A not-eavy-Metal for Oldhammer painters

Gallivantes

Member
Did some rendering of the troll fella. Altered his face a bit as I said I'd have a go at that (and adding some hair too).

The smash fragments could do with a bit of tidying up.

Comments welcome :)



A closeup.
 

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Zhu Bajie

Member
Yep. That's really cool! Great hair.

I think the similar level of detail across the text and the character works very well, much more successful than the original IMHO. Might just bring some of your stronger highlights into the lettering. If I were to nit-pick, I'd repose the back leg (drop the knee down below the body, stretch the lower leg out towards the back back ) for better balance and clearer reading.

Well done to Curis for spotting my tag in the crumbly text. That's a sharp eye :) Gallivantes, do you think you could you work in a subtle name or a tag into the troll? Maybe up the club, or as a tattoo? I think that would really finish it off.
 

Gallivantes

Member
Good stuff... thanks for the comments!

Citadel Collector: Yup, used them for a lot of inspiration. Glad to see it came across :)

Zhu: I'll have a play with the back leg, I think that's a good idea. I was following the original logo there quite slavically for recognisability but I think it's recognisable enough in so many other regards now so it's not gonna ruin it. As you said earlier it is a bit of an issue with the original logo, I agree.

Yeah I was thinking I'd work a signature into it some way — will do that once I'm done with the edits so I'm not working on shifting sands. Again nice ideas (don't think I'd have thought of the tattoo :)). I'll get something worked out.

And I realised I should have been more clear talking about the fragments... I mean the ones I put in, not the crumbling lettering! They look fine to me :)
 

Gallivantes

Member
Ok, take two on the leg. Definitely reads clearer now I think. Thoughts welcome!
 

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Plaiecivile

Member
Darker fragments and left leg modified, some might say these are details, but perfection hides in the details, that's a great improvement!
 

Blue in VT

Moderator
that looks amazing and I'm really excited about where this is headed!!!

Thank god for you talented people!

Cheers,

Blue
 

Gallivantes

Member
Catching up in this little project, it's been a couple of weeks. Thanks for being patient everybody who is keen to see this come together and thanks to the people who said nice things about it :)

I've worked a little signature into my part of the artwork as per a previous recommendation. Other than that I believe we are done? I'll leave space for comments at this stage, but we indeed would like to wrap it up the rest is just a matter of making it available in a handy form.

I have a highres working copy that I can make available as a highres png (like Zhu did with the bare logo first). Ready to drop into whatever artwork page you're working on. I'll do that when we have some consensus the design isn't changing any more.

This is great fun people. Now go make some mock Eavy Metal pages with your funky mini photographs so we can drop this in there and see how it looks.
 

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Blue in VT

Moderator
Looks amazing! Great work guys!! Is the file package for the page layout as well? Did I miss that somewhere?

I'm excited to get some of my Renegades on a page!

Cheers,

Blue
 

Gallivantes

Member
No I don't think anyone has put that together yet. I tend to read new posts so I'd probably caught that.

If noone else has this in the works I could probably put something together in due time.

Yes those renegades need a page :)
 

Gallivantes

Member
With kind permission from Blue to use his images I have carried on with some page layout graphics. The silly text is all on me (not Blue!), just using placeholder snippets to demonstrate the text feature. Before you go complaning to him these are not worthy names of Chaos Champions I mean :) You'll find highres versions further down but here's a nice double page spread overview for ya.



Points of interest:
- The marbled background colour varies in 'Eavy Metal reference, probably both due to original print and successive scans. I have some versions in the master file, grey/green/red/yellowish varieties. What you see here is just one of them. A smaller set of these could be present in the master file for quick select variations. Those who are more adept at using digital imaging software out there could do more fine tuning from there.

- Font usage. There are various fonts in the reference through the years. We could try to emulate that and bulk out the master file but the question is, is it really worth the hassle. My recommendation would be to go for a minimal choice, making handling easy and giving pages a coherent style cross-creator.
- I have picked Caslon Antique which is one (but not the singular) choice for headlines often seen. I doubt many will disagree with this one being "the best" choice here. Opinions welcome of course.
- The image annotations are in Antique Type, something I picked rather ad hoc as a straightforward serif type. Suggestions welcome for other options, if you have any.

- Images. Most are simply a matter of dropping right in and a border gets added automatically. The exceptions are ones where bits stick out. This is more fiddly to achieve, but perfectly doable for people who understand the use of layers and masks and a bit of brush work.

- I added the original feature of earmarking each page "An OLDHAMMER Forum feature". I think this is nice to have so that the origins of digital images floating around are clear. I experimented with putting in the web address but opted out on it because it got a little bit fiddly and added unwanted complexity to the graphic design. Driving traffic is not the main purpose here and the Oldhammer Forum label should be enough info for people who want to google the source.

So there ya go. Not a final package yet but a good spot to gather some feedback. Logo looks great Zhu! And your minis are fantastic Blue, they made working on this so much fun.
 

