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Bucnasti posted:There's not enough demand for this kind of work for real professionals to turn down paying gigs. I've worked with quite a few mini sculptors in-house and freelance and not once did we get told "that's not sexy enough". 50 Foot Ant posted:It took about 10 tries before the publisher finally found someone that would do the figures like we wanted, and I threw a fit over the first round, since suddenly everyone was topless in the Zombie Apocalypse. I guess there's enough demand that ten different sculptors could afford to give someone the runaround when it came to the onerous task of "we'd like some miniatures, but without the ripped shirts and boobs on display if that's okay." Seriously, this doesn't sound like a problem that lies in the realm of "oh well you just need to give them better art direction because professionals will do it no question." Come on, ten tries to find someone who can sculpt non-cheesecake minis for the zombie apocalypse?
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Aug 16, 2013 05:49
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Kai Tave posted:I guess there's enough demand that ten different sculptors could afford to give someone the runaround when it came to the onerous task of "we'd like some miniatures, but without the ripped shirts and boobs on display if that's okay." Seriously, this doesn't sound like a problem that lies in the realm of "oh well you just need to give them better art direction because professionals will do it no question." Come on, ten tries to find someone who can sculpt non-cheesecake minis for the zombie apocalypse? 50 Foot Ant is known as a Teller of Tales, so you can take whatever he says with a grain of salt.
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Aug 16, 2013 06:05
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Triple-Kan posted:50 Foot Ant is known as a Teller of Tales, so you can take whatever he says with a grain of salt. Maybe, but with the way RPG illustrators are it's not that unbelievable a story.
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Aug 16, 2013 06:17
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I have definitely had that experience with artists. I don't know if it's true with sculptors but oh my it's true with a lot of RPG artists. It's why I increasingly look outside the RPG community for new artists or stick to the ones I usually work with.
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Aug 16, 2013 06:19
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2013 06:21
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Yeah, I don't know 50 Foot Ant's forum rep or whatever but I'm definitely not willing to discount it out of hand simply given the stories I've heard about TRPG art. Remember that story about the illustration in the 4E Primal Power sourcebook? "This lithe and athletic survivor is wearing HIDE ARMOR made from the gray, spiky plates of a macetail behemoth. Her skin is dark brown, and her curly black hair is kept short; on Earth, one would assume that she was from Africa. She has a simple, functional, and deadly-looking GREATAXE strapped over her back, and a coil of rope at her belt." What got sent back, and what did they wind up publishing?  Hey wow, that's spot on in every respect. And that's WotC, which is as professional as it comes in the land of elfgames.
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Aug 16, 2013 06:37
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Why did they roll with that anyway? I mean is there a reason not to sit the artist down and go "so here's what we asked for, and here's what you did. Can you guess the problem?" other than politeness?
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Aug 16, 2013 07:35
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Ettin posted:Why did they roll with that anyway? I mean is there a reason not to sit the artist down and go "so here's what we asked for, and here's what you did. Can you guess the problem?" other than politeness? Deadlines, I assume
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Aug 16, 2013 07:37
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Alternately, someone higher up the chain than the person who set down those directions either looked at the piece the artist turned in and said "actually I like this better" or saw the directions and went "nope, here's what you're actually going to do, we need a light-skinned woman with her tits on display or else we won't meet quota."
