Circus Event - choosing the best girl and discussing

[Zorba the Geek]

1 hour ago, linkdream said:

Tight schedule has never been productive especially when it's art we're talking about. Art needs time and inspiration among others. I realize that what I said is harsh and I also feel sorry for the poor artist but that doesn't excuse the mess the game turned into because of poor management/direction/schedule/artistic direction/talent.

At some point the guys who are in charge need to take a step back and understand what went wrong instead of turning a blind eye and continue in the wrong direction. Movies, games and any kind of production need a visionary strong director who is able to make the right decisions to turn a product into something that has a great value.

That's it, eh!  Artists thrown under the bus because of impossible schedules.  What everyone should remember, however, is that the original artist (who has been much lauded over the years) made some horrendous cock-ups and produced some awful artwork - notable for its inconsistency.  He was undoubtedly developing in his craft and creativity, as would be expected.  We were very charitable towards him and his mistakes, I thought.

Consistency is a big issue here because we aren't just dealing with creative expression and artistic statement.  We are dealing with HH's own genre and game culture where the new versions of girls need to be true to their original personas, otherwise we end up with the equivalent of Kenny Rodgers after his plastic surgery where he turned into some perverse version of David Hasselhoff, not the same guy at all.  The artwork is where some creativity had to be subservient to a whole strand of the game and its culture so there is a combination of artistic creativity and a high level of consistency over technical execution, which is very hard for any new artist to meet.

Unlike others, I didn't find the new artwork totally unredeemable when compared with some of the botch-ups that went before (as one example, linework too heavy and imposed over tonal variation - take Winter Viola for example here; there are countless others).  The trouble is the new artist needed much more time to 'bed in' and come to grips with the genre he had to work around.  So he needed to work under the mentoring of a senior artist(s) until he and the HH team felt comfortable with the nature and quality of his output.  From what I have seen, his productivity under the tight sceduling regime doesn't seem to be an issue and he has to be commended for that if nothing else.

Yes, excessively tight scheduling is the bane of any creative endeavour, or any highly creative engineering design and execution for that matter.  Take the disaster Boeing is facing with its 787 and 737 Max airliners because of how its McDonnell-Douglas acquired corporate structure is worshipping the bean counters and lawyers instead of designers and engineers, and those concerned with what Boeing used to be renowned for: quality control, failsafe management and the utmost safety of crews and passengers.  In a very minor, but no less important way, we see HH losing its way in the same manner, and it may lose the game entirely.

That's why I feel very sorry for the new artist, and maybe we should point the finger where it belongs: the corporate structure of HH which is trying to do far too much too quickly.  This is no environment for any artist to feel happy and productive in!  So I agree with what you said.

As a footnote, we have some mysterious 'foreplay' thing coming up.  More hastily conceived artwork no doubt and dubious game satisfaction.  What do we do?  Lick them into submission?  I guess we'll have to see.  As Stimpy would say: "Oh joy!!!"

[DvDivXXX]

35 minutes ago, Zorba the Geek said:

That's why I feel very sorry for the new artist, and maybe we should point the finger where it belongs: the corporate structure of HH which is trying to do far too much too quickly.  This is no environment for any artist to feel happy and productive in!  So I agree with what you said.

I did that on multiple occasions, actually, including blaming them for hiring someone who just wasn't a good fit for the job.

Yes, the artists (I'm pretty sure there was always a team, but I'd be even more impressed with the consistent charm and overall quality of the first 2-3 years if it was really all done by only one person) of the classic era of the game made blatant mistakes and just plain rushed drawings here and there, definitely (even I have stopped counting the number of times a character has two left feet), but they largely made up for that with many, many awesome pieces, a really cool and rarely-seen style (in this type of games) and a remarkable consistency in the visual realm in which they operated.

