What's your background?

What's the importance of a background? Very much it seems. OK, I'm not art guru, I just want to note down a few observations (aka points).

A while ago, I posted a picture of Jaylisa in the sky with... not diamonds and although it wowed Joe, it didn't really do much for me. One of the main reasons was the clash between Jaylisa's green dress and the blue sky. Somehow it just didn't match for me. I finally redid the image with a background of trees and a foreground of grass and elicited this response from Joe:

"Wow Nov, this is amazing. You make me leap for joy. (I am leaping for joy). now I want to cry.
(I am crying now.) Tear,... cry,... sob. which cards is the background from."

That's a tad dramatic me thinks. Here are the images - pencils by Joe, colours with blue sky by me, final colours with trees and grass.



A quick glance will show that the eye is more drawn to the final image (with the trees and grass) because it's more pleasing to the eye and probably is soothing as well. So point number one: The background colour scheme is essential and in some cases is critical when trying to make a image look more attractive, eye-catching.

A while back as well, I did an image of a sword in a beam of light. I couldn't seem get the colouring right and at the end of the day, it just seemed very weird to me. Today as I was colouring Nazeri, I played with bands of colours for the background just for the fun of it so that I didn't have to show a blank white background and I realised why the sword didn't work for me.


Shown above is the sword on the left (pencils by Joe, colours by me) and the mid-way point coloured Nazeri on the right (pencils by Joe, colours by me). Notice any similarities between the two? Let's take the sword - the sword is pointing up, and the beam of light is pointing down. The eye gets confused as it tries to make out where to look. The image doesn't say - look at the sword, it seems instead to say - look post the edge of the image. That is why the sword fails for me.

Likewise with the Nazeri image, the horizontal bands of blue and white seems to beg the to look beyond the left and right side of the image, while Nazeri herself seems like an arrow pointing either to the top or to the bottom. In short, the eye does not know where to look and the effect of the image is lost.

So I went back and played with beam of lights and finally finished colouring Nazeri as shown below (pencils by Joe and me, colours by me):


What's different here? Well the horizontal bands are gone, and it's been replaced with a vertical band immediately behind Nazeri. The contrast of colours, with black on the side and white behind the magi draws the eye to the figure instead of away from the page. But what about the top and bottom? Well, lighting is always from the top, so it would seem natural to the eye, but it has to be stopped from leading the eye to the bottom of the page. That's where the rock shelf comes in. It stops the beam of light and brings the eye to focus on the magi instead. And that's point number two: Use the background colours and design to point to the object of the image. Try not to use it to lead the eye away to the edge of the image.

A less subtle reason of why Jaylisa in the sky didn't work so well was the fact that the sky background was too neutral, and instead it forced the eye to use the branch as a reference point which seems to also look weird in the sky. Now the forest setting did two things to the image - the background tree trunks and the foreground grass both pointed to the trunk and of course, the trunk doesn't look out of place in a field of grass in front of trees. So point number three: Make sure your background is suitable for the subject at hand. In other words, don't draw a background that would seem out of place with the subject.

So, what's your background on your image? How did you use it to enhance your image? Is it suitable or relevant? Does the colour scheme match with the object of the image? Does it direct the eye towards the centre of the image? A good background will do all of the above, and not stand out at the end of the day.

Ninja Style

I blogged a while ago about the Creature Card Maker, and invited bored people who wanted to play around with it to creature creatures that could be made into Custom cards. Well, to date, only one person has attempted to do such a thing and Frosty Ninja has posted all his creations on the Custom Card Forum.

There's quite a lot there to have a look at and when looking through the thread again, one can see his progress from the grainy webcam capture near the beginning of the thread to those neat screen captures that he has been doing as of late.



That was one of his Nar dogs. I thought the head was a bit lopsided though so I had to recreate it somewhat to make it less... I dunno, anatomically correct? It's



I might reuse that original Nar creature to create a Bograth Furok instead.

The other cards that caught my eye was his arderial fird:



It looks more like a fird though. So expanding on it a little bit and making sure the colour matches and everything...



It's been changed to Nar because the 2 creature slots in Arderial has been taken up in AoD.

And while making that though, I saw the Bograth wings and couldn't resist making a bograth fird as well...



And the reason for needing a bograth furok becomes clear!

There's still lots of parts and lots of things that can still be done with the creature card maker and I would still like to encourage people to have fun there. Post your creations on the custom card Fan Art page and who knows, it might end up as a custom card!

