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[celestis]

Another spriting attempt. Support cruiser:

Feedback will be appreciated

[HELMUT]

Celestis, in all honesty, i was a bit underwhelmed by your previous sprite. This one however is gorgeous! I love everything about it. How did you do it? Hand-drawn? Kitbash? 3D?

Also, seeing Thule's kitbashing from other stuffs motivated me to try some experimentation.



Lighting is completely off but whatever.

Edit : half-baked attempt at fixing it, meh.

[celestis]

Thanks for feedback, HELMUT!
This is not kitbash or 3d, just a 'hand'-drawing. With a graphics tablet, though. Seems I'm getting better with it, because I didn't like my previous ship either...

[Thule]

@Celestis
Quite impressive. I really like all the details and the asymetry.
Your first sprite was not readable imo, this however is quite the opposite, i hope there's coming more

Here's the finished Grimnebulin.

[xenoargh]

@Thule:  That's pretty nice!  I'd like to see a few areas pop a bit better (some edges have lighting that's a little odd, a few minor things) but it's a very very cool design overall and I like the brooding palette

@Celestis:  That's very pretty and I like the overall design a lot

Critique:

Spoiler

1.  The mass feels very slightly unbalanced.  Moving one of the engines just a bit lower to counter-balance the asymmetry of the front might really help bring it together.  It probably doesn't need to move more than 2-3 pixels, so it shouldn't be too hard to fix up afterwards.
2.  I see a few places where working on the lighting a bit more might bring out the forms better, mainly panel lines and high edges.
3.  Minor:  there are a lot of lights... which is cool and works on this, because it feels nice and big.  For the most part, they're placed very sensibly and look great.  A few, due to their colors, could be white / off-whites and be more effective.  IRL, green / red / Safety Yellow is used for specific purposes on aircraft, ships, etc., so that stands out to me.

[close]

@HELMUT:

Yay, greeble-sausage-robot-surprise!   Fixing that lighting would be way too much like work, lol.  I like it

[HELMUT]

The Grimnebulin is very cool, feel a bit like your old punk junkers ships. There's some normal turret mounts among the old-tech ones, is it intended? I hope you'll also find some use for the old rainbow version, it was quite unique.

However i'm slightly offended by that triple Hermes bridge thing. C'mon Thule, tell me you just forgot this part !

[Thule]

However i'm slightly offended by that triple Hermes bridge thing. C'mon Thule, tell me you just forgot this part !

Yeah...DAMN, you're good
At first it was a placeholder, and down the line i guess i kind of ignored it somehow.
You have an idea? show me ;P

[Lind]

Need more feedback on this. It somewhat lacks colour variety, but then again, steampunk, ya' know.

Was think of adding sails on the back, or two medium hardpoints on the sides.



Edit: Didn't mention, the grids on the sides blow smoke in game.

[xenoargh]

Steampunk can mix up some color- black with shine and wrought-iron, coppers and gaudy enamels  

That said, hrmm... ideas: 

Spoiler

Jules Verne touches, like some vanes?

Shiplike details, like deliberate ports, rather than tiny windows?  It won't feel SS scale at that point, though; windows are a critical scale reference.

Go full-on Modern Steampunk and reference anime within the style, with some biological touches, like making the "sails" with metal feathers?  It's hard to pull off without ruining it stylistically, but looks cool when it works.

Build a nifty cannon, slightly Orky in feel, mounted spinally or slightly offset? 

Some more obvious functional parts, like some steam tanks, gearing, pistons, old-fashioned vacuum-tube lights with big filaments?

Basically, if you're going for Steampunk, the key is not color so much as functional assets arranged in a pleasing way, with some touches of Victorian filigree here and there; mechanical design that is deliberately Bespoke, rather than the Modern emphasis on making things look very clean and functional

[close]

[HELMUT]

@Thule, hmm, maybe borrowing the Venture bridge just like for the old version? Something like this? Because of the hardpoint on top of it, the bridge should be fairly long to appear even with a weapon on top of it. This is what i did but i probably should have thought a bit more the thing. Perhaps an asymmetrical bridge like the Hound?



