Adventure Gamers - Forums

Hi Bill,

“Is there something I have done to make you displeased with my games?”
Aside from the abrupt ending of A Vampyre Story: Nothing at all. I’m also aware that different factors played a role there. I adore your art and like your games and it’s basically your art and the reasonably small scope that might bring me to back Duke G.
I do think you have been involved with a lot of projects on Kickstarter, but that might be partly in my head. So that’s were I was initially coming from, seeing many started but unfinished projects. Thinking about it again, a small project like Duke G. makes perfect sense if the funding for AVS Year One simply isn’t there.
I think it was kind but not necessarily smart to help out with Captain Brawe if you plan to start your own Kickstarter shortly after. You might win some backers over, but you might also lose some because of overexposure. That looks ridiculous written down and I’m sure many will disagree, but I quite literally thought “again?” when reading the announcement.

“Was that wrong of me to do? If so would you please explain why?”
Again, others will disagree, but while I believe it was done with good intentions, especially since you did work on MI 3, I don’t think you should copy a whole location as an Easter egg for a game with only a couple of screens and use it to promote your commercial game. It’s not about you not being able to come up with something on your own, because we know you can, but about riding on nostalgia in a way that feels not right to me. Many people will immediately feel reminded of the time they played MI 2 when looking at that screen, consciously or subconsciously.
Also there was already a recent official makeover for that scene and while your version is certainly better, it could be understood as you showing off.

AVS y1 we had to create a new engine so we asked for 200k. But now that we can use Unity we can ask for 40k. And AVS Y1 is on hold for a very good reason I cant go into. The Kaptain Brawe team is going to employ me to help. And that is exactly what I do for a living, freelance illustration work. So it was necessary that I work on KB to pay for the bills and feed and clothes my kids, pay medical bills, etc. My other partners also work full time too to pay their bills and will work on this game after work. This is how we can afford to ask for only 40k instead of 200k. This is also why it will take 12 months to do a short game instead of four. Make sense? I’ll do art for your game too if you you want, you just have to pay my going rate. So I might work a bunch more Kickstarter projects in the future as long as they pay and I don’t have anything else scheduled to work on. Its just what I do for living. But the money we raise for DG is going to other people who cant work on it without getting paid: Animators, modelers, and for the rewards and for the overhead.
Why is ‘riding nostalgia seem not right to you?’ I am all about nostalgia. Its where I get a lot of my inspiration.
I was kind of showing off a bit for sure because I had been in negotiations with LEC to redo the MI2 art for the upgrade they did, but they went with the Singapore office instead of Autumn Moon due to many factors, which made sense to me, the chief one was that my team was busy for a few more months on Ghost Pirates and couldn’t start on MI2 right away. They wanted to start sooner so they made the best decision they could based on their requirements and went with another team that could start immediately. I think the sales suffered badly because the art wasn’t as good as it should have been. And I was disappointed they did not pick AME for sure- I really wanted to do it, being that MI2 was my first and one of my favorite LEC graphic adventures. Doing this art was a way to ease my disappointment and fulfill my desire to have done the art for MI2 update. Kind of like fan art- I was fan of MI2 and this was my fan art. And I threw it in as an homage to one of my favorite games. I really wasn’t thinking it it would help sell my game at all. Any way I just wanted to clarify thinking and my motivations. I’d hate to think people thought I was volunteering for too many projects and that I was ripping off MI2 to help sell my game.

Shnubble

I appreciate that everyone is entitled to an opinion but I am quite surprised how strongly critical you are of Bill. Looking at your other posts you seem very opinionated on work people have done. Such as Gabriel night for example. I will not address your various opinions here because you are of course entitled to your opinion but I think you should have a greater level of respect when giving opinions, this is of course my opinion. It is easy for us to criticise other peoples work when we do not know how this work is done, how many projects artists can handle in one go, or all the other stuff inside the industry. I know I am a fan of Bills work given my thread but it did upset me reading how strongly you criticised every aspect of his work. I think he deserves more respect. Anyway I just wanted to voice my opinion there as I have a lot of respect for Bill.

Normally it takes me 3-5 man days to do a background, depending on the size and detail. I work 8 hours a day on paid projects, Kaptain Brawe hopefully being one of them that I will be working on this fall. Then when I’m done on paid work for the day I will work 2-4 hours on Duke, as well as 6-8 hours on the weekend (around 15-22 hours a week).
  When I am done with KB work I will start on another paid project. Like I said its how I make a living.
  The upside to this is I don’t need to ask for 200k for our Kickstarter, the down side is production is steady but slower. Its a logical and reasonable compromise I think.

-Bill

Hi Bill,

“Make sense?”
It does and the switch to Unity seems to be a smart move indeed. Thanks for your answer!
I still think the prison screen was a bad idea, but that should not keep you awake at night.

@Dean&Kate;: Point taken, though if you read again, it was two points I criticized specifically while praising him for his work as an artist. I know it might be seen as rude to do so in a thread used to promote his project, but I for one don’t think (even harsh) critique is a sign of disrespect or that we have to tread on eggshells just because developers might read the forums.
Also it gives them the opportunity to react to criticism like Bill has done here.

Thanks for understanding and reading my lengthy reply. The only thing that bothers me and keeps me up at night is if people assign motivations to me that are not right. But now you understand my thought process its cool, and that is fine we don’t agree on it, as long as you don’t think I did it to help sell the game.
One fantasy I have is to re do all the SMI and MI2 and CMI art just for fun, and not because I dislike the art at all (Mark Ferrari, Steve Purcell and Peter Chan are waaaay better illustrators than I am for sure). My wife I think would kill me for doing that much work for no pay, as well she should. The jail was just my excuse to do one of those backgrounds.

