Art Review: hb_art.zip & strahd.zip (by James Neal)
VIXENKITTY
Today, I am going to review two image files sent by James Neal. One is a art
preview pack for his upcoming (or maybe already released by now) "Hellbound"
planescape design. I'll talk more about this in the actual review. The second
is a picpack of screen caps from "Strahd's Posession" from SSI.
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hb_art.zip (by James Neal)
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Rating: 6 (of 10)
(1rst= 18, Intrst= 6, Use = 12, Clear= 6.5, Color= 6.5, Clean= 6.5, Mood=
6.5)
Type: Scan Conversions, Retouches
Content: 9 Small Pics, 1 Icon, 2 Backgrounds
Size: 62kb
Info File: Yes, very comprehensive
James Neal has long been a proponent of the Planescape setting for UA. This
preview pack contains new art for that setting and for his design "Hellbound:
The Blood War".
The single combat icon featured in this file is fantastic! I'm not sure
whether James created this icon from scratch or modified it, but it is a cool
looking one, to say the least. The two background images were decent. The Grey
Waste backdrop could have stood a bit more fleshing out of the grey skyline,
perhaps (I fiddled with it and got an interesting effect). The Mine backdrop
looks great at first, but when seen within UA and using the default cave
walls, the ceiling can seem a bit odd.
Had I rated the file on these three images alone, it would have garnered an
8.5!!!
Now, to the pics... When I first saw these images, I was tempted to not even
do a review of them. I thought they were terrible. But, then I began thinking.
They seemed to be in line to most of the planescape imagery I have seen in
various formats. So, I decided to go ahead and review them.
The images were very unclear and not too clean. They could have benefitted
from some judicious retouching. The clors were not clear or vibrant, but fit
the mood well. Speaking of mood, with the exception of one image
(p_tortur.pcx), all the pics had that same sketched appearence to them.
Consequently, I rated the file higher than had some of the images been clear
and crisp.
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Vix'sPicks: none
I am not familiar with the planescape setting and wasn't impressed with the
small pics at all. But, they do seem to fit what I have seen of Planescape and
all have the same type of appearence. I think I'll honestly leave a final word
on this pack up to your own opinions...or objective quaility of taste..
::wink::
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Strahd.zip (by Don McGraw)
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Rating: 7.5 (of 10)
(1rst= 20.5, Intrst= 7, Use = 14.5, Clear= 7.5, Color= 7.5, Clean= 7.5,
Mood= 8)
Type: Screen Captures
Content: 20 Small Pics, 5 Big Pics
Size: 150kb
Info File: No, credit of screen caps only
Ravenloft is a setting that many of us enjoy. Especially around our annual
Halloween Contest! :) James has done a wonderful job on capturing some good
images from SSI's "Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession".
As a whole, the images represented here were of very good quality. Four images
slightly pulled down the total rating, however. Perhaps, half a point,
possibly even less. The images were easily seen and the colors suited the
horror genre well. The mood was outstanding on these images, which is expected
from screen caps of a popular CRPG.
I did give James a whole half point added to the Useability slot to offset the
monor loss due to the four bad images. This worked well, because, when taken
as a whole, the image files will work wonders for any Ravenloft or horror
design. Taken seperately, they will be of great use, but less so than
together.
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Vix'sPicks: none
It was too hard to choose only a few images from this set as favorites. At
least half of them would have made the cut! :) Maybe two thirds....
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James has done an admirable job in creating two world realted image packs.
And, while I was not overly impressed with the Planescape one, I was very mch
so impressed with the Ravenloft images.
Both sets would work well with their respective genres. Ravenloft's more so
with general designing. Good job, James!
Vix
DPMMIII
In a message dated 98-01-06 07:10:46 EST, VIXEN...@AOL.COM writes:
<< Strahd.zip (by Don McGraw)>>
Hello All:
I know that this was just a typo, but I wanted to make sure that James got all
the credit. In her review of James' screen caps from "Strahd's Possession,"
Vix accidentally attributed his work to me. Whoops!
I had nothing to do with this series; all of the credit goes to James Neal.
Don McGraw
DPM...@aol.com
VIXENKITTY
>>> Strahd.zip (by Don McGraw)
Hello All:
I know that this was just a typo, but I wanted to make sure that James got all
the credit. In her review of James' screen caps from "Strahd's Possession,"
Vix accidentally attributed his work to me. Whoops!