Wymitch

So I was playing around with the Creature Card Maker today in the hopes that I could make some creatures for Ancient of Days. Well, I did about half a dozen creatures - they are really easy to do once you get the hang of it. Here's one of them:


Cute furry cold fella isn't he. I like the fact that it has the furok's nose and fangs too. Well, naming things are a bit difficult, but I decided to call this creature Wymitch after Malovis who sadly has gone on to other things. Oh well. Guess his legacy will still live on.

Now, a creature like that though won't be able to go onto a card without a background. The CCM has some stock background but those are low quality and only the first 5 regions are available. So I would have to draw in backgrounds for every creature I'm making. Not so easy. The Wymitch is Nar though, and since it looks like a koala, I might as well make it a climbing creature... but what is there to climb in Nar? Staglatites of course.


Here's the deal to all prospective creature makers out there. Make a creature (not from the first 5 original regions and not Universal) and if I like it, I'll draw in a background and use the image on AoD. Creatures should be posted to the fan-art section of the custom card forum. Have fun!

The swamps just got faster

Saw this today and went wow! So I thought I'd share.





Swamp Hyren by Annette Burke (dartax's sister).

Evil Firagon aka Evilagon

Super Ryoga aka Nick Szankovics IM-ed me out of the blue today and was showing me his art. So I asked him to draw another Firagon since I really do like them. Here's just something for the fun of it:

Pencil Sketch (with a mouse on a computer)



Preliminary draft - I told him to change the sky to nighttime.



Final Image



Cool, huh?

Spit and Polish, Glue and sticky tape

Not really anything online related (except for gEngine in the background) but Doug's videos actually got me to make this:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Printed on a HP 2600n, glued to commons from the base set. Liriel is shown on the right of the screen for comparison purposes.

Hiding under a shell?

I did this yesterday actually, immediately after Spore Xyx, but didn't feel like posting it then. Well, it's only here so that I can show it off.



Art, including background, by myself, although having said that I did trace part of the shell from somewhere else. So that's 148 out of 150 cards for Exodus Flight. I feel a bit guilty getting cards done for EF when not all of TW has been added to gEngine. I'll get all TW cards added as soon as possible.

I also want to take the opportunity to point out that the final text for Double Jeopardy is available for comment. I hope everyone would support the promotion set by providing their comments there. I'm also waiting for Malovis to provide me the text for the Shapers. Those are the two things holding up the text for those cards being added to gEngine. Comments everyone can easily do, but as for the latter, only Mitch can provide it so bug him about it!

Remember I'm still on a hiatus and I think people are getting used to the idea that things are gonna move slower since I'm not dedicating every waking minute of my free time devoted to designing the cards. I did say the hiatus only covers EF and onwards, so there's still the following to do:

1. Add Naroom and Weave to gEngine.
2. Finalise the text of Double Jeopardy and add them to gEngine.
3. Hold a Double Jeopardy tournament to select the winner to design the Double Jeopardy card.

And than beyond that there's the following expansions (or promos):

1. Exodus Flight (150 cards)
2. A Cure for all Seasons (4 cards, Promo)
*. Second Chance Base (MRP of Base Set cards)
3. Ancient of Days (100 cards)
4. Ancient Enemy (?? cards, Promo)
*. Second Chance Awake (MRP of Awakening Set cards)
5. Fallen Hour (150 cards)
*. Second Chance DE (MRP of Dream's End Set cards)

* More info about Second Chance can be found on the forums under Second Chance.

When will I start Exodus Flight? That's a good question of which I don't have an answer. I'm on a hiatus though, so I doubt that it would be soon. People have come up to me to ask/beg/request/whatever about scripting text for a region... as I said when we were doing Twilight War, I'll only be recruiting people, and not the other way round. So I hope people won't be coming up to me asking to "help out" with a region.

What should someone do if they do want to "help out" by designing cards? Well, here's a list of the qualities that I'm looking for:

1. Active in the gEngine community. Well, this should be obvious, they show up and play games online on gEngine.
2. Takes part in card design contests. The card design constests are on the forum and they provide me with a good gauge of card design abilities.
3. Write up playtest reports. I find playtest reports interesting as it gives me insight to that person's mind regarding the type of cards he's (or she's) likely to script and produce. Playtest reports also allow me to gauge someone's skill with the game, particularly with combos.
4. Interact with others on the forums and/or blog. This has nothing to do with one's MND skill. It's just an indication for me to take into consideration if I think that person can work well with me, can take criticism, etc.

