The Devil's Broker

[Perihelion]

Working on tattoo design.

It's not bad, but I kind of want a more iconic character for the contract seal, something like the eye in this tattoo I did for my other project:

Spoiler

I don't have any ideas, though. Basically, that symbol means something like "both parties to this contract agree to adhere to the proceeding terms (written on the arm), so let them be enforced." The supposed patron deity that enforces the contracts is associated with justice, so I went for scales + some butchery of the astrological symbol for Jupiter, which is the governing planet of their particular brand of magic. Not sure I like it, though. I think whatever symbol I pick is going to need to be bigger and more iconic. I'm taking suggestions if anyone has ideas for an icon that can represent justice or contract enforcement or binding agreements or whatever.

I've also been procrastinating on this because the materials on the boats are going to be annoying to set up.

 

[Perihelion]

In other news, I have a title, I think. The Devil's Broker. I'm not super thrilled with it, but it comes time for me to have my UI done, so I have to settle on a title, and I don't think I'm going to do better than that. Unfortunately it doesn't convey what the story is about very well, but it captures the right mood and is sort of catchy, so two out of three isn't awful, I guess. What do you guys think?

 

[Perihelion]

Updated thread with new title. Tonight I wrote up a document for the UI artist, so hopefully the ball will get rolling on that soon. I also revised this:

I think I should probably start thinking about a third draft of the story this week. The sooner I get it finalized, the better.

 

[Perihelion]

Finally got around to finishing this.

 

[Perihelion]

Need one on the boat. Ugh, the geometry of this is terrible, so I'll have to fix it. And the rest of the materials. Trying to find a good composition for the shot now.

Not sure I like it, but I'm having a tough time finding an angle that looks good for some reason.

Edit: Deleted some stuff so I could pull the camera back more. I spent a long time fiddling with it and somehow ended up with almost exactly the same shot, so I'm gonna call it good and start fixing the geometry.

 

[Perihelion]

I did this, but I don't like it. I think I'm gonna redo it.

:I I'm not sure why it looks so bad aside from the lifeboat looking awful. A few other things are suspect, like that axe, which I'll probably delete. I feel like the geometry is too simple, particularly around the base of the mast. I want to add stuff but am not sure what. A ship should have coils of rope and whatnot, but I'm gonna have a tough time finding them unless I want to model them, which I don't really.


Hmmm. Upon reflection, I think I'm going to delete the smaller boats and the axe and find some other stuff to put on the deck. The base of the mast looks bad too, so I'll need to figure out what to do about it. This will mean redoing the pier to match, but life sucks, I guess. :/

 

[Xhukari]

I actually really like it; though I am less sure about the boat on the right and I agree about that axe - feels kind of out of place.

 

[Injury]

Use actual fire ax, where is the fire extinguisher and how some life preservers/ life rings or whatever they are. Also, where are the lights? Some solid piles of ropes or something like that would make things look more interesting I suppose.

 

[Perihelion]

Yeah, real boats are a lot more cluttered. I couldn't find any decent models of coils of rope, but I suppose I could be bothered to make them myself. I'd like to put more stuff around the base of the mast to hide its unattractiveness, or maybe I'll just remodel it from scratch if I can find a good ref. There are actually some life preservers already, but they're hiding behind the small boats. So you'll be able to see them once I remove the boats. As for lights, I think those things on the mast that I erroneously made black are supposed to be lights. I should probably fix those.

Spoiler: mast for my reference

So what I'm getting from this is lots of rope. I'm not really sure how applicable that is when you don't have sails, though... This one looks like a sailboat. I don't even know what the point of those mast things is on boats without sails.

Spoiler: boat decks

[/img]

Also maybe, erm, buckets and crates and things... And mysterious orange barrels? A better axe model (that one just happened to come with the ship) and a fire extinguisher also aren't bad ideas.

There are some perfectly nice rope coils on Turbosquid, but they're like $20. Screw that. Found a couple of free ones, but not quite what I want. Dropping them here so I can get them later when I get home.
https://www.yobi3d.com/v/q7ntwKO3Jj/rop ... ope%20coil
https://www.yobi3d.com/v/7HWgiKlGW1/LCA ... ope%20coil

And some other stuff:
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model. ... 2035a4c07b
http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=2b534764
http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=90c133fa
http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=e2a16318

 

[Injury]

I'd say a lot of it wouldn't be a problem if you used the boats you say you referenced. Those boats are more like trollers or skimmers that are more short-ranged. Your boat looks like a small research vessel or small fishing boat by comparison I guess...

Either way, the art is amazing as always! Keep it up!

 

[Perihelion]

Okay, I deleted the crappy boats and added a bunch of stuff to it.

Better, but it still needs more somehow. Maybe better materials will help. I should find a nice paint material for the white. The mast is still dumb as hell, but now that it's more covered up, it's not as big an issue as it was. I might remodel it anyway, but we'll see.

Edit:

I think the texture is an improvement, although I need to fix the obvious tiling issue with it.

 

[Perihelion]

 

[Xhukari]

And that is literally amazing! You produce some great work; that angle change really worked well.

 

[Perihelion]

Thanks! Yeah, I think it's a big improvement over the original. Still not my best one, but at least it's not below par anymore.

 

[Perihelion]

I guess I'm back at the car background again.

I'm not sure how I'm going to make this one look good. The composition is basically set because it's the only way the portraits won't look incredibly bizarre over it, but it's a boring angle that skips the most interesting part of the car (the wheel/dashboard). I've been relying on complex geometry and/or textures to make the backgrounds look good, but I don't really see how there's going to be room for that here. :S I can make the interior not monochrome, at least, but anything too fancy is going to look strange and unrealistic.

I'm thinking I'm gonna do a light color scheme so I can get more colors in, at least. Maybe beige?

Spoiler

 

[Xilef]

I definitely think a light colour scheme would work best.

As for improvements, maybe try your angles trick again? Make the camera angle point from in front of the driver or passenger seat?

 

[Perihelion]

Well, the issue is the portraits need to look like they're sitting in the seats. The protagonist has a portrait, so it can't be from her perspective or anything. I don't think I have a choice about the camera angle.

 

[Xhukari]

Would it be possible to have a some graphics in front of the characters? So you could have a similar background, then the characters, then a 'past the windscreen' graphic, where the can see back of the steering wheel, the rearview mirror, perhaps a shine on the windscreen from the light source. Maybe an air freshener having from the rearview? I don't know how feasible this would be though.

The beige colour is a good route to go either way.

 

[Perihelion]

Yeah, I could try that. The more of them I can cover up, the less awkward it'll look, probably. Since the portraits are in 3/4 view, it's going to be strange regardless, so I guess I just have to make the best of it.

Maybe I can put some stuff in the back seat, I dunno. Like, er, the protagonist's briefcase.

 

[Perihelion]

errrr yeah the front-facing view looks too stupid with sprites in it

I've been trying to figure out a good camera angle, but no matter what I do, the sprites look weird in it. How terrible is this?

(lol neither of those characters is even in this scene)