@Lind, as Xeno said, a bit more colors would be welcome. Brown/gold/red and even green are colors that usually works fairly well with the Steampunk style. Oh and +1 for the victorian filigree thing. I did this for a couple of ships back then to give them some more "bling", it's fairly easy to do.



Here's my (very quick) attempt. If i had read xeno's post earlier, i would have tried to add some gold filigree on the rear plates.

[Lind]

Steampunk can mix up some color- black with shine and wrought-iron, coppers and gaudy enamels  

That said, hrmm... ideas: 

Spoiler

Jules Verne touches, like some vanes?

Shiplike details, like deliberate ports, rather than tiny windows?  It won't feel SS scale at that point, though; windows are a critical scale reference.

Go full-on Modern Steampunk and reference anime within the style, with some biological touches, like making the "sails" with metal feathers?  It's hard to pull off without ruining it stylistically, but looks cool when it works.

Build a nifty cannon, slightly Orky in feel, mounted spinally or slightly offset? 

Some more obvious functional parts, like some steam tanks, gearing, pistons, old-fashioned vacuum-tube lights with big filaments?

Basically, if you're going for Steampunk, the key is not color so much as functional assets arranged in a pleasing way, with some touches of Victorian filigree here and there; mechanical design that is deliberately Bespoke, rather than the Modern emphasis on making things look very clean and functional

[close]

That's some great feedback as usual xeno, thanks a lot. You gave me some pretty neat ideas to work with. I especially like the biological reference, it's true, steampunk machines are often animal/insect shaped, perhaps adding more greyish and golden metals will do the trick colour wise.
Then again, it's gonna be an hard game on frigates, given how little space I can work with, probably cruisers and destroyers will work much better.

@Lind, as Xeno said, a bit more colors would be welcome. Brown/gold/red and even green are colors that usually works fairly well with the Steampunk style. Oh and +1 for the victorian filigree thing. I did this for a couple of ships back then to give them some more "bling", it's fairly easy to do.



Here's my (very quick) attempt. If i had read xeno's post earlier, i would have tried to add some gold filigree on the rear plates.

I like what you did with the gold, it sure adds something, visually speaking. I'm 100% adding golden details from now on.

 Gotta say I'm not so keen on the red on the back section tho, but then again that's meant to be a sketch, so I see what you're trying to tell me. Perhaps I can add some reddish copper greebling, after all steampunk is basically all about showing what's under the hood.

Thanks a lot for the feedback once again!

On a side note, looking up steampunk stuff is helping a lot.

Edit: I just realyzed. This thing needs more weapons, it's gonna get obliterated as it is right now.

[Lcu]

@Lind, thanks for the criticism, it really helped a lot. 

Now time to move on to other projects.
BTW, i can't find any mounts on your steampunk ship, would be awesome to see some custom steampunk mounts on that.

[celestis]

Thanks for critique, @xenoargh, here are some attempts to fix the issues:

Applied more accent on some edges, added a new hull part on the right to compensate mass asymmetry (looks okay now, assuming weapons mounted on hardpoints). But I didn't quite understand the advice about the engine, moving doesn't seem to help...

@Thule, your ship looks awesome, that rust&scratches are so realistic!
But the small central hardpoint right above the bridge doesn't really fit there... In @HELMUT variant too. I would remove it, it doesn't seem to make a big difference for firepower. And I like @HELMUT idea about the asymmetrical bridge.

[Protonus]

Thanks for critique, @xenoargh, here are some attempts to fix the issues:

Applied more accent on some edges, added a new hull part on the right to compensate mass asymmetry (looks okay now, assuming weapons mounted on hardpoints). But I didn't quite understand the advice about the engine, moving doesn't seem to help...

I love it.

It has that nostalgic alien-theme scheme rolling inside my head, saying "Surrender, human. Or I will eat you" kind of afterthought.

[Lind]

@Lind, thanks for the criticism, it really helped a lot. 

Now time to move on to other projects.
BTW, i can't find any mounts on your steampunk ship, would be awesome to see some custom steampunk mounts on that.

Aaaaand something leads me to believe my weapon mounts aren't as obvious as I though.