Art Thread

Doyce T. said:
<clipping the whole story>

I have no idea what brought this whole story up, but I enjoyed it immensely while also questioning what the hell was going on.

Continuing work on the collage (probably the right word for this mess of imagery) and needed some ideas for a couple of things.  Thought some of you might like helping source some inspiration for things:

• Gardner Academy seems like at least a dress code (if not full on school uniforms) institution.  Any ideas?
• AEGIS Agents: strictly men in black or do they have a field uniform?
• Similar question for Quill Industries: Silicon Valley-style work casual attire or there some sort of branding involved?
• What's the school mascot for Halcyon High?  One of the incidental pieces of art in the main book has the Beacon wearing a school shirt with a robotic dinosaur logo on it, but I don't know if that fits our story well.

I feel like all the Halcyon High schools have variations on an animal theme or something (after rebranding from problematic indigenous tribe names in the 70s). Like they're all birds, or all big cats, or something? Thoughts?

AEGIS is a mix of MIBs and field agents dressed in hi-tech swat gear.

Alliteration is often key to such rebranding. So... The Halcyon High Hawks, and the Gardner... Gyrfalcons? That's nicely exotic. 

*** Dave H. said:

Alliteration is often key to such rebranding. So... The Halcyon High Hawks, and the Gardner... Gyrfalcons? That's nicely exotic. 

What I meant was, all the public High Schools (South, North, Central, West, Shoreline, et cetera) do the variations on a theme?  Gardner might be something... I mean, I want the mascot to be a Fox, obviously, but...

Or Griffins (Gryphons!) perhaps. 

Oh, Foxes, of course. Duh. 

Gardner Gryphons is actually pretty cool. :)  I don't need to take the Gardner Fox reference too far. :)

The schools had to change logos after a shapeshifting Silver Generation hero proved in court that they'd stolen their animal iconography. The old shirts are still around, and alumni or lucky younger students sell them to hipsters for mall money.

Doyce T. said:

Gardner Gryphons is actually pretty cool. :)  I don't need to take the Gardner Fox reference too far. :)

There was an intense debate among the student body over what spelling of the word to use, settled when Chevalier Blanc of Paris landed in the the center of the football field on his mount, and the mount, the gryphon Epimacus, whispered to the student body president how he spelled it.

What I meant was, all the public High Schools (South, North, Central, West, Shoreline, et cetera) do the variations on a theme?

I had forgotten the various version of the public high school (and don't recall which one "our" Halcyon High is). I'll leave that to the enrollees there.

Mike said:

Continuing work on the collage (probably the right word for this mess of imagery) and needed some ideas for a couple of things.  Thought some of you might like helping source some inspiration for things:

• Gardner Academy seems like at least a dress code (if not full on school uniforms) institution.  Any ideas?

With the challenges of "costumes" for the metas in the group (though it's considered declasse to wear them on campus unless they are specifically life-supporting, military, etc.) a dress code would be tricky. We'll say something nice -- collared shirts, no holes in the pants, skirts in the fingertips+3" range. There's probably a certain social pressure (and counter-pressure) within the student body about it.

• AEGIS Agents: strictly men in black or do they have a field uniform

    A compromise between the Men in Black and SHIELD: conservative suit-and-tie for normal activities, but standard battle togs for active security situations.

• Similar question for Quill Industries: Silicon Valley-style work casual attire or there some sort of branding involved?

    More disciplined than Silly Valley -- denim discouraged, collared shirts (again), managers wear ties but only when meeting with clients. There are a fair number of old-school engineering types that prefer the slacks+white short-sleeved dress shirt model, but they're mostly senior discipline leads, with the younger arrives preferring something a bit less NASA. There are a number of folk wearing Quill-branded clothes, but only because they are used for a number of internal promotions and prizes.

*** Dave H. said:

What I meant was, all the public High Schools (South, North, Central, West, Shoreline, et cetera) do the variations on a theme?

I had forgotten the various version of the public high school (and don't recall which one "our" Halcyon High is). I'll leave that to the enrollees there.

[I hate the way control-z acts on the forums.]

Leo and Adam are at Halcyon High South, though as we've mentioned that name is misleading; South is functionally 'central' these days, relative to the whole city. With the shoreline of the bay to the north, the only way to grow was the other directions, which has left HHSouth almost directly at the center of today's greater Halcyon City metropolitan area.

