Well, given the new color schema on the main antagonist, I do feel he looks less like Unitys Blacksmith character now. The additional parts of clothing and jewelry added help too.

One thing I would be interested in is the character of this antagonist... he seems to be the perfect candidate for a "remote, distant, godlike villain" given that the eyes will rob him of a lot potential expressivness. Which could be a bad thing if you try to go for the traditional "evil guy" antagonist, but a very good thing if he is the "emotionless, godlike guy" antagonist.

All in all I like the concept, altough not as much as your other characters. The concept just lacks that grounding in reallife history for me, which of course is a big challenge for the more "fantasy" characters in about ALL fantasy settings... maybe going more with a character styling that sticks to a certain, more feral period in history, like the celts, or vikings, and using one of the "half naked" recognizable characters from that era for inspiration (like some of the feral celt warriors, priests, or viking berserkers (even though THAT is mostly a modern invention)).

Now, I know this only works in parts as these characters are not half as recognizable as the middle age western warrior stereotypes usually drawn upon for high fantasy, and also you might WANT to make your antagonist there look somewhat alien, which might be better achieved by taking stuff that isn't clearly recognizable as historical from any era of RL history.

So IDK... maybe the character would work for me perfectly once I see his story, and see the character animated and in action.

The second character concept I really like (again). Looks full of character and references to historical clothing. When I see the attire and the face, I instantly think its someone from a wealthy family, nobility most probably, somewhat shady character and you should be careful to trust him.

Could be an interesting character for the Player party, someone you don't trust at first but learn to respect for his wits and his ability to bargain a better price, look trough the bad guys ruses and come up with cunning plans.

Could also be an interesting bad guy given his story isn't implemented in a lazy way (the evil cowardly noble villain... yawn). Give him some guts (because even the cunning fox character can be gutsy at time), give him a little more depth to his motivations than just "hes evil, and greedy, and... well, he is nobility so there needs to be no further explanation", and he will be a very cool and interesting villain. A worthy opponent in wits, which when paired with another villain as worthy opponent in muscle, makes for a satisfying heros journey for the player.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the video. Always a pleasure to see how different artists go about their work. If you have more videos to share, don't hold back ;)

Here's a few artworks created by my teammates for the forthcoming RPG/TBS Ash of Gods.

...

How do you think, are these images conclusive enough to be implemented in the game?

The art all looks great. The artist is clearly very skilled and produces fine work. I don't think your original question has been answered however.

I can't imagine your goal is to get piecemeal feedback from a forum for every asset produced. Surely it is to develop a methodology for directing the art of your game.

These are standalone pieces of art. There's no game. If you want to know how they fit into the game, show us what the game looks like. Talk about your intentions with the art of the game. What do you want it to look like, what do you want it to do? You can cite examples of games whose visuals are influencing your design. You can say how you feel about the art you're posting and see if it's in line with what people with different perspectives and experiences think when they see it. You can show in-progress screenshots of the art implemented in the context of the game so we can talk about how that's working or not working. If your goal is to develop a methodology for art direction, I think you should take this thread a bit deeper.

Now if your goal is to promote your game by trickling out assets to show off to the public, that's totally cool - but I'd suggest that you should be upfront about it. You could start a journal here and post art on it weekly, perhaps. You could try to get a screenshot featured on this site. You could use social media and tag for #screenshotsaturday and get some views that way. This is all legitimate and straightforward.

If you want to know how they fit into the game, show us what the game looks like. Talk about your intentions with the art of the game. What do you want it to look like, what do you want it to do? You can cite examples of games whose visuals are influencing your design.

Well, our game is intented to be a multigenre project: RPG and TBS with elements of a card game. Most pictures that I've posted in this topic are the portraits of different characters. Not concept arts but the way that they will be presented in the storyline dialogues. I think that quite obvious that all of this is in a way influenced by the Banner Saga - not the game itself, but the general manner - old-school Disney. It's the common inspirational source that unites us with Stoic, but we have our own story and gameplay features - so we don't make a Banner Saga clone.

I think what dbaumgart is saying is that with out seeing how it all draws together, we can't really derive any thing from it.

It's like a pizza, if you broke it into it's components and then showed it to people asking what they thought of each part, with out them knowing the end product, a lot of people will tell you that the tomato and dough doesn't look as tasty as the rest.

My concern is that you are allowing people not only to provide advice and criticism, you indirectly allow them to change parts that could be key to the story or personality of the characters.

With out allowing people to see all aspects of the game it could end up changing from your original idea.

But maybe I am just being sour because you changed the character I liked the most. <_<

Well, our game is intented to be a multigenre project: RPG and TBS with elements of a card game. Most pictures that I've posted in this topic are the portraits of different characters. Not concept arts but the way that they will be presented in the storyline dialogues. I think that quite obvious that all of this is in a way influenced by the Banner Saga - not the game itself, but the general manner - old-school Disney. It's the common inspirational source that unites us with Stoic, but we have our own story and gameplay features - so we don't make a Banner Saga clone.

You could start a journal here and post art on it weekly, perhaps.

Thanks for advice) It looks like I've just missed this option)

Hey! Yeah I figured your game would be a lot like that, but I'd be assuming without seeing it. And (regrettably) I've never played the Banner Saga so I don't actually know what it's like. Do you have any screenshots showing what the artwork looks like in your game with like UI and dialog and everything, even if it's in-progress? I think that'd be really cool to see. And I think showing that would be what will give you the most useful feedback about how the art is working in the context of the game itself.

When I was art directing artists, we set up a workflow so they could place assets in the game engine and see them in-game the way the player would see them. I told the artists that I don't really care what the assets look like in Maya or Photoshop, the only thing that matters in the end is what the player is going to see. I think it's important to make sure that artists' are putting their effort toward the player experience foremost when, if they don't consider it, they will default to putting effort toward their own experience and try to make something 'look perfect'.

(And you should totally make a journal, what you're doing is perfect for it.)

It's like a pizza, if you broke it into it's components and then showed it to people asking what they thought of each part, with out them knowing the end product, a lot of people will tell you that the tomato and dough doesn't look as tasty as the rest.

I love this metaphor and now I want pizza.