I did slip another one in Ghost Pirates from MI2. no one ever noticed that I am aware of. Though with that one I did flip horizontally. See if you guys can find it. its not one of my best illustration because I was unfortunately rushed on it.

-Bill

I’m glad you see it like that.

billt - 12 August 2014 03:55 PM

I did slip another one in Ghost Pirates from MI2. no one ever noticed that I am aware of. Though with that one I did flip horizontally. See if you guys can find it. its not one of my best illustration because I was unfortunately rushed on it.

-Bill

I didn’t play Ghost Pirates yet, so I’m clueless, but I can’t imagine this will remain unsolved for long on a site like this. 

Its in a cutscene is the only hint I will give, not an in game room.

@Billt How did you get into the buissness of producing art for games?

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for living and had narrowed it down to illustration, live action film making, computer games, and character animation. I have ADHD (hard to stay focused) and dyslexia (spelling and hand writing just awful) so my grades were not great in high school, though I always did well on tests, so I guess I was not stupid. But I read a Smithsonian article about a college that accepted you based only on portfolio, not grades, called California Institute of the Arts. “That is perfect,” I thought when I read it. And bonus, it was started by Walt Disney and it was just a two hour drive north of OC. I lucked out that my parents could afford a PC at the time (1982) and I sat at my Apple II+ and programmed in BASIC my own games and drew art using the two game paddles that came with it. Then the Amigas came out and I did a lot of computer illustration on them at the community college down the block. I got in to Cal Arts and was original in the Motion graphics program, which really means experimental avant-garde animation or fine art animation. They wanted you to experiment and push the boundaries of animation. My mentor was Jules Engles, one of the artist who help create the UPI style of cartoons that still in use today, mainly on tv. But I wanted to learn more basic traditional skill so I switched over to the Character Animation program.That program was taught by Joe Ranft, Mike Giamo,Chris Buck. I was very lucky to have them as teachers, especially Mike Giamo because he had the most influence on my art style. And Joe Ranft taught me how to write stories. Then the future the head of Lucas Arts art department Collette Michaud came to Cal Arts and saw my portfolio and thought I would be good for the animation position they had for Steven Spielberg’s The Dig. And I have been working in games ever since, for the last 22 years. Sorry for the long answer - not sure how to answer that question any quicker.

@Billt

No need to apologise, the more the better. I have dyslexia and ADHD too. I did not think I would be any good at programming with my Dyslexia so I did not even attempt it. I do have a good imagination and can think up great stories, but my spelling and punctuation prevent me from going further with it. Unfortunatly I do not have any drawing skills either,but I am inspired that even through your difficulties you achieved so much. So perhaps I have underestimated what I could do. You was very lucky to be so close to an excellent program that allowed you to really do what you are pationate about. That is all it takes sometimes in life, if you have the drive, just one opertunity comes along and it can pave the rest of your life and lead to other opertunities. Thank you very much for sharing that.

Ditto to what Dag said.  I pledged to the kickstarter for this game, I think it looks wonderful.

  Sorry if I came off as thin skinned. I was mostly curious about any perceived flaws in the game or any of my actions. I’m looking to improve and getting good feedback is the best way to improve. It will bother me if they are unfair or mean spirited. But being sensitive has an upside as well- it make me a better artist and story teller, and it make me sympathetic and empathic towards other people. But like Duke if I am insulted, yeah, then I can lose my cool. Though as I get older losing my cool happens less and less. Guess I’m mellowing out as they say.
    I’m glad my art inspired you so much! I too was inspired like that, by Steve Purcell’s, Peter Chan’s and Bill Eaken’s art. The work they did on MI2 and Fate of Atlantis got me into the career I am now. I feel privileged to have worked with them. I learned a lot.
    Yes generally one point perspective is not the best one to use, though I used it three times in the demo. With the Jail I just wanted to mimic the one from MI2 enough that people might notice it but changed it enough to make it not an obvious Easter egg. If I changed it to ¾ view then I don’t think the Easter Egg would have ever been noticed. I used one point on the bridge inn too because I wanted to kind of use it as an establishing shot and to have the viewer be impressed with the ships size and presence. I felt doing a ¾ on that would distract from the impressive front too much. But trust me there will be plenty of ¾ perspective in the rest of the game. The image I am doing now is ¾ and I’ll show you guys the drawing in I think update four or five – early next week some time.
  By the way Duckman was one of the inspirations for the CMI style.

Dean&Kate; - 14 August 2014 03:14 AM

@Billt

No need to apologise, the more the better. I have dyslexia and ADHD too. I did not think I would be any good at programming with my Dyslexia so I did not even attempt it. I do have a good imagination and can think up great stories, but my spelling and punctuation prevent me from going further with it. Unfortunatly I do not have any drawing skills either,but I am inspired that even through your difficulties you achieved so much. So perhaps I have underestimated what I could do. You was very lucky to be so close to an excellent program that allowed you to really do what you are pationate about. That is all it takes sometimes in life, if you have the drive, just one opertunity comes along and it can pave the rest of your life and lead to other opertunities. Thank you very much for sharing that.

Well maybe Dragon dictate could help. And I do think people can learn art. I’m on the fence how much genetics plays a role in ability. I have seen so many below average artists just work at it for a year or two and then they become really, really good. So practice does work. But you need good feedback too. Classes are worth the money if you want to improve in illustration. Also if you cant draw you might try sculpting, or 3d modeling or animation. 3D animation is great for animators who have trouble with staying on model in 2D animation. It allows you to act without having to get the drawing perfect. SO I would pursue it if you really have a passion for it.