Undersea (small game)

[Joseph]

I've started to work on some graphics for a game SodaHertz.net will be working on shortly.
The game, obviously called Undersea, will feature you being a skeleton of a pirate, walking around fighting off evil.  This platform game will consist of weapons, gold (set as the basic "coin"), pirate zombies, and possibly a few other things.  So far I have a basic setup of what it should look like:


Main character:

[Cure]

The background looks nice, however I'd prefer to see more intricate fish.  The main character seems a overly simplistic, I'm not quite sure what he's supposed to be.  At the moment he looks like Jack of "Nightmare Before Christmas" fame.  It's a little unreasonable and unsensible to ask viewers to have to change the colors of your piece in order to make it out, that should be your responsibility.

[Joseph]

the character is meant to be a skeleton...as I had already said.

its their own choice to change the color if they cannot see what it is.  it certainly isnt my fault their monitor settings are too dark or out of contrast according to my drawing.

[Cure]

My monitor in particular is just fine.  The image needs more contrast.

[Joseph]

ill just take it off...

[Willows]

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Bad reaction there, Joseph.
Don't retract your image just because... I don't even know why.
Just don't. You acheive nothing by taking down your images. Nobody can further help you if we can't see what there is to help.

Cure is probably right, as cure tends to be. Take his suggestion to heart, and see how it looks with more contrast. Show the edited version, whether you think it looks worse or not, and see what other people have to say about it. If everyone but you likes the new version, then take a look to see why you DON'T like it, and compromise a little. Chances are, if they (we) don't like it, many will share our sentiment.

Pirate Zombies are usually a good feature, but you should explain exactly why this pirate (evil) skeleton (undead, usually evil) is out FIGHTING evil, rather than joining in on it. I'd bet a pirate skeleton that surfaces and boards/mauls ships full of alive people would float better than this idea. Not that this idea is a bad 'un, just suggesting different things.

Yep. Get your images back up there. We're here to help, it's up to you to accept it.

[baccaman21]

I second that motion...

Joseph... A General rule within any creative medium is to be able to accept criticism gracefully.

At the end of the day it is subjective and everyone likes or dislikes different things. That's the nature of things.

Learning to accept differences of opinion is a tough but necessary lesson to learn, but learn it you must as you will never improve. People who are just starting out learning a skill who then open themselves to critisism must accept it.

We appreciate your frustration, as you must have spent time on this piece, only to have someone give it some minor criticism but to react in this way is immature and undermines your own abilities and potential to learn.

For you own sake, if you do feel you want to learn the art of pixels (or anything else for that matter) you must accept that sometimes your efforts (no matter how good YOU feel they are) MAY be knocked down. Learn from it and move on - otherwise you'll alienate yourself from your peers, never improve and never fit in within a group/team situation. (I've seen too many youngsters suffer this fate)

Take the positive out of what Cure said... the background does looks nice and the rest of his comments seemed fair and not at all harsh (I've seen a lot worse criticism around here taken in a better spririt) Your second post has you on the defensive and, to be honest, unreasonable in tone... To stand with you however you may be right that some peoples monitors make your image appear darker... but my monitor the image appears dark so perhaps your monitor may be at fault (bearing in mind that I'm a proffessional artist working in the games industry - as are a number of the users of this forum) to accuse us of needing to edit your image to see it is just plain rude when you consider we work on calibrated gear.

I'm sorry if you take offense at this but as I've said, accept the comments gracefully and if more of us on the board re-iterate that what Cure says then perhaps you may see that he was actually speaking sense.

Good luck Joseph, be brave, don't take it to heart and Keep on pushing.

Pete

[Joseph]

thanks for the advice but the reason I had taken it down because its so dark, and no matter what people say, there is no other way to keep the same idea with it without changing it.



obviously this may be a dark image, but it needs to be.  its way below the surface, where there is definatly little if no light, and he is behind gaint rocks causing a shadow to overlay him.  if its too dark, and you think I should add contrast, I wont, simply because it wouldnt make it the same image.  adding contrast would make it look away from the shadow, (some how in front of the rocks even though hes behind), possibly higher towards the surface, or a light directed ONLY on the squid.

I take criticism seriously but this image is either extremely hard to change without changing, or cant be changed at all.  if you can figure out a way to show it, I will certainly look and admire what you've created.  if it keeps the same image idea, ill fix mine up, if it doesnt, sorry for wasting your time.

with these theme, I was really thinking about canceling the entire project and possibly starting off with something cartoony and vibrant...but I havnt decided yet.

[AdamAtomic]

An image is ONLY light - especially when you're working digitally.  If you refuse to have a light source, then you will not have a pleasant or even viewable image.  Pop The Abyss into your DVD player sometime and look at the range of light they are able to work with underwater without sacrificing any believability!