I had nothing to do with this series; all of the credit goes to James Neal.
<<<
oops.. my mistake.. I use a template of my first review (Don's Elmore01-02) as
the basis for the other ones. I just mistakenly negelected to change Don to
James via my handy dandy reviewalator!
My apologies to James...
Vix
(Thanks for catching that Don!)
James Neal
> Today, I am going to review two image files sent by James Neal. One is a art
> preview pack for his upcoming (or maybe already released by now) "Hellbound"
> planescape design.
It is already uploaded and available...
> The single combat icon featured in this file is fantastic! I'm not sure
> whether James created this icon from scratch or modified it, but it is a cool
> looking one, to say the least.
I created the vargouille icon by cutting the head off the default medusa,
pasting it over Dika Wolf's giant bat icon, and then cleaning it up. It
was a little more work than that sounds like, but not much.
> The two background images were decent. The Grey
> Waste backdrop could have stood a bit more fleshing out of the grey skyline,
> perhaps (I fiddled with it and got an interesting effect).
Yeah, I played through Khin-Oin recently and realized that the Gray Waste
backdrop from there is better. I'm no artist, so when I get something I'm
working on to the point of being good enough to be usable, I just quit
while I'm ahead instead of fiddling with it to make it better.
> The Mine backdrop
> looks great at first, but when seen within UA and using the default cave
> walls, the ceiling can seem a bit odd.
Looks fine to me.
> The images were very unclear and not too clean. They could have benefitted
> from some judicious retouching. The clors were not clear or vibrant, but fit
I'm not very satisfied with the scans myself. Scans, for some reason,
just don't seem to come out right for me. Kind of ironic that the one
scan that came out well (p_tortur.pcx) is the one pic that near's
useless. (At least, until someone does a kocacrhon icon..)
Halfscan
>I'm not very satisfied with the scans myself. Scans, for some reason,
>just don't seem to come out right for me.
Don't beat yourself up over it... scanning art can be alot harder than it
sounds.
Paintings are the easiest stuff to work with, but the stuff the DiTerlizzi
does for Planescape is extremely difficult to get to look right. I've been
managing to get some good result from his stuff lately, but I have the
advantage of being able to work the image at 121x120, rather than 88x88..
which makes a big difference. Even at that, the images are taking me roughly
an additional 10-20 minutes each to get a point that I am satisfied (plus an
additional 5 minutes to convert the larger image to UA). As a result, I have
only 16 "finished" images in my Planescape set so far... where as if I had
been working from another authors works, I would have around 40.
Anyway, the point of the message was, the scans in the Blood "aren't that
bad, considereing..."
-Half
Charles White
Hello again,
I'd like to add a bit to the review of hb_art.zip. As a
devoted player and DM of Planescape, my opinions are a bit biased
but I thought they were pretty good. In fact, Tony DiTerlizzi is
by far my favorite artist. The sketchiness of the pics capture
the flavor and style of planescape like no other artist could
ever do. Unfortunately, Tony is no longer painting for PS, but
that doesn't belong on the list. But I guess, to each his/her
own.
Rasnil
--
The true voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new
landscapes, but in having new eyes.
-Myrddin Embrais.
James Neal
> I'd like to add a bit to the review of hb_art.zip. As a
> devoted player and DM of Planescape, my opinions are a bit biased
Glad to see you're still on the list...have you downloaded Hellbound yet?
> by far my favorite artist. The sketchiness of the pics capture
> the flavor and style of planescape like no other artist could
> ever do.
I just slogged through dozens of messages on this subject on the PS list,
so I'm well sick of it by now. It's kind of a moot point for UA purposes
anyway... pretty much, if you're going to scan PS art, you're going to
scan something by Tony. At least that means (at least, once a critical
mass of Tony pics has been scanned) that we'll be able to do mods with a
consistent visual style...
VIXENKITTY
Half replying to James:
>>> Anyway, the point of the message was, the scans in the Blood "aren't
that
bad, considereing..." <<<
No, they weren't... AS I stated... I think they capture the feel of the many
pieces of Planescape art I have seen, and they fit together nicely due to the
sketchy quaility they have.
Vix