I did some digging for relevant pics for Pneuma/Numina from where I think Mike started. Here's 2B (short hair, band) and A2 (long hair), the white-haired gynoids of Nier: Automata, outside of their usual (and very distinctive) costumes.




And here's the two reasons why finding good pics are difficult (safe for work, aside from profanity): https://i.imgur.com/ygrm5jw.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/avzEfNz.jpg

I really like that first one especially.

I talked a couple times about Pneuma's future job choices, and "flying brick superhero" and "lawyer/politician for local issues" were two options. But there was a third one, a super-spy/infiltrator/secret agent type. Somebody's OC posted today looked very much like I pictured that. Links rather than inline image because the character is a little more grown up.

https://raikoart.deviantart.com/art/Tess-Concept-S...
https://raikoart.deviantart.com/art/OC-Tess-719680...
https://raikoart.deviantart.com/art/she-ll-take-yo...

And here's something for Concord:

Both are quite nice. 

Okay guys, time for something a little different.  Figured I would channel our collective creative talents into something.  And what exactly are we good at creatively?  Why graffiti'ing backgrounds, of course.

So I sketched out a picture (Standard disclaimer: This is early sketchy stages.  I'm still cleaning things up.) and since I was basing this on the cover of the Breakfast Club that there was a chalkboard in the background and that needed some standard chalkboard doodles and other crazy stuff written on it.

"But wait," I thought, "we do this all the time during the game.  I bet everyone would love for the opportunity to do something similar."

So, I present you with this.  Not really going to moderate this at all, I just ask not to get too bawdy and keep everything fun.  I'll check back in a couple of days and see what you guys come up with.

I love it! But why is Concord a brownie?

Yeah, I need to fix that.  Went too far with "he tiny."  He should be about a foot or so shorter than everyone else.  It doesn't help that he's next to Link "my power suit makes me huge."

This should be what I should be shooting for in comparison to Jason and Harry for Adam.

Been re-reading some of Kieron Gillen's Journey into Mystery issues featuring his Loki reborn as a kid. Very Mask-ish "Reformed" stuff as L'il Loki -- resurrected by and supported solely through his brother Thor -- tries to overcome the collective mistrust of all of Asgard (and, well, everyone else), while trying to take to heart Thor's dictum to do whatever it takes to do the right thing, with all the impulse control and ends-focused morality one might expect from Loki, esp. as he is advised by a magpie, Ikol, who is the consulting spirit of his previous life, is being called on to be a disavowed agent of the All-Mothers of Asgardia, and is accompanied by Leah, the handmaiden of Hela, and by a particularly vocal Hell-Hound.

It's poignant, hysterical, gripping, and laden with doom (it is clear from the get-go that things will eventually, inevitably, end poorly for Li'l Loki, despite his best and most earnest efforts. He could, in fact, be playing the "Doomed" playbook).

At some point, aged to teen years (or a version of him who actually killed the young one, but feels really guilty about it), he is part of Kieron Gillen's Young Avengers reboot, which is even more Masks-ish.

Triffic stuff, all around.

Something I always like seeing, so I figured I'd share.  Here is a quick gif progression of all 33 layers that make up the picture here.  Not quite a "how it's made" but definitely interesting to watch as the various bits build up to make the final image.

Obviously things changed at certain steps so it doesn't quite mesh up all the way, but that doesn't matter for the final product.
As always, click on the image to start the animation.

Very cool, Mike. I love this.

Started working on something.  Don't know if the final result will be good, but I like my drawing of Harry from it so much that I decided I was at least going to color and share that part.

Given his background and family, I feel like Harry would have the best stories.  Couldn't say if he'd tell them well though.  "Oh yeah, Atlantis is cool.  I went there once with my mom.  Mole men invaded.  That part sucked."

That looks really cool.  And I know I'm behind the curve on this but I figured out a reason for Mercury to have the jacket.  Because actually running with it and everything doesn't really work.  But when there isn't fighting but a need to be in costume, he wants to cover up a little.  Because "skin tight costumes wouldn't really be my first choice but that's what everyone else in the family wears and I guess it helps reduce some costume failures at super speed" but honestly no one really wants to be walking around in a skin tight outfit, especially not a teen.  The self confidence to pull that look off is a rare blessing.  And thus the jacket.

So here's an iteration on Charlotte's design and some design notes.

It probably needs an simplification pass, but I like it so far.  Definitely sells the "from another time" look of the character, though not exactly the "ghost" part.  Open to suggestions on that.

