C64 War Hammer

[Mathias]

No, not Warhammer scenes re-done in Commodore colors, just a war hammer, sorry. Now that you're thoroughly disappointed, scope out my wide-pixel Commodore 64 war hammer WIP.

This weapon is intended to be wielded by graphic designers, involved in game development projects, to crush and destroy pushy programmers that get in their way.

I'm going for the warm/cold opposite lighting technique. I admire the strange and interest-creating coloring techniques of the more advanced among you, but it doesn't come naturally to me, yet, I'm working on that here.

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[Helm]

Well this looks remarkably solid and weighty so far. I really don't have much critique at this point, I'd suggest just finishing the rendering more and then we'll see. The way you use flats for volumes will help a lot later on if you want to do a few discreet dither patterns here and there. Also don't be afraid of tinting little itty bits of the steel grey with the coupling colored shades, that's what they're there for. If your mind goes 'but... a grey hammer with a greenish tint in a corner... why?' supress the rationalism, you're doing art within a very confined 8-bit color schema, make the most of it.

[EvilEye]

Hey that' nice

Nice job on the metallic reflections so far.

You might have to bring the yellow highlight on the handle in a bit more. It looks thinner then the black shadow and this bothers me for some reason.

[ter-o]

Solid start! Rendering on the cylindral shapes are really nice. Now extend that rendering to the rest of the piece and this will rock.

Then a bit offtopic:

This weapon is intended to be wielded by graphic designers, involved in game development projects, to crush and destroy pushy programmers that get in their way.

I suppose this was meant to be a joke but still I feel I can't just skip it, since it holds a lesson.

Many artist (I used to do that too, and occasionally still do) often think that programmers are reluctant to artist's ideas and they always say that "this and that can't be done because it's too much code blabla"... it's like they conspire against artists just to prevent them from realising wild ideas. My job as a team lead in a professional game development project has taught me one thing, if nothing else: everyone who is contributing to the project has a right to be heard, respected and treated equally. This includes those pushy programmers too. It's not just management's responsibility to look after the rights of all individuals but everyone on the team should in the (ideal world) to look after eachother's rights and look up to one another. That's how good games are made.

The point being, I think this in an issue worth considering, what are my attitudes towards coders or some other group of individuals who are not so art-driven than I am? Do I sincerely believe that they could present good ideas too and listen to them with respect or are they here only to fulfill every deed I happen to come up with?

I present this to you with a wink, so take it with a grain of salt.
[/offtopic]

[Mathias]

I increased my efforts in color mixing for this, but still fell short of what I thought I wanted, Helm I appreciate the pointer! Does this revision meet your criteria at all? I need a lot more experience in this.
This anti-binary weapon is meant to appear very important and epic, a one-of-kind, like a weapon dropped by some level 800 dragon in an MMORPG so I decided to resist my default urge to add little nicks and dents and wear and tear, it has to look pristine; no damage or dirt.

-Numerous piddly edits
-Cleaned up rounded reflective metals
-Enlarged yellow handle highlight, decreased vertical black band dividing main and secondary light, which was a good and observative suggestion I thought, thanks Evil.
-Finally decided on something for the main hammer head part; went with a celtic design (major pain to set up!). Even had to slightly reproportion the hammer head to accomodate the stupid thing. I must accumulated about 50 layers just trying to figure out how to lat it out in the space I had - in the end the solution was simple, I was thinking too much.





Haha, ter-o. The hammer really is just kind of a practical joke. I work with two coders who are very "non-artistlike" and the obvious contrast between us is so obvious it's funny. But we can all laugh about it. I agree with you. A game dev team is, and should be, a diverse bunch. The trick is functioning as a unit, despite the personal differences. As for coders arbitrarily brutally aborting our precious brain-children, well I've had to learn over the years that some ideas are simply not worth the expense, that production is key. Development is a compromise between creativity and functionality. it's a tough one! I'm glad you picked up on my sort of concealed rant and brought it to light.

[blumunkee]

Awesome, but...

The Celtic pattern thing is too busy. Too many highlights next to bevels next to reflections next to shadows. Render it more as an exension of the centeral part than as a piece of its own.

[EvilEye]

I have one tiny critique.

The thorns ( don't know else what to call em ) that stick out toward you on the hammer, the top ones. The shadow on them is lighter then the others. I think I know why you did this, but I don't think it's correct. I don't think the shadow would be lighter because it is in a reflection. The light source should still be even over the whole surface.

Besides that I think it's done.

An excellent piece for your portfolio, and I like the celtic pattern

[Mathias]

Blumonkey, the celtic motif was a battle, if you feel like making a convincing edit I might be swayed, but right now I need to leave it alone. I know where you're comng from though, it's level of complexity is greater than most of the rest of it, this is somewhat out of balance. Hopefully the 2 energy swooshes make it less distracting . . . by being distracting themselves . . . hmmm, I may have focus issues now. I think the celtic patter remaining the focus, which I think still is, to be acceptable

Evileye, again I agree. I changed the shadows of the, lets call them studs, maybe spikes, to be lighter, on a whim, when I added beaming reflections, never really fully thinking it over. But you're right, I made 'em dark again.



-minor edits
-added energy ray thingies (go on easy on my AA, it's wide-pixel C64, painful!)

[Dusty]

Why the mixed resolutions?

[Souly]

I think his resolution is fine in most places some it's a bit iffy but I see his restriction which I believe is doing a 1x2 length pixel.
I don't see any single pixels so I don't see what you mean Dusty.