BTNaxe

[Moderator]

19:03, 12th Dec 2013
Kimbo: Works ingame and approvable. Looks fantastic, very well done, fits into wc3 great, I love it. as I understand you received help from Peekay on this one like some of your other icons? Just taking note of artistic inconsistency is all. Anyway, goodjob

 

[Apheraz Lucent]

This would look much better if there weren't so strong colors.
The wooden handle is fine, but it could use some more wood grains and less red saturation, and the blade is done properly.
The color of background effects is just too strong, and takes away attention from the axe. You should tone it down, or make it gradient - from white, to cyan, to blue.
Also, the white outlining of the shape has given the effect of axe not having stable shadows, it blurred the sharp edges of the blade, and nulled shadows and highlights on the wood.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This would look much better if there weren't so strong colors.
The wooden handle is fine, but it could use some more wood grains and less red saturation, and the blade is done properly.
The color of background effects is just too strong, and takes away attention from the axe. You should tone it down, or make it gradient - from white, to cyan, to blue.
Also, the white outlining of the shape has given the effect of axe not having stable shadows, it blurred the sharp edges of the blade, and nulled shadows and highlights on the wood.

NOOOOO...

Alright, Apheraz is an actual artist, knows what she's talking about... And I'll admit, I'm put off by the strange purple haft to the axe... But seriously, I just randomly checked the Icon section, and this guy at the top instantly catches my eye. This is nearly perfect for Warcraft style, In My Humble Opinion.

Seriously. Strong contrasts, sharp colors, good posing... It's great. If you could draw like this consistently, please come join me in Valhalla.

(Perhaps the only things I can think of are A) that weird purple bit, and B) the background, while cool, is a bit unorthodox (stringy blue star-burst?))

Keep it up!

//EDIT

I thought Ms. Lucent was trying to convince you to step away from exactly makes it so beautifully nice & Warcraft-y. I stand corrected.

 

[Apheraz Lucent]

Well, every artist has it's own view on a specific resource

 

[Kyrbi0]

^This is true. And what we desire to see can be inferred from the suggestions we make.

However (and this is the part that depends on the author & their intentions), on a Wc3-modding site, I've always been surprised how few icons I've seen that could reasonably fit amongst Blizzard-like Wc3 icons, so I take a special delight in encouraging the artists of those to continue. Seeing your comments would certainly still make a good Icon resource, but I fear it would lose a lot of it's "Blizzard-ness" that makes it so desirable.

Again, opinions. But how do you feel about my statement of "Blizzard-ness" in general or in specific?

 

[Apheraz Lucent]

As an icon creator for a long time, I tend to make all my comments constructive. The icon could be approved, but I always give suggestions based on how to improve it.

I wish I had my PC to show you how all of my suggestions would, actually, benefit the icon in the field of Blizzardness, and more other fields as well, eventually leading to greater rating, and improvement of the artist's style (if by nothing else, then by fixing common mistakes on his own).

Let's bring this conversation of ours on VMs, to prevent flood