The dress is based on a vertiline gown that I found and loved the design of (you'll probably find it right away too if you Google vertiline gown).  Oddly enough, all that pillow-y fringe is actually oddly easy draw.  It's weird, draw it the way it's actually put together and it looks wrong.  Sketch some overlapping alternating convex/concave lines and attach them and it looks great.  Art is magic sometimes.

So as much I loved the idea of a skirt made of smoke... I could never get it to look right.  It was either overly complex and drew attention or it was just a shapeless blob and looked horrible.  Instead, we're going Morticia Addams here.  That's a maybe keep at this point.  It looks okay, it's easy to draw, and it fits the "undead" theme, but there might be a better idea out there still. 

The next thing that I wanted to work but just... didn't: transparency.  Just never looks with complex shapes behind her for the same reason the the smoke dress didn't.  Also makes some odd tangents if there's something behind her face.  A nice compromise is the glow effect (last in the tests), but I think I'll also wash out the black lines a little (probably the same color as her hair, but we'll see) so she looks out of place.  This is getting filled under "Still in Progress."

Finally, on a side note that affects all of the pictures I finally did myself a favor and made color pallets for all the characters.  Basically it's saving colors so that I don't have to go back to another picture and hope the original, pre-shaded/pre-highlights color is still there.  They're super simple to put together and I usually make them if I'm going to draw the same character a lot, but they're also time consuming (especially if you forget a color and have to re-order them) and I was thinking at the get-go "Oh, we'll probably play this game for a couple of months like the DW game.  I'll draw like one picture and won't even worry about how character designs work outside the one-off group picture."  Showed me, didn't we?

Showed me, didn't we?

For what it's worth, I deeply respect the art you've been putting together here, and the work and organization and creativity behind it. Thank you, sir.

I love the dress! I think that there needs to be a slightly different transition from the skirt to the puddle on the floor. Would changing her skin tone a more grey/white make her look more ghostly or just look wrong?

Thanks Dave.  I do this for me, but I do appreciate everyone's appreciation for the work.  It is fun for me, but it's also a lot of hours that go into it.

With that said, I made some changes to the glow/lines based on the previous ideas.  #2 is my favorite but, as always, I'm open to suggestions.

It's been a silly Friday evening, so I decided to throw together some memes (to go along with the Concern Jason).  If anyone has a suggestion for GG or Concord, I'm all ears.


This started out as just a silly picture of Mercury because silly pictures of Mercury and grew out from there.


Bill brought this up in game a while back and it just stuck with me.  Adding "Not Now Jason" just seemed fitting.

That gamut of emotions is about 60 seconds of Link's life when listening to Jason talk about Numina/Summer.

Okay, after that great set of images and Bill's excellent rejoinder, it would be churlish of me to note that it should be "You're be ridiculous".  So I won't.

Bill G. said:

That gamut of emotions is about 60 seconds of Link's life when listening to Jason talk about Numina/Summer.

Jason and Leo need to have a long talk, once the Strontium-90 dust settles. And not just because Jason has a huge favor to ask of Leo.

That Ghost Girl picture looks great for a bunch of reasons. I'd hoped Margie would respond and I'm glad she did, and I was thinking the same thing - going paler on the skin. I dunno if this is just me seeing this, but I want to talk about a couple others.

The first is the hair. One of my favorite anime is "Kimi ni Todoke", about a girl whose natural appearance and smile makes her look like one of those J-Horror long-haired ghosts, but when she's happy and relaxed can look completely different. See here, here, and here for examples. Aside from the eyes and mouth, you can see changes in the hair, going from a prim and controlled 'princess cut' to a more ragged and pointy look. This picture's hair looks like it can swing between those two poles as well.

The second is the dress itself, specifically the transition made at the waist. I'm pretty sure this wasn't intentional, but it comes off as almost like a maid's apron above the sash and a coat or outer layer below. I think it's because I'm seeing the frilly edges as attached to the outer garment below and the inner garment above, if that makes sense. The brooch offsets the maid look, signalling that this isn't actually a servant, but someone of the upper class. I was reminded of the Selina Kyle transition, where a few small changes move her from "staff" to "guest", and this picture makes me feel as though Ghost Girl could also effortlessly move between social contexts. She already comes off in play as having that determined confidence that she can hide behind a polite facade.

James H. said:

honestly no one really wants to be walking around in a skin tight outfit, especially not a teen.  The self confidence to pull that look off is a rare blessing.  And thus the jacket.

