Revamped Items, Minions, Etc.

[Tiki]

Oh man, I love probably 99% of these, and that's saying a lot. I think my main issue is I sometimes miss the old simpler style of shading, whereas so many of these guys now look like they have 5+ layers, and it just ends up being kinda muddy in the end. But the art really is a massive improvement and I can't complain! I'm glad I decided to collect all minions and not just my favorites a few weeks ago, since the art is being updated and my gallery looks infinitely prettier.

[Cranberry]

I love a lot of the minion revamps... look at these!



However, I hate the revamped Patches. This is mostly for personal reasons... I had a cat named Patches for all 18 years of her life (she died a few years ago), and the old Patches minion always reminded me of her. The new one looks... almost sultry, really, rather than cute/proud like the old one. At least I managed to save the old version. That minion is displayed pretty prominently on Ketna's profile, so I'll be overlaying the old one as soon as Neko gives me the code.

Old and new:

[Jessi]

Erm... yeah, Cran, thanks for posting the old one. I've loved about 95% of these revamps too, but the Patches is definitely a disappointment. It has completely lost its old look and feel, and honestly wasn't a minion that I thought needed an update in the first place =/ Really bummed over that one.

[Alicorn]

I'm with both of you on the Patches revamp. I didn't think it needed it either, compared to others. I thought it was fine as is. Mind you I see they tried to keep to the original but it just doesn't quiet pull it off. It's the face that really bothers me. Can't really put my finger on why though.
Other then that I pretty much loving all of the minion updates. Some were in need of it so badly.

[Sunwolf]

It is an odd revamp - it's no longer looking at the viewer, it appears to have Manchu skin-flaps, and the lips seem to be . . . making a kissing motion (the black area under the nose. Then again, I do have poor vision *squints*) Plus, the too-skinny-then-too-fat tail is unfixed.

[Rakumel]

Noooo! Pretty Patches, what did they do to you? Aww, this was one of my favorite minions. I didn't think it needed fixing, either. I'll admit that the paws look better, but everything else just doesn't work for me. The new eye shape doesn't work, the muddy shading doesn't work, and I see what they were trying to do with the chest fur but it doesn't work either.

[sezrin]

Anyone else noticed the little icon has stopped be Malaria (or whatever her name is) and is now a glade pet?

[Mayhem]

Previously, it wasn't Malaria for me, it was a common Kumos. The Kumos looked better, I have to squint and see wtf the green blob is now.

[AngharadTy]

Haha, I was vociferously against the common kumos. The glade kumos is instantly recognizable to me; the common one was way too small. However, I don't think either is the "right" favicon for Subeta; it needs something better than a too-small pet or a crop of another pet.

[thelonetiel]

It was Malaria a while ago, I remember that too, Sezrin.

To me, the glade kumos is recognizable, but I don't think it represents Subeta well. Favicons should be pretty simple, iconic, and not something that only a player who's played long enough to look through all the colors of all the pets would recognize.

[Cranberry]

Oh... oh no.



I loved the old one. This one is just... murky, I guess. The shading looks muddy, the eyes are lifeless milky blurs as if the minion has gone blind. The fire looks like molded plastic and not fire. The nose seems to melt into the arm. I really just hate it.

I love Arbor's work in general and I love what she's done to a lot of the minions. Here are some that I think are improvements:



But I'm kind of... I don't like the fact that she's redoing so many minions in her style when they were previously done by many different artists, and I think some of them are just not improvements due to too much detail in the tiny canvas, maybe? Some of them are murky... and some of them have too-human-looking faces now. I'm not good at putting how I feel about art into words, but I'm just so disappointed by some of these. Is there any way to overlay old art in treasure chests (all of my pets collect minions of various types) or does that just work for minions?

Examples of a few revamps I really dislike:



Sigh. I really hate to complain about art. I'm just so disappointed because minions are a big focus for me on the site.

