Hi,
I was wondering why are new cards looking so bad? They are lowering SE art standard with each expansion.
And, even more, why every card done by Shawn Kennedy looks like this?
Attachment 7218
Printable View
Hi,
I was wondering why are new cards looking so bad? They are lowering SE art standard with each expansion.
And, even more, why every card done by Shawn Kennedy looks like this?
Attachment 7218
Is that a new aldmor? Baby Aldmor!?
My guess would be that Wulven has lost a bit of money over the years. Card art is pretty expensive and unless you have a in-house artist to do all the cards, you're going to have to hire freelance artists which can be quite pricey. While an amateur artist is willing to draw a illustration starting at $50-150, the industry standard starting price is about $250 - $300 for a professional. Some professional artists will draw illustrations for $400 - $1000+ per card, which is about how much most MTG and Legend of the Cryptids artists get per card. You can hire a studio like Wulven did for a lot of the Dark Prophecies cards which will lower the cost per card a teeny bit, but it can still add up to tens thousands of dollars.
Art prices is a major factor as to why newer companies resort to crowdfunding for their card games. Also it is usually why you see only major companies (especially Japanese ones) creating them. They can afford it.
If you want the art to improve spend more money on Shadow Era.
*edit* This doesn't factor in the costs needed to pay the people who hosts the servers as well as costs of any employees of Wulven, among other costs. The employees would need a livable wage and Wulven is a relatively small company. It all adds up.
Honestly I think the arts are pretty good, but that's art for ya, subjective.
As for Prey Bird, I'd rather have a player making art and I think his style is pretty cool.
Only two cards bother me, 1) Spirit of devotion, makes anything look good compared to it and it's so ugly you almost feel bad for it. 2) Eternal Troll, they actually took a sticker from TG (or wherever ). And made it into a most annoying and ugly card. (Yes , I get the joke but it's so ugly and trolls aren't powerful why is this one reasonably powerful)
To make things feel worse, I actually offered my help not so long ago to Wulven team, because I was well aware of everything you just said, RandomGuy.
I never even got a reply
What kind of help were you offering? Doing artwork?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drow37
Quite interesting... I was just thinking how the quality of art in LL improved compared to SF... And i like the art of Eternal Troll, btw., fits the card perfectly.
I am really upset at the new art, now there is so many more great looking cards and fun mechanics I need more then 3 deck slots! please nerf all cards to have placeholder art and all be 0/1 with "if you sac this card, draw a card" so I can fill my hand with nothing to look at but vanilla 0/1's - otherwise give us more deck slots! yea slots
Does anyone want my help? My profile pic is an example of the exquisite & elegant artwork I'm capable of....
Though Shawn has his skill improved , some cards use his artworks made from very long ago , like the 2 homonculus allies. Personally I'm OK with him taking care of the artifact related card of the Aldmor ( although the tribe arts make no sense, one part is a puple medieval theme with horses and sword , the other has all the machinery stuff ) and Elemental allies , some abilities because he can get away with all the cool effects , armors .. Etc . But when it comes to human figure, the guy is not fit for it atm . Twilight Mariach looks extremely meh while she's supposed to be the leader of the tribe . People complained about Trias Digital artworks but they are better than Shawn when it comes to painting good looking human figures imo .
On the other hand , Wulven has been working with some professional artist from Vietnam since SF, so the price should be cheaper than normal . Personally I think they have done a great job , their Ravager and Wulven allies artwork look very good and detailed .
He did four Homunculus allies for this set and they were all brand new commissions.Quote:
Originally Posted by G.P
Yes, I wanted to contribute by doing art for some cards.
In my opinion, only several LL cards look decent. And the worst are done by Shawn.
On top of that, they look very familiar with each other and often are completely off theme
Really? The art for this set has been so far mostly excellent. And hey, at least they have artwork.
Aside from Olivet Fagin and Revertabrate, which those 2 he did have reference to draw, himself and Veles respectively, I find his Human form in terms of art lacks compared to some of his other works which are mainly monsters and non-human creatures or landscapes.
Yeah, Kaos Dark. His human characters and color palette bothers me the most
To be honest, I like his art, even the least good looking ones (like Unaxio bannerman) are kind of cool on it's own way! And that Avatar!? Awesome!
Hey, i think barenland gremlin was a beautiful peice of art, and I'm so disaapointed that he wasnt a card sleeve :( but at least twilight orific is. Shes definitely gonna be on some of my cards
This seems like a great opportunity to showcase your own work ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Drow37
im confused. my opinion is, that so far, this is probably the best looking set. i know its only a 1/3 of the set but i think it is pretty nice... except that Spirit of devotion crd... why oh why did you bring that back, ugh. you could of at least put it on the most useless card in the set intentionally.
I won't be satisfied til I can buy a playmat with that art!Quote:
Originally Posted by Caitlyn0
1st set had the best art! but the good/bad art ratio is better in LL so farQuote:
Originally Posted by Caitlyn0
I pretty much agree with you though
I think the overall art is not that bad. Way better that Yu-Gi-Oh and MTG.
yes i must agree that shawn can do good artwork but when it comes to human faces they are terrible. aldmor scavenger is so ugly for example. but when he does not need to draw the faces the art can be very nice like twilight avatar. so my tip is to not let him do artwork that has human or humanoid faces in them.
It's been AGES since one of these threads came about! I was wondering when a new one would come because they fill me with such excitement!
*grabs my pitchfork because I love a good witch hunt*
Anyways, many thanks to those in the community who have supported my work and many thanks to Kyle and Wulven for liking my work enough to use it in SE.
Drow, the work you posted in the OP is very good, but I think you need to work on your humans, they aren't showing enough detail. Also your colour palette could use some work, too much purple. Keep at it and maybe Wulven will have another artist to get work from! If you post some more art maybe I can give you some pointers. I am a professional artist after all.