The new artists whose work I'm dissatisfied with (I'm also pretty sure there are several of them right now, including at least two that need to go; the Holiday guy and the Liu-Yeng guy) not only have countless flaws in their execution, but also a poorly-formed, half-baked style with very little personality, let alone charm, and which is wildly different from anything we've seen before in this game. Whenever I face an opponent with Selene in their line-up, I'm shocked. It's like "why is there a Pokemon in HH all of a sudden?!". It was bound to fail right from the start.

In contrast and to leave on a more positive note, the guy who handled most if not all of the Monster's Ball and Far West events, and some of the pretty good girls in Wicked X-Mas still inspires me despite having a pretty different style and approach compared to the classic era. First of all, because it's different but not completely incompatible like Selene or the new F&F are, but also of course because it's of a much higher quality overall, and shows more experience and consistency.

Edit:

35 minutes ago, Zorba the Geek said:

As a footnote, we have some mysterious 'foreplay' thing coming up.  More hastily conceived artwork no doubt and dubious game satisfaction.  What do we do?  Lick them into submission?  I guess we'll have to see.  As Stimpy would say: "Oh joy!!!"

Actually, they changed their mind after the initial announcement was made, and there will be no new girls after all in the upcoming Foreplay event. I think it's a good thing, and who knows, it might even be a sign that they're listening to our feedback, and reconsidered because the art they had on hand wasn't good enough to release.

I also really, really hope the additional poses and affection scenes we're about to get for Bonny and Pelagie are at least well-made and not too far removed from the original work...

Edited January 13, 2020 by DvDivXXX

[Zorba the Geek]

38 minutes ago, DvDivXXX said:

I did that on multiple occasions, actually, including blaming them for hiring someone who just wasn't a good fit for the job.

Yes, the artists (I'm pretty sure there was always a team, but I'd be even more impressed with the consistent charm and overall quality of the first 2-3 years if it was really all done by only one person) of the classic era of the game made blatant mistakes and just plain rushed drawings here and there, definitely (even I have stopped counting the number of times a character has two left feet), but they largely made up for that with many, many awesome pieces, a really cool and rarely-seen style (in this type of games) and a remarkable consistency in the visual realm in which they operated.

The new artists whose work I'm dissatisfied with (I'm also pretty sure there are several of them right now, including at least two that need to go; the Holiday guy and the Liu-Yeng guy) not only have countless flaws in their execution, but also a poorly-formed, half-baked style with very little personality, let alone charm, and which is wildly different from anything we've seen before in this game. Whenever I face an opponent with Selene in their line-up, I'm shocked. It's like "why is there a Pokemon in HH all of a sudden?!". It was bound to fail right from the start.

In contrast and to leave on a more positive note, the guy who handled most if not all of the Monster's Ball and Far West events, and some of the pretty good girls in Wicked X-Mas still inspires me despite having a pretty different style and approach compared to the classic era. First of all, because it's different but not completely incompatible like Selene or the new F&F are, but also of course because it's of a much higher quality overall, and shows more experience and consistency.

Edit:

Actually, they changed their mind after the initial announcement was made, and there will be no new girls after all in the upcoming Foreplay event. I think it's a good thing, and who knows, it might even be a sign that they're listening to our feedback, and reconsidered because the art they had on hand wasn't good enough to release.

I also really, really hope the additional poses and affection scenes we're about to get for Bonny and Pelagie are at least well-made and not too far removed from the original work... 

Yeah, the two ugliest girls (imo) get an upgrade.  It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to improve upon the previous affection levels for Bonny in particular  Yay!

I'm like you; I found some aspects of the new art I liked (for instance, the expression on Liu-Yeng's face in her last affection scene - lovely eyes, even though they're not Liu-Yeng's).  However, the artist who carried on from the original version of Mordona continued with the sexiest ghoul I could ever imagine, and I wish I was able to afford to try for Bimbette.  The artist is not beyond hope by any means.  He was experimenting with techniques, as was the previous artist.  Unlike him, the new artist quickly came to grips with the down-view distorted perspective with Carine.  This really did work for her - amazing what a slight change in head alignment can do!  So I'm confident that we'll see some significant improvement and quite soon.