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Aug 16, 2013 07:40
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I've been discussing n' trying to help a KS project that the artists at my sister's tattoo shop might start up featuring some of the art that they've done but I'm not sure of the legality of something. I know it's basically a big no-no to try and set up a KS featuring your own take of someone's copyright material, such as all those Final Fantasy/Mario/etc. based projects you see out there. There's a lot of fantastic tattoos they've done of movie characters and such that I assume would fall into this category like this guy (who was done in 6 hours): I'm assuming pieces like this not only cannot be advertised as part of the kickstarter, they can't be included at all? They've got a large enough body of work to not include these kind of pieces, but it's a bit of a shame since they've done some great Munsters, Hellraiser, and other movie stuff. I've seen tattoo magazine's n' such that have had things like 'Alien from Aliens chest-bursting out' so I'm curious where and how that creative license line gets drawn (pardon the pun). thiswayliesmadness fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 07:49
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thiswayliesmadness posted:I've been discussing n' trying to help a KS project that the artists at my sister's tattoo shop might start up featuring some of the art that they've done but I'm not sure of the legality of something. I know it's basically a big no-no to try and set up a KS featuring your own take of someone's copyright material, such as all those Final Fantasy/Mario/etc. based projects you see out there. There's a lot of fantastic tattoos they've done of movie characters and such that I assume would fall into this category like this guy (who was done in 6 hours): I think if you make it VERY clear that the art shown is not part of the project, simply an example of her previous work, it would probably be okay. Especially if you explicitly source each work: "This is a tattoo of the boxart of Hellraiser," for instance. But, that is probably not a question to leave up to random forum-goers. I'd shoot the kickstarter folks an email and just ask them directly what their policy on that is.
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Aug 16, 2013 08:00
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Kai Tave posted:And that's WotC, which is as professional as it comes in the land of elfgames. Actually WotC is notorious for caring more about deadlines than accurate art.  I will admit that my experiences may be skewed as the minis projects I've worked on have never had to worry about deadlines, but I still think you all need to find some better quality artists.
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Aug 16, 2013 08:43
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Bucnasti posted:Actually WotC is notorious for caring more about deadlines than accurate art. I'm not sure what kind of company you think would defer a multimillion dollar project for several weeks minimum to replace a single piece of art, but if the adjective you're using is "professional" you need to buy a dictionary. Besides, I like the lemur.
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Aug 16, 2013 10:01
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Lemures are ghosts.
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Aug 16, 2013 10:40
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, I don't know 50 Foot Ant's forum rep or whatever but I'm definitely not willing to discount it out of hand simply given the stories I've heard about TRPG art. Remember that story about the illustration in the 4E Primal Power sourcebook? "This lithe and athletic survivor is wearing HIDE ARMOR made from the gray, spiky plates of a macetail behemoth. Her skin is dark brown, and her curly black hair is kept short; on Earth, one would assume that she was from Africa. She has a simple, functional, and deadly-looking GREATAXE strapped over her back, and a coil of rope at her belt." This story is true, except that the original art call wasn't for Primal Power but for a MtG card. They ended up getting another piece of art for the card and used that piece in the Primal Power book some time later since they already owned it.
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Aug 16, 2013 10:58
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Bucnasti posted:It really sounds like you're going about this the wrong way. You should be looking for a CONCEPT ARTIST to create your non-sexytime characters, and then contracting a sculptor to sculpt based on the concept art. Your art briefs and contracts then stipulate that any deviation from the concept art must be approved by you. As already mentioned, this is not just a concept art problem. It turns out that not only do concept artist sex their concept pieces up from art directing conception to finished piece, but so do sculptors. And there are about a metric ton of reasons for why said piece would then be shoved in anyway, ranging from a director just going "oh whatever" to time constraints to simply not having the money to redo everything because someone agreed to pay upfront. It's one reason why larger businesses insist on stuff like tryouts rather than just going by artist portfolios. Now places like Privateer can only improve over time as they expand a stable of more professional sculptors who produce better quality models with less fuss like this, but the default mode for the hobby is stuck in "amateur artist wanted to do some anatomy studies with one hand". Looking outside the hobby scene for sculptors is much harder too, and is likely to be much more expensive. Finding better artist is absolutely the end goal, but the process is mind-numbingly stupid. JerryLee posted:Rulebook Heavily, have you talked to Victoria Lamb? I imagine it's likely she wouldn't want to do work on commission given that she has her own successful miniature line, but perhaps she has some ideas or contacts that could be helpful. I had not, but that's an idea! Thanks.
