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  #1  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:15 PM
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Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

My primary project is the new theme for HSers, but I have some weekly time where I will have a laptop, but don't have Internet access, and working on the theme during that time is hard. Sounds like the perfect time to finally create cards for my light-hearted, but very real Smurf faction!

I want for these to fit on regular poker size playing cards, and while there are many, many existing playing card layouts for Heroscape, I felt like creating something fresh. I'm looking for feedback on what I've done and suggestions for finishing the design. Here's the current draft:


Mini is Schleich 20544, Mummy Smurf

And a quick attempt to make a more drawn/painted looking variant:

All advanced side info is present, but somewhat moved around. I think where everything goes is pretty obvious, but just to be sure, here is a Me-Burq-Sa card redone in this style, hopefully an improvement to the last MBS card I made.


Forgive the bad mini picture and weird shadow--I did this quickly, using a random ebay image

Questions:
1) General feedback. Do you find it attractive, functional?

2) I'm not too happy with the bottom left area. If you have suggestions on reworking, I'm all ears.

3) What icons should I use move Move/Range/Attack/Defense backgrounds. Just keep as-is? Keep in mind this is 1) for light-hearted comicy figures, and 2) the icons need to be "chunky" enough to fit the number inside of them. I think the bomb is a good nod to the light-heartedness, the shield less so. (I had a thought of perhaps going Looney Tunes and using the falling Acme anvil / pathetic umbrella icons for attack and defense.) If trying to be more tongue-in-cheek, I could also replace the smurf footprint with a snail or a turtle. Dunno.

I had difficulty coming up with an icon for range. The current one is somewhat ninja-throwing star and somewhat crosshairs. (An earlier draft had the M.R.A.D. icons in circles which made the crosshair feel a bit more present).

4) Legibility OK? How about in the species area? I tried to keep the text at least 7.5 points high.

5) Keep/axe the flavor text ("quote") area?

6) Perhaps move height down to the area above the unit cost? That puts all numerical info, other than life, at the bottom.

..and whatever else you think of. Thanks in advance for your help!

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  #2  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:19 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Pretty slick. Very unique. I dig it cool cat.

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  #3  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:31 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

My two cents on it:

1) I think the range icon is still cryptic and I had to think for a second about what it was. I suspect new players will struggle with it.

2) what if you moved the stat numbers (range,attack etc) up such that they were centered vertically in that bottom bar. Then the icons behind them could move up and overlap the edge of the bottom bar. This might break that barrier in an interesting way and make more of the icon visible and easier to understand. Also, I wondered if the numbers were too close to the edge and if printed in a print shop might get cut off.

3)I prefer the second style for the figure art. It feels great and makes the first one feel a bit less natural.

4) Should the smurf icon in the top left face to the right? This way it would lead the eye inwards instead of off the design.

5) What if you put the species (Undead) with the other blue attributes on the left and then put the point cost where you have the species listed. Its grouping with the hit zone silhouette seems arbitrary.

Overall these are really fun and nicely done.
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  #4  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:32 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

I think the points are too small (not readability, it just feels like there's too much empty space around it).

Is there a reason the race is listed up above the special power block?

I like having the quote on the card, and I think it fits well.

Either the first or the more drawing style card works for me.

Maybe some basic armor for the defense icon?

In general, it's playful, and I really like it. But I think your GenCon MBS card is the best thing I've ever seen.
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  #5  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 06:15 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

I really like the quotes, I feel they add a bit of lore and personality to the characters, that said I don't understands why skulls and shields aren't used for attack and defense, since that's what's on the dice and the range makes little sense to me in general. Other than that, I really think it looks great.

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  #6  
Old February 2nd, 2017, 09:24 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

I need to know more about your audience and target but generally...

Art wise I like the second "hand drawn" look. More work per card but really turned out well.

If you only have simple powers it works great.

If your audience is experienced HSers then the symbols are less important as once I saw the grey icon I picked up that it was a throwing star and was indicating Range. Someone unfamiliar would probably need more coaxing. I like the foot, Bomb, and Shield though.

I agree that the points seem small. Perhaps stack the number above the points and increase the size.

Favor Text - depends on how many figures you plan on making. If it's only a few then not as big an issue but it may start getting difficult to think up new create ones.

7.5 should be fine for the left side stats but 8 would make a difference. Unless you plan on having Secret ID's then I'd move the species down with the rest and keep the 7.5 Actually on more review I'd trade the species and uniqueness if you aren't planning any secret ID's. Species, Class, and Personality go together and uniqueness is sort of a different beast. I always thought it was weird the way they are split up.

and lastly I agree with mcmeeple's point #2. the overlap could work well.

Sorry for the quick janky message but wanted to make sure I didn't forget to post.

They do look great.

Would I want it to be everything I love...sure...but that's just not realistic so I'm going to focus on finding things that will make me unhappy and work on fixing those.
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  #7  
Old February 3rd, 2017, 05:16 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Thank you all for your help. Here is the original graphic from yesterday (“hand drawn” version since that’s my personal favorite and y'all seem to like it too), followed by a tweaked version based on feedback:


Changes:

1) Smurf head logo facing other direction. Which way looks better? I like the original, but it could be just because I’ve been looking at it that way longer.

2) The figure’s size is now located by the hitzone graphic in a (I think) helpful and novel (for ‘scape) way. “Small,” “Medium,” etc. are represented by a single letter next to the number, so 6M in the example is “6 MEDIUM.” A couple of you asked about the intended audience. I never thought about it in a mindful way, so I’m glad you brought it up—I’m OK with assuming that 0% of people coming to Smurfscape aren’t already very familiar with Heroscape, so such abbreviations and use icons vs. labels should be OK with that audience.

