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OrmIrian — When The Hero Dies
Published: 2014-01-28 03:46:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 1755; Favourites: 85; Downloads: 22
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Comments: 52
Thanks a lot, I'm so happy you like it!
I really tried to make this one as epic as possible - fighting colossi definitely goes into that category! ^^ I really want to train a bit further in atmospheric effects in future pictures (to get a better feeling of a "bigger" creature)
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It certainly does! you got the 'big creature' atmosphere already
you know what I also like? those little sand ridges XD sounds really stupid to get happy about, but I study things like that XD the ones found on beaches though, not in deserts, but it's close enough
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Well, that's great to hear, thanks!
No, I totally can understand that! 
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you are welcome!
hihi, great! people usually find me weird when I tell them I like sand 
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Wow, your art has become so fantastic since I saw it last.
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Thanks a lot! 
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Epic! 
I love the creature design, Image has a "Dark Souls" feel to it, speaking of, have you picked up DS2 yet?
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Thanks!
Actually wanted to give it a certain Dark Souls feel to it
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Oh, that's a shame about the wait for PC users, hopefully it will be less buggy as DS1?
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I think so. They said they made some mistakes with the first part (because they rushed to get it onto the PC), but they won't make them again. I think it also will be better since they developed the PC version since the beginning of Dark Souls 2.
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I guess PC versions have allot more technical issues to sort out?
Sucks that you have to wait so long, I better not spoil too much of the game for you,
I'm sure it's new issues won't out way the enjoyment of it, one thing I noticed about it is how
similar it is to Demon's souls, its difficulty, levelling and general layout is similar.
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Probably. They don't usually develop games for the PC, so it's understandable that this takes them a bit longer.. Still, I would have appreciated if they released the game on the same date for each console.
I hope so.
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Ooh I love the design :3 The sense of movement and the rendering are both awesome <3
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Thanks!
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Ha wow I know what you mean, dynamics are difficult, I always really struggle with them >: But you managed it perfectly here C:
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Haha, yeah
Could be the alternative title here
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a really impressing artwork to be honest.
Keep up the good work!
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Welcome back!
Thank you for making and sharing your work.
It is wonderful to see the new art you make.
I look forward to hopefully seeing more in the future.
*dramatic shift in tone*
There is more to art than just the technical details about how it is made, yet I feel like I'm always drawn to this aspect. The reason I say this is that this work does not need a critique not even regarding the technique, yet I would still like to offer one if you are still open to critique.
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Heh, yeah, I was missing for some time here- though I always showed up every day or so to see if something happened.. Sadly I hadn't much time nor energy to draw in the past year.
It's great to see you around here though
Well. Hmm.. I guess this picture have some flaws, especially the background/foreground (I just can't help it, I never want to spend much time there..)- but, if you feel like it you can give me a critique here. It's always very nice to hear other opinions and some improvement suggestions. I probably won't fix much in this picture though, unless it really bugs me
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Yeah, I guess it can be hard to appear active if no new art is being posted. At times I wish I could be more active. It is too easy for me to get depressed and end up feeling like a waste of effort, but I would rather believe there is no such thing as a waste of effort since effort itself is not a waste.
There is no need to fix anything in the painting, this is not my critique mind you, just that part of being an artist is knowing when to let go. Also, opinions are not necessarily all that valuable. It is useful to be getting them though, and is always best to just take what you like and leave the rest (well unless its the opinion of an art director you're working for). For personal work critiques may have little to no value. It all depends on how useful you think the critique is. I hope my critique ends up being useful.
(you don't mind if I do a paint over?)
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Yep, I know depressions as well- it's always quite hard to fight the source of it 
Well, I'm very eager to read and see what you have to say.
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Sorry about the delay.
I have the paint-over version here:
sta.sh/01h90wlso79s
The amount of detail put into this painting is terrific. It seems that even less important surfaces have some sort of hand drawn texture. It is even better that the textures don't interfere with painting as a whole, and mesh well with where they are placed.
As you can see from the paint-over the main things I thought could use improvement are related to composition.
Placing a rock between the hero and the creature broke the flow of the painting. The main point of conflict is between the two, and placing a rock there is enough to dissolve this connection.
The other major change was to remove the rock in the foreground. This rock was crowding scene, making the creature feel smaller and the scene more cramped. For establishing a fore, middle, and background it is unnecessary.
For minor changes I added more muscle to the creature to give it more of a dynamic feel as well as increase its apparent size.
I also rotated the sword so the knight is holding it awkwardly. This change has less to do with the realism of how the sword is held and more to do with directing the viewer's eye around the painting. The way it was drawn before following the creature's gaze would lead the viewer out of the scene, generally something that is better to avoid.
