Art Needs Details

Batch 1: Humans

This is the big one. I’m not going to post the entire humans file here, but I’ll repost the “sample humans”. They are made up of multiple bits that I layer on top of each other- body, head, cloak, weapon, like that. Many of them have animations, but I am open to someone saying “I have a better idea.” In fact I’m open to a general redo on the humans- I have some dissatisfactions that I’ll discuss further with whoever tackles this section, and we’ll see what we want to do with it.

Additionally, I need seated animations for a couple of specific versions, facing each of the 4 cardinal directions.

(Unfortunately, in the website editor for squarespace, I cannot figure out how to place this image at its actual size, so the humans look a little muddier than they actually are. FYI.)

Batch 2: Missing Monsters

For the following monsters/creatures, I have art but no animation:

• Elder Dragon (this is a 2x2 monster, taking up 4 tiles total), Horse, Bull, Delver

For the following monsters/creatures, I need both the art and animation:

• Fire elemental, Water elemental, Earth elemental, Cow (can reskin the Bull), Animated Armor, Fire Lizard, Giant Spider, Tremendous Spider (can be a modified Giant Spider), Mimic (based on the Chest), Magma Spawn (reskin of Fire Lizard), Phantom (can be reskin of ghost), Ettin Sorcerer (can be based on Ettin), Giant, Specter, Earthen Tyrant (reskin of Delver), Liche, Reaper Lord (reskin of Reaper), Titan (possibly 2 tiles tall?), Sentinel (can be reskin of wisp), Illusion

Existing monsters have 5 frames of animation.

Batch 3: Missing Other Tiles

The following tiles animate:

• Flame Mountain (reddish reskin of mountain), Tower (flag animates), Daemonic Doorway (based on a doorway, but has glowing red eyes, only eyes animate), Spit, Whirlpool, Frozen Sunlight, Lit Torch, Glowing Coral, Fountain (I have some fountains, but I want a version that’s large and on the ground)

The following tiles are static:

• Titanic road, floor, wall, and doorway (the Titans were a precursor race that lived in the underworld long ago. I want unique looking larger-than-human-scale tiles for the outposts that can be found by players), Mirror with reflection (based on the mirror tile, just add a silhouette when someone stands in front), Lava Tube Floor, Lava, Pushable pile of rocks, Extinguished Campfire, Gaming Tables (3 tiles long, like the Table, but for a casino), Tombstone, Food on table, Sun Lens (a large lens held in a frame- think like the two lenses you make in Ultima VI), Alchemy lab, Crenelations (8 tiles, one for each facing), Lever/Switch (3 versions, each with 2 tiles, on/off), Laser Beam, Sandstone Wall (recolor of rough stone wall), Runes (suitable for placing as decoration on a wall- there are 5: Flames, Winds, Waves, Kings, Void), Platforms with Runes, Teleporter Platform, Panel with buttons, Crown Jewel Necklace, Damaged Book, Letter, Treasury Token (small brown wooden chit), Stolen Jewelry, Sheaf of Papers, Stone of Curses, Unlit Torch, Pier, Wooden Sign

Batch 4: Resize Tiles

One project that I am undertaking myself is adding outlines to some foreground tiles, including all creatures. Some creatures don’t have room in their tile for the outline, and so they need to be slightly redesigned to not take up all available space.

• Daemon, Imp, Gazer/Eye of Spite (same graphic reskinned), Giant Bat, Giant Squid, Cyclops, Giant Mantis, Hydra, King, Empty Hood (one of the heads for humans), Blonde head (one of the heads for humans), Brunette head (another head for humans)

(Whether the heads will need resizing in the end may depend on how Batch 1 goes. In fact, the resizing of those images will probably be handled as part of batch 1.)

Batch 5: Minor Edits

I am interested in the following minor edits to existing tiles:

• Grass: the way it tiles the tile borders are a little too obvious, so I’d like to see it touched up

• Brush: resize the bushes to be closer to the scale of the trees in the forest tiles, the different scales are jarring

• Coastal Brush: see above

• Rivers: Possibly make wider. This is a bigger ask than it looks, as there are a total of 87 river tiles in various directions and branchings.

• Diagonal coasts: this is a tile where, say, the northwest part is grass and the southeast part is water. These were made with a slight bulge, which looks good individually but the regular bumping when there are a bunch in a way doesn’t work.

As I playtest the game I expect I will come up with more- if, once you’re done working on whatever you work on, you think you might be up for being retained for occasional one-offs, let me know.

Batch 6: Replacement Tiles

If I don’t get this batch, life will go on. This is tiles with problems similar to the Batch 5 set, except I probably want the tile straight up replaced. Here’s a list (so far):

• Mountains. I just am not thrilled with how they look, but I’m not sure what’s a better option- the main problem is above the mountain it’s hard to put a suitable background. This worked better when all the terrain just had black. Possibly the solution is to make mountains like Ultima VI and later did it, as seen from above. This will mean replacing the mountain graphics with at least 9 variations in different facings.

• Hill. Hills are still a bit too bright, and easily mistaken for grass.

• Big ruby/enchanted ruby. The graphic is fine, but I had imagined it as seen from the side, in a more stereotypical view (point at the bottom, flat top); what I have is as seen from above. It’s serviceable but not what I envisioned.

• Water. I have several kinds of water (Ocean, Coast, Shallows, Stagnent), and I requested that they animate in a specific way that, once I implemented it in game, I realized didn’t actually look good in this art style. So I’d like to start over with my water and their animations. This is probably the most important of the optional replacements.

• Gold (three versions for different sized piles of gold). The gold coins are too wide and flat, in a way.

Batch 7: Transitions

When all terrain tiles have black backgrounds, you can put any two next to each other and it works fine. When they are fully colored, it becomes very stark that you’re working on a grid. Some tiles to transition from one to the next would be good. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about that doesn’t work as well as it did in the old art style:

Batch 8: UI Frame

This isn’t actually a batch, but replacing the silver game border above would be great.