Bayani

Still got a half-season to go. I hear Halladay's available from Toronto. Think the Yankees might trade for him?

*sets up some beach towels, umbrellas, breakfast before picking up his longboard and hitting the ways*

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GO Yankees!


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*waves to the second-place Yankees* Go away. =P

You're kidding. What is she, like 29 now?

*starts sliding shuffleboard pucks at Fedor*

Aye, aye, Captain! *salutes*

*peers around* So who's your second, Captain?

Does anyone even look at the Scraps section? That doesn't...quite make sense.

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On the other hand, it's an ART site.
People upload paints, computer art, sculptures, photographs.

There are a ton of great comic artists posting there (Ryan Ottley from Invincible, Leinil Francis Yu, Brandon McKinney, David Nakayama, Jack Lawrence and many more)

DA was never meant to be a host for screenshot or holyday pictures, there are tons of provider for that. Having a few in scrapbooks for reference sake I can understand, but having only screenshot in a gallery ? It can be borderline for them.

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Weird. I do have screenshots up on my gallery, though I'm planning on taking them down when my model sheets are done.

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Thanks, Bayani . . . and "Awesome to (2)!!!"

*gets back to work*

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Whoops. I didn't read all of question 1. I meant "not really" as in the category is "not really important."

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Just started using DeviantArt a couple weeks ago (love the site!), tried some search-fu in their FAQ but wasn't successful. So, I'd figured I'd ask here; the best board on the forums and most likely home of DA gurus . . .

(1) Categories. How important is setting your category on uploaded images? I been putting my ActionBios (see sig) in "Fan Art > Cartoons/Comics > Digital > Games". Does that sound right? Should I even be concerned about real artists not liking my ActionBios in there?

(2) Upload Limit. Is there a limit to how much data a freebie account can upload to the DA servers?

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(1) Not really.

(2) Nope.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Been tweaking the story as I go. =)

*hangs up the balloons and flumps into a comfy chair with a new book he just picked up*

*strolls in* Ooooh. This looks fun.

*yawns quietly* yay. friday. *snoozeS*

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you and your devil's advocate

I can agree on some things :3 Though I disagree w/ the one handed sword laziness One could be wreckless while wielding a sword (favorite anime character is a one handed katana wielder ^.^). Also about the knuckles not lining up, could it be the positioning of the katana that makes it look off?

As for the body twisting, would it be acceptable that it was a attack from behind? though the attacker's sword positioning may be a bit off?

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But nothing about her figure really says she's attacking recklessly. Her body/position looks and feels rigid and conservative.

Good Primer on Proper Sword Gripping - He uses a hammer to demonstrate here too, which is great. Imagine if your attacker in the picture was wielding a hammer. The clash wouldn't look right at all.

I doesn't matter how a sword's positioned, the knuckles will always line up with the cutting edge of the blade, assuming that the wielder has a proper grip. Here, the edge of the katana in your picture is lined up with the back of her left hand, so her wrist is over-torqued. Her right hand and wrist don't appear to match up properly there either.

With the way the defender's body is positioned, it doen't look like the attack came from behind. The attacker would've struck/brushed the defender's wings.

What's GoW?

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So I'm thinking of leaving the game. I'm tired of all the high school b.s. and drama. It's got NOTHING to do with anyone in the Rookery. I love you all. Just that I've grown bored and tired of the game and the pettiness I've been dealing with.

/end threadjack

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Maybe you just need to find better people to spend time with in-game? I play more on Victory now than I did on Virtue. While the RP isn't there...*shrugs* I'm having more fun.

It's a nice piece but there are some details that stand out to me that should be noted. I hate to play devil's advocate but I believe there's such a thing as being too encouraging. I submitted a critique on the artist's page as well.

The defending character's not planted firmly on the ground. To defend against an overhead attack like that, she should have both feet planted firmly. The left foot is ok, but her right foot is not on the same plane as her left one. Her body posture is also twisting rather than standing firm against the attack. She should be bracing herself more for that impact. Also, if a wielder is gripping a katana properly, the middle knuckles lined up perfectly straight with the blade of the katana itself. The defender's grip is off-center there.

The attacker's positioning could be more dynamic. The blade doesn't look like it's slashing downward; it should be more horizontal and well... come close to cleaving the defender's head. Here though, she doesn't look like she was aiming for the defender at all; if you follow the path of the attacker's blade, it would have missed the defender entirely. Now, leaping attacks are used because they (should) have greater power than a normal attack; in a leaping downward strike, the attacker (should) be using the momentum of the descent to increase the strength of her attack. Often times, they use two hands for the attack. But here, she's swinging the sword with one hand, so it's weaker. It's like she's not really committed to her attack and well, it kinds implies she's being lazy. The cape doesn't reflect her movement either; assuming she's falling downward into her attack, her cape should be going from lower left to upper right, starting from her shoulders.

Composition wise, I think if you're going to emphasize the "fight within", the dramatic focus of the piece should be the interaction between the characters; the characters should be looking straight into each other's eyes, and that there, would build tension and drama between the two. These two characters however are looking in different directions and that takes away intensity.