[Alicorn]

The firefox I'm on the fence with. I just, I don't know. I like the white eyes myself and the shading but not a big fan of the way the flames look on the back. I just don't know. I'll have to sit and stare at it for awhile before I can say if I like it or not. I didn't think it needed an update myself but I'm just biased since I loved how it was very much. **stares at it more**

As for the rest of the new batch of revamps I've liked most of them. I think some of them were in real need of an update and are now a lot more appealing to me. I'll be adding a few to my wishlist now that I wasn't a fan before. One of my favorites is the updated Zodiac Snake Spirit.

I just love it. It's so lovely now. I think I'll be hoarding these guys. The other Zodiac spirits are a lot nicer too.
And we had a couple names changes. Fat Purple Kitty is now Baublebut and Blob Kitty II is now Blob Kitty Cousin. I can see for the Blob Kitty name change and I like it a lot more myself but not sure why the change for the Fat Purple Kitty. **shrugs**

And there are a few I'm unhappy about. Purplug is a big one. I just, it's not the same. I loved the old one so much, mostly because it looked a bit like Eevee and I'm such an Eevee fangirl. It just, not as cute anymore and it looks a bit squished.

[Wingsrising]

Well, that makes me sad. Guess I'll be taking the Firefox out of Flammifer's treasure now. I loved the old one... but this one doesn't even look like it's on fire.

I do like the new Zodiac spirits, though, although I thought the old ones looked fine.

[Tiki]

But I'm kind of... I don't like the fact that she's redoing so many minions in her style when they were previously done by many different artists [....] Sigh. I really hate to complain about art. I'm just so disappointed because minions are a big focus for me on the site.

I really love Arbor's art style in general, she's probably one of my favorite artists on the site. That said, I can absolutely understand how it can be visually tiring for one artist to basically take over an entire category of items. I'm not sure why she's being allowed to do this; no other artist has such a monopoly on any other item group like toys, weapons, clothes, etc, as far as I know. I just hope that once this revamp phase is over, other artists begin filling in again with new minions so that we have more variety.

On the other hand, IF there has to be one artist that has a monopoly on minions, I'm glad it's her- she had one of the original largest minion galleries, so it's clear she's passionate about them like you and I are. She must be working her ass off to be revamping all of these guys in such a short amount of time, and 95% of the time I honestly think they're being improved and nothing looks rushed. I'm not sure any other artist would have the drive to systematically go through so many hundreds of minions and improve each one with the same effort without getting tired of it.

My own gallery has been growing like crazy this summer and I only have around 70 minions missing from it right now. Overall, I'm glad that it's not such an eyesore, even if everything is becoming almost too uniform in style.

On another note, I'm surprised that I'm not disappointed by the Firefox. I loved the old one, and yet I really like this one as well, despite how different it is.

[Jessi]

Cran, I honestly agree with you. I love a lot of Arbor's work, but I'm not fond of a lot of these minion revamps - the Firefox is one of them. I feel like some of these minion revamps are being done very strangely. Some of them are keeping the exact old pose, expression, and even art style that they had before, just with cleaner lines and better shading. Some of them - like the Purplug (and I LIKE the new purplug more, I'm just using it as an example) are complete redraws and seem to be losing something from what they were before.

The ringo is one for me - . It's the same colors... it's tongue is still out, but the changes in its expression (I wish I had the old one so i could describe what I meant, heh) just stand out to me. I recognized it instantly as a Ringo, but I also recognized it instantly as looking.. wrong? I can't explain it.

I agree with Alicorn that the new zodiac animals look gorgeous, however. I love how they have a bit more detail now and still manage to look almost incorporeal. Loving the rat <3

Also, Cran, I asked my friend Damien about the treasure overlay thing for you and I will let you know as soon as I hear from him. Since treasure items have individual ID#s now, it might be possible!

ETA- He's gotten back to me already with this code!

Code: Select all

<style>
#treasure_1 img {width: 64px; height: 0px; padding-top: 64px; background: url(item overlay url here) no-repeat}
</style>

I'm assuming #treasure_1 is where you'd put what actual treasure item you want to overlay :3