Love the intent, like the comic,...the ship art...hmm

After being away awhile, I just looked over the Reddit forum and Tales of Honor 1.

I saw all that was available of the art style intended by Evergreen at HonorCon. Liked most of it; was unconvinced by the ship art, and the studio's given rationales for the large variances from canon description. But I decided to give it time to develop, along with the other aspects of the project

Now that I have seen a bit more in Tales, I have to say that I absolutely ...HATE ...the ship art. I think that the variances are absolutely unnecessary and give a totally wrong and alien cast to the most key technological manifestation of the human civilization of Honor's time.

Please change these ships to look like Honorverse ships and not nightmare constructions of alien pipes.

dreamrider

PS - And yes, I mean the Haven ships also. I think that we are all smart enough to see the variations in lines, paint jobs, hammerhead shapes, etc, without a deliberate attempt to make Haven constructions (dealing with the same story physics) deliberately made to look like they were build by vampires or something. I mean, I've never had much trouble telling the Bismarck, the Wisconsin, the KG V, or the Yamato apart on film. That's about all the national variation that is necessary, and that amount of commonality would feel a lot more REAL than the current grotesqueries.

baby steps dreamrider, baby steps.

Also you have to take into account two things:
#1 Not trying to be elitist, and I'm most certainly not implying general populace are somehow inferior. But the matter of the fact is, we people here tend to be by and large of the more scientific and intellectual bent. We pay close attention to details, and argue the sciences of a both the fictional and real world. It is easy for us to see the differences, because we are preconditioned to actively look for them, and in no small part because we already know something of the differences before the fact whether because of informing ourselves in advance or inferring the existence of them.
#2 Most people who comprise the paying audiences for both the movies and the comics do not go further than will this entertain me? They do not care much of the background details and are unwilling to bother remembering the cosmetic stuff.

So to recap - Be patient and supportive. Will we see more original flavored designs in the movies? Maybe. Quite possibly even. But they still need to work and grow and learn what does and does not work. And they need to do it gradually.

While agreeing with this being a process in its early stages; I do hope they switch to "color coded for your convenience" and details like hammerhead/broadside layout to distinguish the sides.

A coherent look to all sides' ship tech is important. It will convey that we are not in a humans vs non-humans 'verse here, and that everyone are playing from the same initial playbook ...

... in the first handful of books, that is; before the Manties start scribbling in its margins and tearing pages out in later books, which is another pivotal element in the story-arc of "the Havenite wars" that initially dissimilar ships will tend to undercut the importance of.

The first time the audience sees a SD(p)'s aft hammerhead (if the movies make it that far, which we all hope), they should have seen several movies with sufficiently similar hammerheads that the more observant of them go "waaait a minute. That hammerhead looks kind-a odd." not "Well, it looks different, so what, just means another 'nother ship class."

yannosh wrote:baby steps dreamrider, baby steps.

Also you have to take into account two things:
#1 Not trying to be elitist, and I'm most certainly not implying general populace are somehow inferior. But the matter of the fact is, we people here tend to be by and large of the more scientific and intellectual bent. We pay close attention to details, and argue the sciences of a both the fictional and real world. It is easy for us to see the differences, because we are preconditioned to actively look for them, and in no small part because we already know something of the differences before the fact whether because of informing ourselves in advance or inferring the existence of them.
#2 Most people who comprise the paying audiences for both the movies and the comics do not go further than will this entertain me? They do not care much of the background details and are unwilling to bother remembering the cosmetic stuff.

So to recap - Be patient and supportive. Will we see more original flavored designs in the movies? Maybe. Quite possibly even. But they still need to work and grow and learn what does and does not work. And they need to do it gradually.

Comic art takes a while to develop, so they probably haven't had a chance to take all the user feedback into account. That being said, I don't think they're ever going to go all the way to book canon, but they'll probably move closer as they go.

Starsaber wrote:Comic art takes a while to develop, so they probably haven't had a chance to take all the user feedback into account. That being said, I don't think they're ever going to go all the way to book canon, but they'll probably move closer as they go.

Part of my problem is that canon ships look like something that a navy, with a budget and a mission and a premium on efficiency, and a millennia or two of efficient spaceflight, would build. Like the windjammer clippers at the end of the age of sail. The comic ships look like something a madman, or a cylon, would build.

I am grateful for small progress, however. You should have seen some of the concept monstrosities on the art boards and slides at Honorcon. I think Thomas Morone (Bu9 graphic guy) almost cried.

Evergreen talked about needing to immediately visually distinguish Haven ships from Manti ships, for the un-familiar (and presumably a bit slow) audience. I would have thought that the traditional "white (hat) paint job" vs "black (hat) paint job" would do that just fine,...and play to long defined industry tropes. Heck, throw in a 40' tall stylized Manticore icon on the good guys, and a big...er...red eye or something on the Peeps. (Then you could just change the symbology when the Peeps become good guys again.)

dreamrider

The progress on Nimitz is great though, once you allow for him (erroneously) not having fur yet.

And a convincing adult-accepted Nimitz IS the most important thing, and Evergreen clearly knows that.

dreamrider