You've got alot of light effects there and that takes away from the impact as well. Lighting effects should add to the mood of the scene; not be the center of the attention. Here though, the viewer's eyes are drawn to the clashing point of the swords rather than to the characters themselves. In addition, both characters have costumes with cool-toned colors. The background has a cool tone as well. There's no contrast between the background and the characters, so the characters don't pop. The piece ends up feeling flatter and less dynamic than it could've been.

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Anther thing I want to say is that I really thought that the second mission was just a mess. The only mobs there was, was for the patrols, bosses, and the rescue mobs. This just kind of sucked because I ran into very few guys in the entire mission and this just made me think what the hell is going on and I received very little xp in the entire mission. Anther thing of the final mission was the rescue. She never exited; I don’t know if it is something you did or if it is just a bug but it just was weird and it just didn’t seems right at all.


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Yeah, I've been trying to fix that. I don't know if I'll just have to suck it up and put in a bigger map. I added in the patrols because it was so empty. Maybe the mission's bugged or the boss placement is preventing the enemies from spawning properly. I didn't want to use too big a map because escort missions become a bigger pain in the butt there. That issue about the escort is a game bug, I think but i'll check it out again and see.


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Just wanted to clarify something else...I've noticed that there are some folks who are actually playing the arc but not submitting comments here or in-game. I don't want to over-look anyone's entry so please post on this thread if you do want a chance at the free character sketch.

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I also liked the depth of your setting and characters. Really shows you put a lot of thought into this arc. However, at times it's too much (or not enough, depending on your point of view), as several entities are mentioned as if they are important and the player should know about them, then forgotten completely and/or never expanded upon. If you decide to keep these references, they need exposition detail somewhere. For example, I may know who Bayani is, but my character didn't have a clue, so the question 'who is Bayani?' is never answered and leaves my alien cyborg scratching is head.

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I might've over-did it in that case. On my first attempt at this arc, I received alot of scathing global messages about Mary-Sueism so I opted to reference Bayani/Angeles less.

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But while I noticed this great attention to detail in some areas, I found the exact opposite in others: a great lack of attention to detail. The first occurrence of this are the crates in the first mission. The interact bar text is there, telling me I'm rummaging, but once I'm done, I'm never told what I found. Yes, I get a clue, but from where? Was that clue really in the crate? Moreover, what was in the 2 crates I did not get a clue from? True, common sense says 'the weapons, duh', and it's technically a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but it does give the impression that you didn't bother to carry your attention to detail all the way through. The same applies to the weapon schematics.

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I'll take a look at the clue boxes again. I thought I wrote in the weapon parts clue that the parts were found in the crates.I didn't want to clutter up the clue window with multiple instances of the same clue.

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I noticed the same with a good number of mission objectives that just popped out of nowhere without any indication. Kapitan Remalante? Fortunata Chapman? Who are these people and why are they suddenly here? Most important, how does the player character know a new foe has arrived? Was there a suspicious sound down a hallway? Did a hostage blab? Did the newly appeared foe yell, 'here I am, come get a piece'? By the way, these are all very valid options that can be used to introduce them.

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I kinda took the approach that the simulation is a pop quiz, and the player(s) who take it do not know what's coming. As such, I treated the nav bar objectives as something for the players to reference OOC, in case they get stuck or the spawns and such weren't place where they should've been placed. I'll try to link the objectives a little more clearly. In the case of that whiteboard schematic for instance, ideally I would want Remalante/Chapman to spring up and ambush you, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get a named boss ambush to occur, if it was at all even possible.

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Now then, keep in mind that up to now, none of the above is truly egregious. You do have 2 major plot holes, though: how Guro Dahon manages to come back after her first defeat and why the final Guro does not appear until the is defeated again should be explained. Dark Regeneration only accounts for so much

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I'll fix her unaware dialogue to shed a little more light on what might've gone down. There currently isn't a way (as far as I know) to be able to let her escape the second mission. Usually though, it's rarely explained how villains pop up again after being arrested or defeated. Since I use the nav bar to give the player OOC information on what needs to be done to exit the mission and well, make sure that things happen in the proper sequence. I didn't want people to skip out on fighting Dahon.

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Finally, just because I couldn't really find a spot to cover this pair of minor plot holes independently, I'll tack them on here: the initial mission objectives in the first mission need some explanation as well, as the only one the contact covers is defeating the rogue Guro, and the final Guro fighting alongside the followers of the rogue Guros is also somewhat questionable.


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I'll see if I can separate/distinguish between the rogue group and the academy's group using group titles. Dahon's plans were spoiled by the player/Angeles in mission 2, so the group in mission three are Magsasaka's people, who are still instructed to stop the challenger as part of the Pagkagising. I can try to use the mission briefings/de-briefings to reflect that.

*blinks and looks around* what the heck?

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Through the 31st, huh? Well now, that's a pretty good while, should get you lots of plays. Dang, I wish I could draw. Then maybe I could get my arcs some.

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Yeah, I might try to get more than three sketches done, depending on the volume of responses. I originally had a rough estimate of 1 free sketch per 10 plays. No promises on that though, as artists schedules can be notoriously fickle. I know some folks may not like the "bribery" behind getting more plays, but with the current way the AE system works, the arc would get buried and well, I like the idea of having something i wrote earning a "dev's choice" badge.

Thanks everyone! The contest/sweepstakes will run through the 31st. After that, I'll randomly select the winners and get those sketches done ASAP.

Dios mio.