Wow, I missed a lot since I last read this thread.

@Bvanevery: Kingdom of Loathing is not some pivotal example of how you don't need to change, or study real things to be a good artist: Kingdom of Loathing is an example of -functional- artwork. If someone wants to make artwork that prioritizes function over grace, they will do so without consulting a forum and asking how they can improve.

Being a good artist does not mean drawing realistically, it means having a large amount of tools at your disposal in order to create what you want, and it just so happens that studying real imagery improves your skillset a much greater deal than drawing cartoonishly or abstractly all your life because almost everything to some degree is rooted in that real imagery. You can practice for hours painting perfect cubes and perfect lines because you're a post-modernist, but then all you can do is paint lines and cubes, which I think you'd have to be pretty odd to find fulfilling.

What's the difference between these three artists?
1:
http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2010/261/1/1/my_pet_by_bloodynightmareangel-d2z0otd.jpg
http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2010/261/2/2/killer_by_bloodynightmareangel-d2z0o95.jpg

2:
http://reallifecomics.com/comics/2010/20100917_2532.png
http://reallifecomics.com/comics/2007/20070201_1803.png

3:
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/126/3/3/Thug_thulhu_by_mishinsilo.jpg
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs31/f/2008/211/f/9/Gore_and_the_octopus_by_mishinsilo.jpg


The first one is someone who hasn't gotten beyond the initial stage of learning to art, everything is a jumbled mass of symbols, "this is where the neck goes, and here's an eye, and here's one too".
The second is someone who's spent a decade drawing the same comic with minimal attempts to improve, those two links are 3 and a half years apart and look exactly the same.
The third is someone who's spent a great deal of time -learning-, and they can switch faultlessly between realistic, cartoony, et al.

If you'd rather be in the first two groups, then a versatile artist who can not only draw a great deal of things but also make them look pleasing to most people, then you're an outlier and trying to spread your opinion to other people is ultimately futile. You're so far out of the majority, such an outlier, that trying to convince others of your opinion will never work, atleast on the internet, Bvanevery.

Hi-res version feels cheaper to me. The straight lines and gradients used throughout the backgrounds are a lot more apparent.

It took this long for someone to make this topic?! With all the hype about it, I would have expected it before it even released.

There was one. Probably on a later page of the subforum, since it was made during the beta phase thinger.

I've been rather... videogame binging on the game so far. Invasion mode is a lot of fun. The game as a whole is fun.
I'm pretty bad with the powers so far, I can pretty much only do good with 'Sprint' and the Elite equivalent. I can't for the life of me figure out how to survive using Lockdown, which is painful since I love using the shotgun. Also, I figured out with sprint you can keep your speed up while switching to the shotty by jumping and letting go of the button, but I haven't been able to do it right very many times.

I haven't played Firefight outside of matchmaking, but the changes they made to it from ODST are, well, bad. It's lost all the elegance it had, less about efficient use of weapons (two-shotting Jackals with a precision weapon is very difficult, waves of enemies are a lot less predictable, etc.) and all the default modes have infinite lives. I also liked the graphic design of ODST better, too; another issue of elegance, I guess.

[quote author=//̙͓͚̯͓̯̥̰̪̻̟̖̝̤̊̑͂͌͑ͪͩ̊̑͂͌͑ͪͩ́̑ͅ&rdein/̑̃ͫ̽ͯ̓̽̽͛&# link=topic=14792.msg429553#msg429553 date=1284663430]
also: NES sprites aren't limited to 3 colors + transp. that rule applies to 8x8 or 8x16 pixels of a sprite, so you can have more than 3 colors in a sprite if you do some smart pixelating.
[/quote]
Technically they are, but anything larger than 8x16 requires multiple sprites anyway, so it's the same as stacking sprites.
The issue with having lots of stacked sprites is that there's a per-scanline limit. Something like 8 sprites per scanline or bad stuff happens?

Each day I'm feeling more and more lost in the world of TIGS.

Just avoid any posts by Phubans that aren't about GDC or TIGjams or anything, TG. Maybe the 'general' forum as a whole.

This goes way too deep. You gotta get out of there, Paul (Hubans, not Eres).

Hi, M77!
A bit of your offer is lost in translation.
What percentage of the profits goes to the artist and programmer? I'm assuming here they get paid an equal percentage as the rest of the team, for each release after the one they join the team on? That'd be about $80 for a $500 release?

Yes, Mob Wars person sued over Mafia Wars (it's mentioned in the article), and apparently they settled out of court for "high 7 figures" ...

Haha, if it's that high they probably got more than they'd make on their own.

You can tell he's a criminal from that curved mustache.

Totally thought he was a confederate soldier at first glance.

I think its fine to try to do a picture in someone else's style, it's a great way to develop your own. At school we had exercises painting in the style of Monet/Seurat etc, very handy ways to experiment.

Something to keep in mind is that if you're just imitating one persons style, you're going to inherit flaws from them (and exacerbate them (see: Progression of Anime art over the last 20 years)). This is especially true with stylized art, since usually by copying them you're skipping a fuckload of artistic learning by copying life and the masters of yore (Remember! Picasso, Van Gogh, et al, were classically trained painters).

That Tactics Ogre screenshot is gorgeous. Is that the PSX version?

why, [img=http://studioeres.com/immortal/]http://Immortal Defense[/img], of course.

irrelevant words

I really liked your page, mister Lurkerlaufman

Do you have a tablet? It's really hard to get smooth lines without one, unless you use the pen tool (or whatever the equivelant is in GIMP). It's also useful to work big, say 2-4x larger than you intend the finished thing to be. A lot of small problems that build up (including some sharp turns in lines) when working at your final resolution are eliminated when you shrink stuff down.

Click for vaguely sexual disturbing imagery

flicker flicker flicker flicker

80 minutes. Trying to speedpaint every day to get quicker at making art

I bet with this as my avatar people will think I'm Konjak or something

I didn't see the title screen before. It's excellent! <3
If you can keep two projects going at once, I'll be pretty jealous of your dedication

Sunage was a pretty awesome, innovative RTS, with absolutely gorgeous 2D art Too bad no one has ever fucking heard of it and the publisher flopped without ever promoting it. I don't think you can even buy it anymore .

/;D

Looked this up from the image title, the plot actually sounds interesting. Though that one picture pretty much dashes any hope of it being a good movie


P.S. As far as I know, the 'Dreamworks' face started with Disney's Aladdin