The design of the creature is very imaginative, and the concept of having a lone adventurer attempting to take on this Godzilla is cool. I can't imagine that he will last very long though.
I think the painting is great. I wanted to make that clear if I seem maybe a little too critical.
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Ah, this paint over is really, really awesome- especially the different approach for those rocks in the foreground. They really bugged me for some reason, but I couldn't tell why
I understand the point with the sword- though I feel like I should leave it like it is now- or maybe I have another idea how to solve this composition problem.
Thanks a lot for your very helpful critique here, it's definitely not too critical
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It is great to be able to help in some way. I'm happy you found the critique useful.
This will seem like an off-the-wall question, but do you like 4-X style games?
The reason I ask is that I'm in the middle of developing on right now.
The next thing to do is to add a framework for ships then test if colony ships work as intended.
I already have galaxies with planets that run basic economic cycles, but no AI just yet.
Once ships go in it will be time to consider adding an AI though.
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Yep, quite useful indeed
Hmm.. I like to play games like this from time to time, but I'm not the "super fan" of this genre. Really like the exploring part mostly.
Sounds very interesting though! I'm thinking of making my own game as well, what programming language / framework are you using? Is it 2D or 3D? How big will it be?
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It is 2D right now for simplicity during development. In fact everything is drawn with a circle with some text for names of suns and interface. The game environment is planned to be entirely 2d though I might choose to go with a 3d main map view using Away3D . I'm keeping the graphic loops separate from game loops so it will be easier to change graphic engines later. Since I'm using a web-based language (AS3) it should be fairly easy to get running on several devices. If because of language choice it is not efficient enough to run on a targeted device, then I guess I could try Java before other options since the two languages have nearly identical syntax.
Right now the size limit depends on the device it is running on. Technically, depending on the user's input setting, the game unit limit is the positive portion of a 64 bit float squared I think, it might actually be a 32 bit integer squared (I'd have to look again).
I'm starting to think it makes sense to start a twitter just to log development, so it does not feel like I'm just attacking this thing blind. For example, instead of adding colony ships like I thought would happen, I noticed that the main array, and all function that use the main array had to be change to accommodate more memory efficient ships, due to a mistake I made earlier.
I can understand why this type of is not as nice as other types. Micromanage to commit genocide really does not sound like a very appealing game concept. Maybe both of those aspects can be reduced or removed. I think it would also be fun to make a rpg platformer with multiple story lines depending on what the player chooses, but that for another time.
I'm curious what game you are thinking of making?
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So you basically use flash for your game? You probably will have some problems with mobile devices and as far as I know Macs as well- those don't really are supported by the Flash player anymore (really not sure about Macs though).
Ugh. Hah, yeah, I guess when you first start a game you have to go back and change very basic stuff more than once, because of some mistakes made
Well, the 4-X style games can be changed quite a bit to make it quite interesting to play indeed- A bit of RPG elements could be a very nice addition. Never wrong to mix some genres together, the result can be quite satisfactory sometime.
It's just an idea right now. We (my partner and me) planning to make an RPG game with a turn based fight system (something like in "Might and Magic", but somehow different and maybe a bit more dynamic to make it more appealing) and story system which have real consequences in the world.. a bit like in "The Witcher", where you can make a decision thinking you have done the right thing only to notice later that it was actually quite a mistake. I really want to have some sort of pet system in the game as well- summoning monster and being able to collect them- maybe even a breeding system to mix two kinds together to get something new?
We probably will be using Unity as a framework, depending how well you can implement your ideas there. Probably will be 2D, not 3D, because 3D is so much more difficult. Well, maybe I get the hang of it somehow. If the game will be 2D, it will be probably a bit like "Don't Starve" or "Bastion"- not a sidescroller, something from above.
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I've heard of unity before, but never really looked into it much before now. It seems interesting, reminds me a bit of how graphical objects in flash can have a class and associated script. In all honesty flash is not as appealing as it was a few years ago.
I don't use version control. My approach to coding has not changed much since I started as a teen. This is, I'm sure, a horrible way to handle something that can get a complicated as a game. I'm getting better about organization though. In my first program I tried to dump all of my code into as single class. Even more recent stuff like this had maybe 2 classes, it was simple though.
The game you plan on making sounds like a classic sort of design. Add I'm sure it will be fun. So will the pet system be sort of like owning a pokemon that instead battling alone joins you? A dynamic story system sounds interesting. It could have something like free the slaves only to have the slaves start their own slave empire, or eliminating a "monster" throws an entire ecosystem out of balance making it harder on everyone. Sounds like it interesting just to see what happens. I hope development goes well for you.
