Wow, so umm... This looks bad, not only is it inaccurate due to using the wrong ink demon design [unless this is confirmation BATIM Ink Demon has been outright retconned... Which would make me pissed enough to make a new post just about THAT] but from an art standpoint this is just... Confusing and poorly done.
I wouldn't care if this was fanart, of course you should support young, indie artists... But for a Graphic Novel making sure your cover doesn't look like something Butch Hartman shat out in an afternoon is kind of important. Remember they're going to be asking us to give money to them to read this. The artist likely won't see any of that money and neither do the authors most of the time, not to mention this art screams of the artist being underpaid and overworked.
Like they Had to get something on someone's desk and their boss said 'good enough'. A concept Joey Drew Studios is very familiar with considering the allegations of poor working environments that Kindly Beast. Not to mention Mike Mood admitting in a Reddit AMA that they did in fact rush projects like Showdown Bandit. [Which they sold at full price]
He also says they can in fact say no or yes to designs involving their IP. Either Mike or Meatly had to say yes to this cover, according to his own damn words.
And do you really think this company in particular would care enough about its fanbase to not sell them garbage? They have done exactly that on several occasions. It's not like they care particularly about art either, considering their previous use of AI Art. There was no apology or even posts addressing it... Instead, they just rushed out an archives update to their game to get people to stop talking about it... Even forgetting an entire character in it. Again
This company is [or at least SHOULD BE] on thin ice when it comes to being suspected of misleading their fans or rushing out crappy products to them.
So with all that context in mind, I'm gonna talk about why this cover sucks ass.
The light sources are all over the place? Why does it look like someone put maces or knight armor on his shoulders but it's just flesh?? It looks both gross and weird [not in a good way either]
To explain more I'm going on a rant below but sadly this seems to have been confirmed to not just be a rough pass but the final cover and man... I am not excited about this graphic novel just at all. This felt like it really drained any possibility of it turning out good for me and I already had expectations low.
Okay first point, the light sources?? And there is no consistency here with the shadows or lighting, it looks like there's a hundred light sources all at once but none of them are even consistent!
the arrows here represent all the different light sources I can make out and yet the the shadow clearly implies there's only one. I understand wanting to use highlights to give the character a more clear shape but then just give him one or two lights behind him or in front of him? No matter how u follow the light sources, the highlights make no sense and the shadows make even less sense.
Why are the shoulders like that? Like on the legs it's a little understandable, at least those are clearly very heavily affected by perspective, for me I think they are so exaggerated it makes it look like one of the legs is either huge or one is small but that's maybe subjective.
However, the shoulders are unjustifiable, what happened there, what did they do??
I could pick on so much more honestly, how the color choices of piss yellow with no other colors being used, and the harsh pitch black being used for every part of his body is weird. How it looks straight out of Butch Hartman's recent crappy art. But to put bluntly bad start! Also what the HELL is going on with this background??
Seems once again the Bendy team is fine with sending out stuff thinking it's "Good Enough" for Bendy fans and honestly the people trying to tell me to "Be Grateful" for this are just proving that no matter how many times you betray your audience some of em will defend you!
Which is sad tbh. If anything we should be putting MORE pressure on the Bendy team to do better. Cause we deserve better than this, honestly we do. There are amazing artists in the bendy community who could do so much better for a cover. They've employed their fan artists before... Wouldn't it be great to do that for such a lore important book? The book that gives us the identity of one of the main characters in BATIM? The character you spend the entirety of Chapter 4 fighting to save? Not to mention will give several major characters their human designs?
But I guess this is... Good enough...
24 notes
·
View notes
wanted to post the royals and co. as a set for reference, though the only new things here are the king+queen and koe's updated design :p also most of them didn't get little infoboxes so those will be a first under the cut here ^_^
Name: Andromeda (Andy)
Name origin: The Andromeda Galaxy, named for the mythical princess
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 20
Title: Heir apparent
Weapon: Flamberge (Same as her mom's)
Ethos (Power): None
Flaw power is based on: N/A
Notes: She wants to go on adventures someday, and make a lot of friends, and be normal. So please drop the "Your highness" and call her Andy!
Name: Cepheus
Name origin: The constellation Cepheus, the king
Pronouns: He/him
Age: 54
Title: King
Weapon: Scepter
Ethos (Power): Authority (The ability to control people’s actions through his words, but not their minds)
Flaw power is based on: His controlling and paranoid nature
Notes: He prefers not to use his ability unless it seems necessary, but ends will justify the means.
Name: Cassiopeia
Name origin: The constellation Cassiopeia, the queen
Pronouns: She/her
Age: -
Title: Queen
Weapon: Flamberge
Ethos (Power): Alis (The ability to generate wings)
Flaw power is based on: Her overconfidence in her own abilities, ironically like a completely different winged mythological figure...
Notes: Before being the Queen, she was the Hero.
Name: Koeia/Koe
Name origin: The star Koeia, whose name literally means "Star"
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 20
Title: Maid/Andromeda's lady in waiting
Weapon: Twin Sickles
Ethos (Power): Blessing (She can make others more powerful through cheering them on)
Flaw power is based on: Her Obsequiousness
Notes: She assures you her devotion to the princess is strictly for non-homosexual reasons
Name: Perseus/Percy
Name origin: The constellation Perseus, the hero
Pronouns: He/him
Age: 21
Title: 1st Knight/Andromeda's personal guard
Weapon: Harpē sword
Ethos (Power): Divine swordstrike (An all-powerful swing of the sword with no limit)
Flaw power is based on: His incredible arrogance and show-offishness
Notes: He assures you that his showy devotion to the princess is as heterosexual as it seems. Also he's the cousin Io from Nova Stella
Name: Ursa
Name origin: Ursa major, the big dipper.
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 38
Title: Major
Weapon: None
Ethos (Power): Bear-handed (Her claws are unbreakable and can slice through any material)
Flaw power is based on: Her hyper-diligence. Her ruthless devotion and adherence. Literally nothing could ever stand in her way.
Notes: She’s the mama bear of Kochab (Ursa minor) from the timber scouts
25 notes
·
View notes