And just to end, I'm going to list the designers for TW, and if they don't turn me down, the same people will be designing the same regions for EF.

Bograth - Freigabe/Christoph
KT - BobbyDoc/Robert
Naroom - Dartax/Daniel
Nar - Malovis/Mitch
Orothe - Malovis/Mitch
Underneath - godofchoas/Tim

Is xyx?

I wasn't really happy when I posted in Dreams of Flying that there will be no Xyx for Exodus Flight. That of course got me working on overtime to ponder if I could sneak in a Xyx into the set. The sad thing though, was that other than Underneath, I've collected all the images for the creatures and I would loathe to replace any of the images with a Xyx.

So Underneath it had to be. But what is there in Underneath that is vapourous? Sulphurous smoke Xyx? Stench of Fungus Xyx? Mist of Darkness Xyx? Nope, nope and nope. Way too long for one and well, two and three as well. Dust Xyx sounds way to d'Resh and Stone Xyx just felt wrong. Mushroom Xyx? Heh, there's no way I'm going to be able to draw that and make it look cool. I just can't picture a group of mushroom flying around together. Crystal Xyx would be as weird - a bunch of crystals flying around looking like... what exactly? I have no idea...

So I went through the old cards. Tunnel Xyx? Hmm... nope. Glowing Xyx? Sounds way too Arderial. Giant Xyx? Again it's a bit Arderial. Spore Xyx. Hey, that might work. A group of sentient spores floating around like a cloud. Well, I'm not a great artist anyways, but I think the image below is good enough for Exodus Flight.


Art by Nov, background by Strom/Whyrl.

That's the 147 card out of 150 cards for the expansion. I'm on a hiatus though, so things are moving slowing with all things MND-related. But at the very least, there is a Xyx in every custom expansion that I've made.

Jore Cub

I got a surprise visit from the one-time Shadowsfall Promo artist Essence online yesterday. He was asking about a number of things and we chatted for a while. One of the things he asked for was a list of cards still requiring art. Since I'm on hiatus (sorta) and all that, there aren't that many cards that's still looking for art, but I did give him the list of cards in Exodus Flight that I have not yet done. Less than a day later, I got an image from him and well, here's the templated image. Enjoy.

Art by Essence.

The templated EF cards done so far can be found at Novelty's Custom Cards.

Chiseling away

OK, so EF is on hiatus. HIATUS.

hi·a·tus (h-ts)
n. pl. hi·a·tus·es or hiatus A gap or interruption in space, time, or continuity; a break

So why am I working on it still? That's a good question. I guess the only reason is that I hate to leave it unfinished. So I've been chipping away at it one card image a day, give or take a break every other day. It's rewarding at the end of the day to do it, although there's probably a million other things to do like:

1. Finalise Tainted Glimpses and make it tournament legal
2. Finish designing the Weave cards for Twilight War
3. Finalise Keeper's Quest and make it tournament legal
4. Add the remaining 11 regions of Twilight War to the engine
5. Script Double Jeopardy magi from the contest entries.
6. Introduce A Cure for all seasons on the Custom Card forums.

while maintaining the regular tournaments on gEngine, updating the website with news and content, answering questions on the forums, searching for news, etc.

Whew, I think I need a hiatus just by looking at that list...

Anyways, today my challenge was to take this piece of artwork by Jeffry Ransom:




and to update it in such a way to make it presentable as a custom card. Hmm...

Well, I'm too lazy to write too much (I need a hiatus!), but the end result is below:



Pencils by Jeffry Ransom, Colours by myself, background by Alison Strom/Whyrl. Comments welcomed!

RespondCreate

Sometimes boredom does pay off. I was web surfing earlier today, I started off with the links from this blog and somehow ended up on a site called RespondCreate which is mainly a design site (I think, I was just browsing/surfing). I liked the design elements on the site though, particularly the neo-Baravian influence.

One of the few things there that caught my eye was a marvelous picture of a blizzard ... or well, the picture of the countryside after a blizzard, in the sun. That prompted me to enquire if I can use the image as part of the background in the remaining Nar cards I'm (still) templating for TW and much to my surprise the owner of the image provided permission for it.