Listening to us?  Har!  Unlikely, but you may be right.  Sorry for the negative tone, but I'm feeling very cynical and pissed off right now.

[DvDivXXX]

8 hours ago, Zorba the Geek said:

The artist is not beyond hope by any means.  He was experimenting with techniques, as was the previous artist.

You seem to persist in believing there's only one artist handling all the work in any given era. It's clearly not the case. It wouldn't be efficient or even realistic to expect a single artist to churn out that many pieces with such short deadlines, but more importantly, it's clear as day that there are different artists when comparing some recent pieces. There is NO WAY the guy who drew the new Mordana (and probably Bimbette) is the same guy who drew Selene and Holiday, and I guarantee you it's a third artist who drew stuff like the new F&F, Liu-Yeng and Carine. There's probably more than three, even, because the guy who drew most of the Far West girls also has a distinct style and different abilities compared to all of the above, although it's unclear to me whether this person is still in the team at this point, and it's probably yet a different artist who handled the new 3-star Epics on the map (Xia, Akhathes etc.).

Again, despite the overall art direction being much tighter and more cohesive in the classic era, there were almost certainly multiple artists back then too, just different ones. For instance, the guy who drew Sporty Jeanne and Tanned Tachibana is most likely the same, and there's NO WAY it's the same artist who drew stuff like OG Kalissa or Samane, to name a few. OG Bunny, Arcana or Kimie (again to name a few) were all definitely done by one artist, and I don't think it's the same who drew OG Abraël or the Space event girls either. There was just a better pool of artists and a real art direction until about 6 months ago or so, when it started to go all over the place and have much bigger variations in style and quality.

If you keep believing everything we've been getting recently, good, decent and terrible, was the work of the same artist, of course you're going to hang onto the delusion that it's a good artist who just worked under too much pressure and experimented a bit too much, and you're going to feel sorry for him, and give him a lot of slack. But it's absolutely a false assumption, I can tell from analyzing the different pieces. There's a team, and at the very least a couple of members of the current team are just not cut out for the job, having styles that diverge way too much from the game's overall character design and art direction (when there used to be one), and also not being good enough at what they do. These guys need to go, and you'll see that once you understand they're different guys from those who drew the stuff you think redeems them.

8 hours ago, Zorba the Geek said:

Yeah, the two ugliest girls (imo) get an upgrade.  It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to improve upon the previous affection levels for Bonny in particular  Yay!

You have weird taste, my friend. Bonny and Pélagie are the two ugliest girls?! In what universe? And from which pool? From all of the girls ever in this game? From all the early worlds' 3-star boss girls? From all the 3-star commons? In any case, this seems way extreme to me. Have you seen Sporty Jeanne's face? Have you seen all of the Tanned event girls' nail-less toes? To each their own yadda yadda, of course, but man, you're harsh there. Also, I think there's a world of difference between Bonny (pretty cool character and quite decent poses) and Pélagie (not as cool of a character design imho, and really subpar poses). I'm really looking forward to Bonny's update in particular, assuming it's one of the one good artists and a half they have left who did the job.

[GeorgeMTO]

47 minutes ago, DvDivXXX said:

I'm really looking forward to Bonny's update in particular, assuming it's one of the one good artists and a half they have left who did the job.

According to FAB on discord, all the star upgrades are done by Ben Kinkoid (who has been on the team for years, I think since the start). They new poses are very different to their earlier poses though, as artists develop over time.

[Observer_X]

Sorry guys, I don't want to be inappropriate, but can I make a suggestion? It seems to me that the thread has deviated enough from the title (and also fairly long) moving towards the "quality of the drawing" topic with the attached "better before or after" issue. Given that the impression is that this could go on a lot, wouldn't it be better for someone who wrote here on this topic to open a dedicated thread in the Feedback subsection? In this way the discussion would be in the right place and could be properly integrated during future events.