I belatedly realized that Harry must also see his parents tooling around in skintight spandex all the time...

*** Dave H. said:

Okay, after that great set of images and Bill's excellent rejoinder, it would be churlish of me to note that it should be "You're be ridiculous".  So I won't.

To be fair, it was Mike's typo of "being" to "be" that really made the meme sing in the first place, so I think he may be the one person who's allowed to get it wrong. :)

Doyce T. said:

To be fair, it was Mike's typo of "being" to "be" that really made the meme sing in the first place, so I think he may be the one person who's allowed to get it wrong. :)

Oh, I'd agree, but Legal, y'know, they're so unreasonable down there ...

Hey guys, figure it is time for an update.  Doyce had started uploading our sessions onto iTunes, so I decided to put together a nice logo for it.
Open that full size image.  That is the minimum size for iTunes podcast images.  Damn.  I hate working that big, but it looks great.

In case anyone is interested in some design decisions: Harry is front and center due to his iconic classic hero design.  Anyone else, you might not know what the podcast is about.  But you see Harry and your first thought is "oh, superheroes."  Same reason I put as many people flying as possible (including Pneuma, which is more of just an idea Bill brought up once rather than something in-game).

Finally, even though this is minimum size required, this isn't the smallest size it will be displayed at.  For something more accurate, see below.

I think it looks fantastic! I don't *think* Pneuma can fly (though I did screw that up a couple times, early-days), but I'll leave Bill to speak to that.

Call it future-proofing for if what's mentioned in this post ever comes to fruition.  If not, I could make some changes and go full Evolving Credits with it.  I sort of already planned for this with making the original PS file fairly modular.  Episode from before Numina showed up in the game?  Hide her layer on the image.

Nice! I'd forgotten about that!

Doyce T. said:

I think it looks fantastic! I don't *think* Pneuma can fly (though I did screw that up a couple times, early-days), but I'll leave Bill to speak to that.

It's ahead of where the story is now, but only slightly. I'll explain in another thread.

This might sound weird, but man am I happy the weekend is over so I can get back to work.  Of course, that work was rejiggering the title card so that it worked for Youtube.



Going to sound a little weird, but I like this one better than the square.  Because I know it isn't going to get shrunk as badly, I could play around with the layers a little more.

Doyce, I don't know if you have Photoshop (GiMP might work with the file too, not certain) but if you'd like the original file so that you can change the text around instead of waiting on me, I'll send it over to you in an email (you'll need ArmorPiercing 2.0 from Blambot, which luckily is licensed as free to small press creators and non-profit use).

I have Photoshop on at least one of my machines, so I can make it work. Thanks!

As I think I've mentioned at least once or twice on this thread (and probably a dozen times per conversation if you get me started talking about artwork in any function), I don't really think I'm a good artist.  I mostly just try to do a little better each time.  Honestly when I go back and look at any of my old artwork (basically anything I've deemed "complete") I cringe a little at all the little mistakes.  It's rarely "job well done" and more "ugh, at least it is done."

Today, however, I was inordinately proud of this tiny drawing, still bereft of any detailing.  Just the lineart and flat colors at the moment.  Not even the whole picture, just a tiny part. Hell, I even already see like three mistakes with it while I'm writing this.  Still proud though.  I'll leave you to ponder what I'm up to, but I think you'll all enjoy it (as long as I don't take three weeks to finish it).

I enjoy what I see so far :)  It's got a lot of subtlety to it. It's not just this bright garish costume, but something that feels three-dimensional and material.

Your art, Mike, is always a delight. I mean, it's not what I'd expect to see in a Marvel or DC comic, but it has a vivid charm to it, a clear thoughtfulness and trained crafting, that I'm deeply envious of. (And, take this for what it's worth, it makes me want to share my old gaming art with you in the hopes that you'll like it, too, because then I'll know it's any good.)

Is it all perfect? Of course not. Let me point you at Art Adams' (or Eric Larson's) feet, or John Byrne's female faces, or any backup comic book feature where the artist inevitably says, "I really like this splash I did, though I also did that hand over the guy's mouth, and that was really regrettable, but we move on."

Bottom line: Your art has enriched this game immensely. Thank you.

Because Pinterest is always a lovely rabbit hole. So a board for Alycia and Jason (not-Jonny) images. Mostly the former -- lots of guns, a fair amount of attitude. (And only one putative Alycia-and-Jason image.)