Here's the templated image ready for gEngine (sans text):

Art Credits:
Korul by Werner/Gillette/Holmberg
Background by Jon Ellenberger

I'm happy with the final image. And yeah, head over to RespondCreate too... you never know what it might inspire in you... and if you wish to hire someone with website graphic design skills, I think that site has a resume there too. Who knows what undiscovered talent is hidden there.

Invaders?

What if there were custom Invader cards... would they look something like this?

Both cards with art by Holmberg. Part of Zeelor's background is by yours truly.

eXodus Postscript

Jen Reed submitted one image after I finished with the card templating earlier. Anyways, here's her new image templated as a card. Yeah, I think this will make it into EF as well, but without the text.



Please keep in mind that all eXodus cards are designed for the RP and not the CCG. The RP is a completely different game with a different set of rules, and thus the cards are not compatible with the CCG.

Exodus Flight (EF) is the set of custom fan-made CCG cards based on the art and names of the eXodus cards, but the text will be rewritten so that they can be played with the CCG.

eXodus and Away

These are the last few images of the current batch of eXodus stuff. I'd say, there are some rather good images out of this batch and I did enjoy templating them.

Blitzkrieg (Jeffry Ransom) as usual monopolises the entire batch with his markers and pencil renditions of some of the artwork.




FlameRaven (Beth Zyglowicz) isn't far behind with her renditions of cuteness and power.




New artist Krosios (John Lytle) joins the fray with this freshman piece of instant turf. Great markers, no background.



And this last image is by Scar (Scott Montgomery) whose images aren't too often featured on custom cards.



Well, even with the 6 above, I'd say Balde Eebit and Ring of Power are a definate for EF. Osatch Balm is a maybe... and as for the rest, well, let's just say that they should be happy they made it into eXodus.

Under Mountain Dew eXodus

Working though another 5 cards for eXodus. Insiider can only take 5 images max as attachments, so I'm doing a max of 5 a day. Underneath and Paradwyn this time around. Nothing outstanding from the usual suspects though.

Let's start with Austin Gardner (WindRider) and another two of his tryter. When I saw the paradwyn one, I thought it was an Arderial or Orothe creature. I'd never would have guessed it was Paradwyn. The Rubble Tryter is nice, I just wish it was drawn a bit more 3D.




Beth Zyglowicz (FlameRaven) was complaining that I was distorting her images when I template them. Well, I retorted that if she had the proper dimensions, I wouldn't need to distort them. The Bisiwog seer below is a good case in point. The Drop-lens Goggles though is good.




And to finish it off, here's one of Jeffry Ransom's usual manual pencils and markers image. The background looks too plain, but I guess it works for a relic.



Heh, which one of these cards will make it into EF? I'm going to guess that only the goggles might have a chance, and even then that's a slim chance.

Wet Trees eXodus

Three more images for Naroom and Orothe, as I move though the list of images for eXodus. Blitz doesn't have an image represented here, which is interesting.

First off is an original FlameRaven. Beth Zyglowicz's image had to be distorted slightly to get it to fit the rectangle, but I don't think it looks too bad.


Jeffry suggested that this Whyrl image be used for Miraculous growth. I think it would look better as a magi, since it is one of Alison Strom's RP character.


Last but not least is an image by Austin Kestler (ssjhyren). It's mere colour pencils with no background originally, but it does show a lot of promise. I just gave it a quick simple background to make it look interesting.


So there you have it. Of the three, I guess only the Stagadan will make it into EF. I think the Whyrl image will be made into a magi in EF.

Icy Teeth Exodus

KT and Nar follows next and there are a few good cards mixed in with some great cards.

First off, Beth Zyglowicz's Onyx Ithaper is drawn with her new retro-60s Power Puff Girl style. I think she's really getting into her grove with this artistic style.



Here's Yora by Cody Shipman and coloured by Austin Gardner. This was the first image that Windy coloured that he didn't draw. I like the way the clouds turned out in the image.



Austin has his own creature with another one of this Tryters, complete with a Holmberg background. Hail Tryter!:



To round off the list, the following three are by Jeffry Ransom, with background images by Holmberg for the creatures and myself for the Relic. Note the colour pencils, but in all three cases, the colouring is of exceptional quality. It's a pity he doesn't colour with the computer.





I like the Ithapher, and the Weebo... I guess those are making it into EF, together with the Yora.