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Aug 16, 2013 11:32
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Jedit posted:I'm not sure what kind of company you think would defer a multimillion dollar project for several weeks minimum to replace a single piece of art, but if the adjective you're using is "professional" you need to buy a dictionary. There's also kind of a big difference between "one of the artists didn't know what a lemure was, thought it was a lemur, and we all had a big laugh about it" and "one of the artists received explicit directions that only a complete loving moron could possibly misinterpret and turned in a piece of art that bears no resemblance to the description except for the fact that the subject is a woman." One of those is a silly mistake, the other is either gross incompetence or someone higher up stepping in to deliberately overrule the original description. I wasn't aware about the M:tG thing RPZip, thanks. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 11:40
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Pope Guilty posted:Lemures are ghosts. Yes, thank you, I know what a lemure is. That's why the story is funny. Also, how do we know it's not a lemur lemure?
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Aug 16, 2013 12:31
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Kai Tave posted:
I may actually be full of poo poo, I could have sworn it'd come from an article on Wizards.com but I couldn't track down the source.
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Aug 16, 2013 13:48
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Look back at the Reaper KS, though, and look at how similar the work-in-progress sketches are to the final products. I have no doubt that "artistic license" happens, but I think the reason it is at all tolerated is not "butbut Frazetta did this stuff." Frank Frazetta made a name for himself doing what people were asking him to do, and once he had a reputation, people sought him out for more of the same. I think we see license tolerated for the same reason a few people alluded to: deadlines. Blown deadlines are incredibly costly in many lines of work! It's not just "oh, well, just push the release back, we see that all the time": production runs usually happen all at once, on a tight schedule. If you delay production to get a bit of art or a sculpt more in line with what you wanted originally (and asked for), the place you were going to have the product made may already have another thing scheduled next, so you have to wait your turn or break your contract -- those places need to make money too, and work on other things! The longer until your turn comes, the more wasted any marketing you did ends up being, so you may have to pay for additional advertising when your thing launches. You may also have to break/renegotiate contracts further downstream if the product is delayed.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:25
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Finding better artist is absolutely the end goal, but the process is mind-numbingly stupid.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:41
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I can understand why the publisher would sigh, hold their nose and go to press/molding/whatever even after an artist or sculptor takes a poo poo all over the job description, but how does the artist still have a job afterwards? To be clear, I'm talking about 500-pound gorillas like WOTC dealing with their artists here. JerryLee fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 14:42
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2013 14:42
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JerryLee posted:I can understand why the publisher would sigh, hold their nose and go to press/molding/whatever even after an artist or sculptor takes a poo poo all over the job description, but how does the artist still have a job afterwards? Good, fast, cheap. Pick two - and cheap is a given for small companies. If the artist is reliable and cheap that's enough.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:43
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neonchameleon posted:Good, fast, cheap. Pick two - and cheap is a given for small companies. If the artist is reliable and cheap that's enough. Yeah I was thinking of my post in the context of relative giants like WOTC, but I should have been more clear since a significant part of the conversation was still about small timers. I edited it, sorry.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:45
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JerryLee posted:I can understand why the publisher would sigh, hold their nose and go to press/molding/whatever even after an artist or sculptor takes a poo poo all over the job description, but how does the artist still have a job afterwards? WotC have a house team who produce a style guide for each setting in the game. They then farm out the work to contracted artists for individual pieces. However, they always commission more art than they need so they have a bank of material that can be slotted in anywhere. If some of that work comes back with generic elf cleavage, they hang onto it because sooner or later there's always somewhere you can put a pair of boobies.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:55
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Plague of Hats posted:Maybe, but with the way RPG illustrators are it's not that unbelievable a story.  (WotC edited out the fleshy background which was needed for the effect. You'll have to imagine that part, or look at a paper copy of the magazine.) There's even a rather funny ENWorld thread where folks from WotC and Paizo chime in and say, "yep, that's a vagina. I saw it, and my wife saw it too." e: vvvvvvvv yep, that's the original! dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 15:21
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 seems to be the original
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Aug 16, 2013 15:35
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RPZip posted:I may actually be full of poo poo, I could have sworn it'd come from an article on Wizards.com but I couldn't track down the source. As far as I'm aware, the original source was the blog of a freelance RPG writer. I assume, given the context, that he was the one making the art request; going by how much notice publishers give similar requests by novel writers for their cover pages, it'd be entirely unsurprising if the art director just crumpled his recommendation into a ball and tossed it into the rubbish.
