Topic: NintendoLife Artists Thread

& that hair, @Zuljaras.... That's not bad, so far, @GrailUK

I am about to bake this sculpture for the LRG Castlevania contest!

I put the sprite of Death from the game for reference!

@GrailUK Hey, man. That's a pretty decent doodle, alright.

@Zuljaras Well, you just seem to be improving every time you make something, so I'd figure you'd stand a pretty decent chance of winning at least something.

@Zuljaras Wow it looks so good.

@Zuljaras Thats very cool!

Thank you!

How much you sell them for, though, @Zuljaras ....?

@BruceCM haha, hobby only but thanks for the compliment:)

Next challenge is a battery powered one to swing the scythe ....?

@MarioLover92 I decided to dump some of these old maps here in order to not make the Chit-Chat Thread too busy. Though "art" in this case might be stretching the concept a bit lol. I've forgotten a few details - it's been over a decade since I made these - but I'll try my best to describe what's in each map!

First, a bit of background: As mentioned in the thread, the region, Myora, was only half-settled; past a certain point, playable characters were supposed to work together to settle the region, found towns and gyms, etc. All official Pokemon at that point, at least up to Gen 4, were available, as were a few Fakemon that were native to the region. Not just anything could make it in; there was an approval process, complete with reasonable movesets, Pokedex entries, sprites, etc.

This town is Nalan. It's a small resort town set near a volcano that can be accessed after traveling through a difficult mountain pass + cave. If I recall, the town before this one/on the other side of the pass was small, but did contain a gym. The hot spring and resort are towards the top left. The town is also home to a famous small lake; it's the only place in the world where Lapras lay eggs that hatch into a pre-evolution that was created for the site (Don't recall the name, unfortunately). The fenced in area with all the "Pokemon" is actually a Pokemon statuary place. The creator is a famous sculptor, known for their life-like statues, who lives in the house on the far left. Unfortunately, I don't recall what the lab in the left-center there is for...to study the Lapras, maybe?

There's a small separate map of the crater of the nearby volcano that contributes to the town's hot springs, but there isn't much on it of note besides a lava pit, ice/snow (high altitude) and a lab to study the volcano.

This is Prisint Town. I feel like the name was changed to something less weird at some point, but I can't recall it. I'm going by the file names. This town is, quite literally, a mix of old and new. It's half-abandoned, as one can tell from the dwellings. A couple of the houses near the path are in one piece (mainly noted by functional doors) and have inhabitants. The big building with the double towers on the left...I don't entirely recall what it is, other than a large corporation somewhat similar to Silph Co. I think. The buildings in the pit on the right of the map are ruins that were discovered when the large business was originally being built. Instead, the building construction was moved to its present location while the site was excavated. The excavations are still in progress; the building with the orange roof is a lab where the archaeologists study the ruins and store their discoveries and equipment.

Some background on the ruins; this wasn't known to normal players, only staff. They were actually a way to set off a cataclysmic event that would, quite literally, start a sort of Armageddon between the legendary Pokemon of the region. There were six total, two trios each; three that were, essentially, hellish, dog-like demon beasts, and three that were angelic-like beasts. Unfortunately, while I can mentally picture some of the sprites, I didn't create them. I did, however, create some of the items that would summon them.

This is Croterom Town. If I recall, it was the last known settled area in the region before reaching the frontier. It's a farming community (The name tries to combine "crops" and "loam"; I think the final name might've changed a little at one point as well). The fenced-in area towards the bottom right is intended to be a Pokemon daycare. All the orange buildings towards the left are actually storage silos for grain, berries, and other crops. There isn't much else of note besides that red contest hall towards the center and the small pond surrounded by rocks; I feel like there's something significant about the pond, but I've forgotten all the details lol.

There are three other town maps I have as well. Two of them could be the town before Nalan; one has no name ("Pass"), the other is Etora Town. Then there's a city, Baertaria (I know this name also changed to something else) where I went completely...nuts. It's very busy lol.

@Tyranexx that is dope!

@Tyranexx Hey thanks for showing me your maps! They look pretty good overall. I wonder if you were thinking about making your own Pokemon game, lol.

Also for my first post in the NL artists thread, might as well post my Mario drawing here! I originally posted it in the chit-chat thread.

I think I did a reasonably good job here, though I had a tough time with the flagpole base. The other thing I could improve on is the flagpole itself, as it blends in with the background. Other than those I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

@Tyranexx Hey, those are actually pretty cool. I didn't know you had it in you. I never imagined seeing you in this thread...

On a side note: didn't I also see you mention something in the Chit-Chat thread about posting some photos, a while back?

Some really great stuff here

@Tyranexx Awesome!!! Weird question but is there a Pokemon cemetery in those designs?

@ogo79, @GrailUK Thanks!

@MarioLover92 Thanks! Honestly at the time, I probably would've jumped at the chance to make the real thing (Still would if I had the time; there are some decent fan-made ROMs out there)! We didn't go too crazy with the maps on that site; they were mostly meant for cities, towns, and a few special locations. Any connecting routes, caves, etc. normally just had a brief text description so that the refereeing moderator in charge of a player or players' storyline(s) would have a foundation with which to work with. Each mapped area had plenty of details under it. Besides descriptions for points of interest that I touched on in my brief rundown of each map, the items in the Pokemarts, any Pokemon in potential fishing spots, etc. were detailed in a large, pinned/locked post and topic in each respective route/town/city's forum. If a location had a gym, the gym leader and their Pokemon were detailed. I don't recall if we also did mini-profiles for gym trainers or not.

Needless to say, on the parts of both the players and staff, there was a ton of text involved! Each forum in a location had a respective thread started by a mod for a user's playable character (and others if players wanted to join up), and the mod moved the text/plot along with each post. The players would then respond with the behaviors and actions of their trainers and Pokemon. This was all done within a specified set of rules.

I used to do a ton of text roleplaying in my high school and early college years. Not only with Pokemon, but also with Digimon and, briefly, a Mega Man Star Force forum I started with some online friends.

@ThanosReXXX Thank you! I can be artistically minded, but it doesn't come easily lol. Some of it is a patience thing. I recall spending a lot of time on those, due in part to only having access to MS Paint then. I'm sure someone with decent graphic design experience could churn those out a lot faster than I did back then. It was a lot of pixel eyeballing.

On the photos: I hope to get to those this weekend. Still need to go through them and copy the ones I want from my phone to my PC.

@Zuljaras Thank you as well! Out of my archived designs, unfortunately not. Outside of burial sites related to that ancient civilization, which I don't believe there were any concepts for outside of the Prisint Town map, any cemeteries would've been small and few. The region was still being established, so any bone yards would likely have only a couple of resident ghosts apiece.

It's possible there was a map created by someone else that featured a cemetery. I was responsible for about half of the location maps. However, the site itself is long gone - I checked a few years ago - and I'm sure the images from others are either archived or lost.

@Tyranexx
no problem. im not good at art.
at all. but im good at appreciating it.

are you tellin me my money isnt good over there hotshot?
my money is good everywhere

Here is the timelapse of the second entry for the Castlevania art contest!

@Zuljaras What was the first, did I miss that one?

@ThanosReXXX It was the Death sculpture