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Blue in VT

Moderator
HOLY CRAP!!!! Those look fantastic!!!

Well done!!! Thanks so much for using these Renegades...you've made them look wonderful.

Cheers,

Blue
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Yeah! Brilliant! That looks really good.

Gallivantes what you've done with the type works very nicely. I think the main aim here should be to chose fonts that look about right and are freely available, rather than be a sticker for tradition. Great job! With that in mind, what software are you using, and does everyone who wants to use the template have access to that platform?

The marble texture is a little dark when I compare to the magazine, (I have WD92 and WD96 in front of me as random, very different examples) but again, it works on screen and we don't need to worry about laying too much ink down on thin glossy paper.

Comparing with the original there is a much stronger / tighter grid - there's about 3/16th gutter to the side and1/4" at the bottom. The images are around 1 5/8" by 1 1/16", and by measuring bases I guess around 90% smaller than actual size. I appreciate trends and technology in miniatures painting has moved on since the 80s. Where once minis were painted to be seen from 4ft away on a tabletop, they're now painted for macro photography to be enlarged to twice their size on a screen, and teeny-tiny photos aren't very good at showing off great paintjobs! Don't know, would be interested in others thoughts.

It might be cool to have a grid system on a layer, as a guide for people to use to keep consistent, and you can only break rules if there are rules!
 

Gallivantes

Member
Zhu Bajie":1q0kjmi7 said:
Gallivantes what you've done with the type works very nicely. I think the main aim here should be to chose fonts that look about right and are freely available, rather than be a sticker for tradition.
agreed!

Zhu Bajie":1q0kjmi7 said:
With that in mind, what software are you using, and does everyone who wants to use the template have access to that platform?
Great issue to raise. I'm using Photoshop. I don't know how accessible this makes it across the board. I could always share the source building blocks and workflow insight and people can try to reconstruct it in software that suits them? Everyone interested in eventually getting down and dirty with this, let us know what you would (or would rather not) use.

Zhu Bajie":1q0kjmi7 said:
The marble texture is a little dark when I compare to the magazine, (I have WD92 and WD96 in front of me as random, very different examples) but again, it works on screen and we don't need to worry about laying too much ink down on thin glossy paper.
You may very well be right. But it's hard to find the perfect measuring stick for this though to hold it up against, dial in the right value and call it done. For example I did a quick check against a random WD 121 that was lying on my desk and found that it's slightly darker if I hold the magazine to the left of the screen and brighter if hold it to the right, where my desk lamp happens to be. In essence it's quite hard to define what the "right" level of brightness really is when it depends on both monitor calibration and environmental lighting. In any test case it varies for every person out there. And to make it even more elusive issues of WD's differ from each other too so the target is always moving, dammit! :) :) So to conclude what I am saying is that I am not disagreeing with you, rather how do we know your case is a good sample case. The principle of averages maybe is a good solution if we want to tweak it? So your input is valuable and the more input we get from others too the closer we should get to the "right" level of brightness. But I can certainly make it brighter if you and/or others still want to, really easy fix.

Zhu Bajie":1q0kjmi7 said:
Comparing with the original there is a much stronger / tighter grid - there's about 3/16th gutter to the side and1/4" at the bottom. The images are around 1 5/8" by 1 1/16", and by measuring bases I guess around 90% smaller than actual size. I appreciate trends and technology in miniatures painting has moved on since the 80s. Where once minis were painted to be seen from 4ft away on a tabletop, they're now painted for macro photography to be enlarged to twice their size on a screen, and teeny-tiny photos aren't very good at showing off great paintjobs! Don't know, would be interested in others thoughts.
Good spot. I didn't pay that much attention to the grid spacing*. As I started adressing this a hidden gremlin crawled out from the clockworks (!) I realised that each source image needs a decent buffer in the background space, else you can't do a crop that fills out to the space grid well enough in all cases. This isn't immediately obvious because most images are rather neatly cropped but when you see cases like this (below) you may understand that each image needs that starting point, or you'll not be able to work against that rectilinear grid all the time and let that background space fill out wherever** needed. I love that you picked up on this thing that I had missed because I think it really does loads for the final look to the page. I'll be revising my prototype doc.

*And it seems to me that as long as you get the spacing right the image dimensions, whatever they are, just follow naturally from there without you having to work for it. This is good, fewer "rules" actually in play
** "Whenever; wherever", in the words of the great prophet Shakira



Zhu Bajie":1q0kjmi7 said:
It might be cool to have a grid system on a layer, as a guide for people to use to keep consistent, and you can only break rules if there are rules!
Yup, some kind of support structure would be handy. Looking at the reference I wonder if some fixed grid/column/table system really does the job in a satisfying way. Perhaps approach it from the other end rather, something to guide the space in between instead? I'll definitely attempt to devise something, no idea where it'll land yet :)

Good stuff Zhu :grin: Really appreciate this feedback
 

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Gallivantes

Member
I changed my workflow a bit to try out the more uniform spacing widths. I feel like it's moving in the right direction.

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