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Aug 16, 2013 19:15
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I saw this in the Reaper thread and maybe it could use some discussion over here.Fix posted:Nothing yet, but they recently put out an advisory warning that might point to changes in the future. This is probably one of the most well-crafted CYA advisories I've seen. From here KS could do anything between absolutely nothing to eliminating stretch goals, and then point at this message and cite this message as warning of it. Although if stretch goals get barred, they'll probably just be moved off-site to the fulfillment pages and KS can claim even less responsibility for them.
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Aug 21, 2013 11:57
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moths posted:But after a few years of bloat, without such a program, you've created an impregnable wall of material. My sister asked me if I wanted Arkham Horror for Christmas; I looked at the bulk of expansions and told her to save her money. It's daunting as gently caress to an outsider, but it's cheaper and easier to produce additional content than design new games. The thing is, most Arkham Horror expansions don't do much for the game in my opinion save add busywork - Dunwich Horror was pretty great, but Kingsport was pure annoyance in expansion form. Having played a ton of it, I feel like I'd rather go back to it with the few better expansions. JDCorley posted:Paranoia rushes to mind... GURPS IOU comes to mind as well. Much of GURPS Illuminati is a parody of conspiracy theories as much as a treatment of it, as are the Illuminati card games. Hell, Car Wars - with its tongue-in-cheek ads and violent bloodsports - has some heavy parody elements, particularly with groups like Eastern Safety Enforcement Driving League (EDSEL) or ASP (a terrorist organization led by the "Black Asp" with his sidekick, Rodrick). Later Car Wars would even parody itself with material like "Uncle Schmalbert". Games like Munchkin and Chez Geek are parody, too. Even In Nomine had parody elements... It may be easier to consider games that Steve Jackson Games produces that aren't parody. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 14:22
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I am an Arkham Horror fanatic, and I have most of the expansions...but I played Elder Sign once, and I know that most of my Cthulhu-related gaming for the foreseeable future will be with Elder Sign. It's quicker to explain the rules, quicker to set up, quicker to play, has faster turns so people stay engaged with the game (instead of their phone) and has a tighter thematic focus.