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I didn't work with it yet, but I heard some great things from it... and it's affordable, even if you buy the premium version and you can basically try it out for free first (free version, which has some limitations)
Yep, flash seems to fall off more and more...
Well, version control isn't really needed as long as work alone on the project
Yep, the monster would be like an assistant in the battle. But we still need to discuss how exactly the whole thing will work. Concept work (also for story and other stuff), is probably the most important part of a game.
Exactly something like this would be great. Where clear decisions turn out to be terrible ones and makes you think over your action twice.
Thanks! I also wish you best luck with your development! Will you advertise your game, once finished?
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I never did see the tetris game you worked on, though I did remember you talking about it. If you want or don't want to share it, that is fine. (It would be interesting to see)
As for the decision making aspect, it would have to be designed so that it does not frustrate the player too much. Unexpected is probably better than always positive or negative. In reality neutral would be the outcome of many choices, but because this is a game it is probably better to lean towards either positive or negative without clear distinction of how things will turnout.
I'm always considering advertising or if it would be better off to keep it as a personal project. I do know some business owners who are interested in the online market, but that don't know how to program themselves or anyone else that can program. I think they would be happy to invest in an app or game. I honestly don't know how I would feel about such a deal though.
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I have published it on my homepage ( trilobite.ch/programs ), you might need to download a certain visual studio library maybe.
Yes of course, frustration is never great at a game. It's always about finding the balance- and depends on your target audience.
Probably would be something completely different to work for someone else. I guess some advertisement never can hurt, you never know what sort of opportunities it might create
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I need to apologize for not responding for so long. I've not logged in for quite some time. Writing programs maybe what I enjoy doing from time to time as a hobby, but my degree is in Civil Engineer. To be exact I'm an EIT (engineer in training) for having taken and passed the FE as well as graduate from college.
It is something that I worked hard to get, and to not find a job in this area would be a waste. I need to keep on searching. I'm hoping to find something in Environmental Engineering since it is my favorite subject in the entire Civil Engineering field.
I tried out the game and it works very well, but as you said not very polished.
Anyways, if you need someone to provide feed back and test your game I would be will to do that.
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Sure, it's probably better to go for the job you got an education for- programming can be still your hobby. Probably it's better this way anyway, since working as a programmer can be quite different to be a hobby programmer.
Are you on the look out for a job then? If so, I wish you all the best for your search, hopefully you find something that fits you!
Thanks! Yeah, there were many things that could have been improved, but like you I decided that it works and spending more time probably was probably not really worth it.
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How is he able to defeat that thing?.
Yup, he dies lol
Love it!
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Glad you like it!
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Only question now is which one is the hero. We all expect it to be the human, but it isn't stated here.
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True- and this would make an awesome story..
Imagine this huge creature is the guardian of something really important and precious. The knight, not knowing about this, kills it and destroys the balance of his world, causing chaos and death.
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Is there a back story I should know about? Something like this is in the top 1% of what DA has, in terms of quality. Really. Most other things are kinda sketchy or monochrome. Or both. xD
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There isn't quite a real back story for this (yet), but your input just gave me some more ideas why they fight and how it might end. I might go a bit further here and maybe draw a sequel
Awww, thanks
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You know, I haven't really seen your art for a few years now, but this one was still instantly recognizable from the thumbnail in my messages.
Good job on this! I feel like you put a lot of emphasis on the creature's head - which is great, because that is very much where your eyes are drawn to first. I think it stands out so much because of all the white.
Definitely an impressive creature. I wouldn't want to be in that knight's shoes!
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Yeah, was a bit busy lately, so not that much time for art sadly 
Indeed- Actually I spend most of the time on the head of this creature and kind of rushed the rest of the picture- That's why I gave the knight a cape, didn't want to draw the whole armor 
Hehe, yeah, I don't really want to switch roles here neither
Btw- Nice to hear from you again. I'm sorry that I seem to disappear from time to time..
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Yes, a distinct style, as well as a distinct subject matter. I think the creatures you draw lend themselves to your style quite nicely.
I know how that is! Between school and work, I don't have much time for drawing myself, these days...
Well, in the end, your detail paid off, I guess. 
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I guess my creature are a part of my style as well
Yep, that's true..
I improved some parts of the picture (or so I hope)- mainly I tried to give the whole scene a bit more room and removed some of those lazy parts of the desert
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There is a level of awesome here that cannot be defined with words O-o
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