrows' directly over the eyes contribute to this impression.

The perspective is still a little wonky. I'd move the eyes closer together, snout up and nudge the jaw right as well as give him a full doggy mouth; you've a strange anthropomorphic compromise currently.

there's still room for the greyhound-whupping concept if you were to zoom in.   

[pgil]

better?

[API-Beast]

The dark shades at the right eye distract.

[Facet]

Definitely 

Light-source is a little ill-defined, pillow-y; mostly seems like straight top but snout & head casts no shadow and I'd put the shadow to define the eye-socket above the eye instead of below it where presumably it should be well lit.

Pupils are now cat-like slits; dogs are circular and in general bigger, dilated pupils are more appropriate for lovable/happy

Finish is quite noisy; some stray pixels, chunks here that don't define much.

[pgil]

Fixed the pupils, and made a few changes to the lighting.  Also flipped the image, and noticed one side of his head looked bigger than the other, so i tried to even that out a little.  Does that help?

[Facet]

Hell yes! much better

Minor structural things; some more shadows in the ears, a slightly bigger nose; blended a little on the top of the muzzel would be nice.

There's some clean-up you could and should do in terms of going over all your shapes and refining if you want to make it the best it could be, but holistically it's come a long way and this is the proverbial shit. (I should clarify; it's real good )

[pgil]

I think this is about as far as I'll go with this one... It's... definitely an improvement over the first version I posted   

I'll probably post some other cards later today.

Thanks for all your help, Facet