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Aug 21, 2013 14:58
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moths posted:I saw this in the Reaper thread and maybe it could use some discussion over here. Stretch goals are tricky no matter how they're done. Look at something like Fate Core; super low initial goal (which they hit in, what, 2 hours tops?) with a campaign designed around adding more and more and more content. Then you look at something like Project Eternity (not Trad Games, I know) where the last couple stretch goals were really iffy if there's be enough funding for them. And then there's lots of projects that barely squeak past the initial funding goal, regardless of the posted stretch goals. It really comes down to the individual project; do you want to only promise a bare bones thing and make it fancier later? Or ask for a larger funding goal that may not be reached at all? I personally prefer projects that go with the former; I'd rather have a less fancy thing than see a cool project go unfunded.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:33
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The thing is, most Arkham Horror expansions don't do much for the game in my opinion save add busywork - Dunwich Horror was pretty great, but Kingsport was pure annoyance in expansion form. Having played a ton of it, I feel like I'd rather go back to it with the few better expansions. Just to add to this, me and a group of friends play A.H. pretty often. We have never played with any expansions (we spend that money on other games) and we enjoy it time after time. I don't think they are necessary at all to enjoy the game.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:58
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The thing is, most Arkham Horror expansions don't do much for the game in my opinion save add busywork - Dunwich Horror was pretty great, but Kingsport was pure annoyance in expansion form. Having played a ton of it, I feel like I'd rather go back to it with the few better expansions. My group of friends and I tried a game with every expansion once. It was an absolute loving mess and the game took some ungodly number of hours.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:11
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01011001 posted:My group of friends and I tried a game with every expansion once. It was an absolute loving mess and the game took some ungodly number of hours. Arkham Horror is pretty well overwrought on its own. Dunwich is probably the best, because while it adds busywork, it doesn't add much - mainly just a "boss monster" that's fun to face up against. The point is that expansions aren't always what's best for a game's given design, even if economics will always work against that.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:21
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Something I just stumbled upon; the official Kickstarter FAQ makes mention of stretch goals (though not by that name):Kickstarter FAQ posted:What happens when a project is overfunded? Emphasis mine.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:16
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Yeah. I don't think they're actually anti-stretch goal, they just want creators to plan them out better so they don't end up bloating the project to unsustainable levels.
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Aug 22, 2013 06:30
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This is a better thread than the KS one for this discussion: Why do people keep trying to technologize board games? It seems that every few years someone comes along with the idea to make a hybrid game that uses physical components and digital mechanics. So you fast-forward your VCR to location 0224, push a button on the Dark Tower, zap your miniatures location into your smartphone, hold your cards where the xBox can see, or key in what chess pieces you moved and then the game tells you how to move pieces around. This has never worked. They've almost universally felt like digital games saddled with physical components. I should add that I'm not talking about Skylanders or Infinity - those are both videogames with toys. What I'm talking about would be the equivalent of Mickey or Spyro appearing onscreen and telling you how to play with your toys on a special board where they can see them. It's obvious why this isn't how the games work, and why they're each fairing better than Eye of Judgement. The current "trend" seems to be to go with smartphones and tablets, but that invites compatibility issues between platforms - which further divides the (already tiny) wedge of potential players who would invest in such a game. You're dealing with a demographic that isn't big to start with and then subdividing them along smartphone OS preference. You need a critical mass of players, and you're starting out with the disadvantage of guaranteeing some people will never buy your game. And you can't design your own scenarios or units. Hell, Ex Illis implemented DRM on its miniatures. I get that it's a cool idea. It is a cool concept - you play a game and use the device and man now it's the future, right? But then the novelty wears off and you're left with an inflexible boardgame that's harder to play because of the paraphernalia. It's always ended up with the worst of both worlds, but there are always hundreds of thousands of dollars being dumped into this because ... why?
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Sep 12, 2013 12:45
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I can see it being useful as a game aid for games with unwieldy mechanics; the Arkham Horror app comes to mind. A vehicle design and vehicle sheet app for games like Star Fleet Battles or Car Wars would be another example. Really if there's a strength of technology, it would be in handling complex mechanics. One of the things you could do with an app or the like would be to have resolution mechanics involving math that would never function for players to process, but a machine could efficiently do. Another possibility is doing simultaneous turn resolution, blind or double-blind mechanics with devices. The problem is that a lot of games try and use apps to solve problems that don't exist (I don't need an app to roll to-hit or for me in most circumstances), when they should be looking to do things we can't already do with dice, pen, and paper. The Sifteo platform strikes me as having a lot of possibilities for the tabletop space, given infinite money to spend on it. Granted, Hasbro has tried a similar version of the technology and failed, but once again they were trying to add it as a gimmick - Simon or Yahtzee don't need that kind of device. However, imagine something like a minis game where you use the cubes, and the combat system is as complex as something like Lost Worlds - something you couldn't do by hand feasibly without bogging down the game, but small machines could handle readily.
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Sep 12, 2013 13:35
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