5 minutes each seems really impressive...

It takes me about 1 to 5 minutes just to design them at 100px, a couple of minutes to do a flat, not aliased silouhette (used for avoid transparency later) and 10 to 20 minutes to paint them... So, 15 to 25 minutes each, add one hour to reduce all and adjust.
All in all, probably more time than a pixelart approach

Hello,
I'm currently drawing some icons for my RPG work, and I was curious, since my approach is not the one of a pixelartist, but more of a draftsman, how much time a pixelartist needs to the same task with his workflow?
I know that I could never get tehe work done by pixelbuilding, while my results are what I want nevertheless; but how much time more or less would they take a pixelartist?

Let's say 100 icons (to make a more statistical base, because in my case some are a breeze, some are not) of rpg items, no matter the setting, 25 px maximum area.

Can you give me a figure of the time you would need?
Thank you!

I just wanted to say that I redesigned completely the interface' skin, retaining the idea at the base of the previous one, but keeping in mind your comments, and since I like the new one much more, thank you!

I'll share a screenshot as soon as I complete the items icons.

I'm waiting for the last update by Florian to take in serious accoount an early rebalance of the GUI contrast, taking in account that you guys have the same feeling about it; on one hand the skin has its own reason of being that way, and that in full screen it seems to me not disturbing, but on the other hand I value your input about it being invading one's attention.
Whatever I will do, I really care for it to be perfect for the purpose, so I thank you guys for the suggestions.

It occurred to me I had somewhere a new interface, one new wallset (those two, REALLY competing too much for attention between themselves... what was I thinking???) I did for EoB 1 and 60 character pics I did and that nobody was interested in fit in the actual game: for some reason people is interested in having the original game converted to every system, platform, new game expansion, but not in actually modding the fisrt one...
So I get what Eobet says about hole throughout which you saw a different world; but it's not what I'm trying to do with Aeon, I aim to something else, that, if we ever finish the game the way we want to, I hope it will be more clear than it is from our production screenshots

Hey!
Thank you for the comments there.
Well, there are reasons why I did what I did that way, that I have yet to see if, in the prosecution of the developing, still stand their ground.

Some are aesthetical and some are narrative: I stand behind them still, but I really need to see if they both work in-game when the content will be there to calibrate.

One of my purposes is coherence of the interface with the story, and that doesn't mean with what the party sees in the dungeonview
The thing about the contrast between hilights in the skin and the more darker palette ingame, is there for that reason, the two different levels of narrative, but yes: if at some point gets really distracting, I'll have to tone it down (I've already done that with other tests of the skin to be sure).

@eobet: what do you mean by standard photoshop shadow? I had to do all of that by hand and I hated every minute of it! :D
And "window manager" has quite a nice sound to it... I'm sorry: this is probably one of the decisions that some will like and some will hate.

@Miguelito: thanks for the commet on the portraits: the first two are only placeholders that Florian needed at the time, but the finished look is exactly like in the third one: not too refined: a bit cartoony, more drawn than painted.

I wanted to add, that it helps me not having the faintest idea of what the code here above means, it helps my conscience.
In the meantime, while Florian will implement the compass and arrow keys waiting for him to take care of them after they were in the work for a month, (you'll do it, right?), since I've updated my to-do list for up to the demo, the next item coming up is completing the logo (halfway through it), then adding some monster fun, and completing a basic item set!
Plus a thousand of other stuff not strictly related to the graphics...
This is slowly taking a shape I like!

Those stairs have no business looking that good.

Are you going to tone down the contrast on the deco background though? At the moment there's more light-dark variation around the game area than inside of it, it's probably just a tad distracting. (Nothing though that couldn't be fixed with just a few curve tweaks.)

Thanks!
Yep, I did, after I post that shots: they were as you say a bit distracting, for different reason: one haa too many highlights the other is to saturated; the current one fits very nicely imho, but You'll have to wait a bit to see it

And I'll have to tweak a bit the stairs too, because I don't like their current first step.

On my side of things, I'm hard at work on the interface, at the moment, and in articulating  some of the game dynamics.
In fact, at some point next to the current various bits of graphics it will be time for the logo and character generation, and the latter requires some detailed insight on how the story of the game will proceed.

Realistically though, I guess we'll not overthink the character generation before the demo, leaving some ample space of tweaking it when we'll got the time.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of candidates for the exploratory interface: there are compass rotations, animated direction keys and a whole hand drawn background; actually the bas-relief background I've drawn is roughly twice the size of what you see here, so that there will be no repetitions when I'll get to the other menu screens

My lips are sealed there.

One thing I can say about the portraits, though, is that the couple I made for the purpose of the demo are just placeholders, and that I'll make a reasonable number of them consistent with the whole game theme and with the interface skin. 

Excellent name, IMO.

Just out of interest, are you going to take the design into an Egyptian/Arabic direction, or will you come up with a new fantasy setting where knights were running around in the desert? Both seem really appealing to me.

Thanks Miguelito, the work behind the name, the concept and even the visual style, theme reccurrencies, etc, is the same process, and not completed until the last thematic design will be nailed graphically and agreed upon between we in production.
But the name is something that luckily we agreed kinda strongly upon.

I for one have a strong sense of what direction I would like to push it and how, in which tone and for instance, I've finished last week a rough intro for internal use and I'm this week proceeding to make actual concept artworks for stuff that while will not be seen inside the game, is part of the world as we are starting to conceive it.

But the actual script, aside some very interesting guidelines, as I perceive them, at least,  is, luckily for everybody involved and for the eventual player, not in my hands

That said, I hate knights: I know somebody loves them too.

I just wanted to say, great pixel working there, I love your animations!

Hello, I'm the internet-impaired person responsible for the graphic and design of Dungeonspace, plus the coherency and narrative obsessed guy writing long-winded emails to the coder.

I'm also the person unable to remember the name of the game or spell it right two times in a row, even after six months of being on board.
But that's not really a problem since the name will change soon.

I just registered under duress by the aforementioned coder and wanted to say hi; plus I wanted to thank you for the input, as I see a number of very good pointers in the posts in this thread.

Seriously, I'm tinkering with the idea of a game like this since ages, and more actively in the past year, so I'm happy to work with uh... SiENcE (by the way, why did you have to go and use a nickname so hard to type?) and Stefan on this.

While I promise not to post very often, I'll keep an eye on the thread!