G.P, Early on in the piece Gondo advised me that the Aldmor were meant to have a steampunk vibe to them. They should be masters of SE manipulation and have the technology to make it work, so that was the direction I took with my artwork. The more traditional fantasy styled Aldmor were selected after I had finished my allocation (you will note that all my Aldmor work was very tight thematically, right down to skin tone). But I have to ask, could you help me as to what I need to do to make my humans better? They've got two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, what more do you need?! I mean, I could add another head if you think that's what it'll take but I must admit, I've met very few people who have more than one.
I'll just end this post with this tidbit. No matter how bad my art is, it's still better than Spirit of Devotion.
Hahaaaa! +1 Birdy!
(Spirit, lol. Chuckle! :) )
haha :)
dont listen to them. really, overall, this set is the best we have gotten. (although, i do have a complaint about forgotten horror. did you have to use puke green???) :p
its true spirit of devotion is very bad. first i thought it was your art but after searching i found it is by the same artist who did alot of work for cotc. i am surprised it is the same artist who did amazing work like belladonna! maybe it was one of his earlier work before he learned to do better. but comparing your work to spirit of devotion is like saying at least im a better president than george bush. drawing good human faces is more than just including eyes nose and mouth. you can see some early work for cotc theres a big difference. but its ok you can still do other good art i think just not faces. not everyone can be good at everything.
mindy - I completely agree with everything you wrote
Hi Shawn,
I have worked on my "humans", thanks for advice, but so should you, really, since you're in this professionally.
Human pose, dynamics, movement in perspective, even anatomy - you fall short at these.
All your art seems very very flat as well. Work on your depth, start by separating your subjects from background, there are great tutorials on youtube for this.
This one is more for environment painters, but anything can help here - https://youtu.be/ayjbpopn5EI
Also it wouldn't hurt to bring out some stronger colors out, some contrast (especially if one of the stronger light sources is within FOV. Talking of which, add few more. 3 works great, not counting bounce light). Your art is overflown with midtones. You did good job on this with Unaxio Bannerman.
Here's some of my work. I know it is far from perfect - but I am well aware of that and I am not trying to protect it from (constructive more or less) criticism like a child
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0M...plTkIydlk/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0M...pJVWp5YVU/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0M...dORkE4WTQ/view
But hey, at least your sense of humor is outstandingQuote:
Originally Posted by Preybird
these are very nice. i like them alot and i think they are much better than most of the new art or even sf art. certainly much better than shawns. you show a wide range of techniques and styles. that second picture is really beautiful. why are you not doing work for wulven?
Thank you! Very glad you like them.Quote:
Originally Posted by mindy
I am quite young and still at the early stage of my career so I am trying to figure out which way to go in terms of style and technique.
I am not doing work for them because when I approached them they never replied.
A year ago, If I remember correctly, someone from their team redirected my email, or told me to do so, so it can get to the right person. I also sent pm to Kyle. Both returned silence
I think this thread may have started off on the wrong foot, and then it's got worse from there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drow37
If you genuinely have something useful you want to offer to Wulven, you can PM it to me. I'm clueless on art, other than knowing what I like, so maybe I could learn something.
If you want to help Shawn, then send your expert advice onto him direct. It'll be taken better there, I'm sure.
If you want to lead a constructive discussion about artwork in Shadow Era ... well then I think that's best left to other people.
Dam!! i just love your comments hahahahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Delay of Game
You have the OP ability of break all the tense ambient in any thread xD
Absoluuutely agree!! the arts are cool (most of them), i only have disapprove for Unaxio Squire, but Ravagers, Twilights, Homunculus, all of them looks greatQuote:
Originally Posted by tman507
Avatar and Orphic are just awesome arts for me.
You arts are rally nice, but like u sound a bit EGO... i will give u my feedback too for move your ego comes back to the earth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drow37
First, all your work is really good, this are just suggestions.
1) Be nice with other artists and respect the work of others =) the way how you give the feedback dont make your art better, but say a lot about your person.
2) The first image begins with an overview of incredible movement, but the background is very flat and ruins the effect of detail, like a job well begun but laziness gave you finish with the same quality that you started.
3) The second image is beautiful, but I do not feel it like the style of SE.
4) Really cool!! i like it a lot, even you gave me a idea for a new Hero with this...
Attachment 7220 (Is a joke i hope no one take this with drama xd)
If that comes out its gonna have to get nerfed XDQuote:
Originally Posted by Arcanes
i like it alot but ironically i think it needs a nerf. but since its restricted maybe its ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanes
how is it ironic you think it needs a nerf?
I think you're right, Gondorian. I apologize to anyone I offended here, I get carried away easily.
Arcanes, egoistic or not, I still think and support what I said with opening of this thread.
Shawn gave me some feedback so I though I should return the favor. That portrait I linked was for him to note that a couple of eyes and ears isn't always enough when painting a human.
About the wolf painting - you are right there, it does ruin the movement. At a time I thought some playing with contrast and blur will be enough, but it feels weird still. I am much worse at painting landscapes than characters and it is a great challenge every time
I'm going to agree with most of the people here and echo it, i really like some of shawns drawing, but also really dislike some of them as well, i think hes good at the non-human, but the human ones i'm not a fan of, creatures, artifacts,spells great, humans.. or wolfs with chest/abs. not my favorite.
keep up the good work shawn... just no more humans :P
I don't understand this "criticize-the-artists" concept. Let's be honest, 99.9% of us can only draw like this...
(*_*)
<) )/
/ \
....So, who are we to judge? :)
I can make a perfect circle with my hand... am i an artist now?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delay of Game
I can make perfect click and double-click with both my hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anonymos