3) Points moved and I present 3 options for representing them. Which one is best? Coin, text, pink piggy bank? (Yeah, I went there). I think the logical location for which ever representation we think is best is either in this bottom-left of the white area or the bottom-right. After narrowing it down a bit, I can show options in both areas. Other ideas I had for graphically representing points include a cartoony money bag, a gem, or a coin purse, but haven’t mocked those up.

4) Species is tweaked, color and font-wise but you all seem to want it in a more traditional location, so I will make a mockup of that for my next post.

5) MRAD icons slid up slightly. In the next mockup, just mentioned, I will show you what it looks like with them even higher, breaking into the white area, as suggested. When I do, it will make my “cheating” with centering the text vertically (due to icon height differences) more apparent.

6) Text size: Keen eye, @japes ! The left-side attributes were indeed below the 7.5pt minimum I want to use, so they're a bit bigger in this draft (exactly 7.5pt).

----

Responses to your other feedback:

Icons: I don’t think the scape skull would work for attack, @jesus20456 , since the eye cutouts would interfere visually with the superimposed number. To everyone mentioning the range icon: yeah, it’s my least favorite one too, but I don’t have anything better yet. Bows, arrows, etc., aren’t “chunky” enough to put a number on them. @superfrog --I will look into armor for defense (or a portion of a suit like the helmet (oooh, oooh, maybe cartoonish VIKING helmet!))--that might just do the trick!

Quotes/flavor text: I’m glad this was well-received and will continue to include it on cards where it fits (and I’m able to come up with something—maybe the usuals in the fiction writers forum would help!)

Tagging other respondents not already tagged: @Tornado , @mcmeeple

There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. --MLK
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  #8  
Old February 3rd, 2017, 05:48 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

The first version of the Smurf head looks better to me. I'd go coin for the points, I'd worry the pink from the piggy bank would get too clashy being right next to the figure art.


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  #9  
Old February 3rd, 2017, 06:15 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xorlof View Post
Thank you all for your help. Here is the original graphic from yesterday (“hand drawn” version since that’s my personal favorite and y'all seem to like it too), followed by a tweaked version based on feedback:


Changes:

1) Smurf head logo facing other direction. Which way looks better? I like the original, but it could be just because I’ve been looking at it that way longer.

2) The figure’s size is now located by the hitzone graphic in a (I think) helpful and novel (for ‘scape) way. “Small,” “Medium,” etc. are represented by a single letter next to the number, so 6M in the example is “6 MEDIUM.” A couple of you asked about the intended audience. I never thought about it in a mindful way, so I’m glad you brought it up—I’m OK with assuming that 0% of people coming to Smurfscape aren’t already very familiar with Heroscape, so such abbreviations and use icons vs. labels should be OK with that audience.

3) Points moved and I present 3 options for representing them. Which one is best? Coin, text, pink piggy bank? (Yeah, I went there). I think the logical location for which ever representation we think is best is either in this bottom-left of the white area or the bottom-right. After narrowing it down a bit, I can show options in both areas. Other ideas I had for graphically representing points include a cartoony money bag, a gem, or a coin purse, but haven’t mocked those up.

4) Species is tweaked, color and font-wise but you all seem to want it in a more traditional location, so I will make a mockup of that for my next post.

5) MRAD icons slid up slightly. In the next mockup, just mentioned, I will show you what it looks like with them even higher, breaking into the white area, as suggested. When I do, it will make my “cheating” with centering the text vertically (due to icon height differences) more apparent.

6) Text size: Keen eye, @japes ! The left-side attributes were indeed below the 7.5pt minimum I want to use, so they're a bit bigger in this draft (exactly 7.5pt).

----

Responses to your other feedback:

Icons: I don’t think the scape skull would work for attack, @jesus20456 , since the eye cutouts would interfere visually with the superimposed number. To everyone mentioning the range icon: yeah, it’s my least favorite one too, but I don’t have anything better yet. Bows, arrows, etc., aren’t “chunky” enough to put a number on them. @superfrog --I will look into armor for defense (or a portion of a suit like the helmet (oooh, oooh, maybe cartoonish VIKING helmet!))--that might just do the trick!

Quotes/flavor text: I’m glad this was well-received and will continue to include it on cards where it fits (and I’m able to come up with something—maybe the usuals in the fiction writers forum would help!)

Tagging other respondents not already tagged: @Tornado , @mcmeeple
1. I prefer the the original smurf head. Keeps the negative space outside the "box"

2. I like this new version of the size. Seems logical.

3. The only one I don't like is the piggy bank. Either of the other two look fine to me.

4. I'm less traditional here. I actually dislike the traditional order. I like the Species linked with Class and Personality and Uniqueness segregated. the S, C, & P are all descriptive of the character whereas Uniqueness is descriptive of the "card/mechanic" if that makes any sense.

6. Combination of getting older and doing a ton of cards recently I guess.

Would I want it to be everything I love...sure...but that's just not realistic so I'm going to focus on finding things that will make me unhappy and work on fixing those.
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  #10  
Old February 3rd, 2017, 07:59 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Quote:
Originally Posted by japes View Post
I like the Species linked with Class and Personality and Uniqueness segregated. the S, C, & P are all descriptive of the character whereas Uniqueness is descriptive of the "card/mechanic" if that makes any sense.
I agree; while I prefer having all four in one block, if one is going to be broken out I'd go with uniquity/cardinality.
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  #11  
Old February 3rd, 2017, 08:46 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Range symbol idea: cartoon mountain range with a dotted trajectory over the top.
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  #12  
Old February 4th, 2017, 01:25 PM
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Re: Smurf along with me: la la la-la la la!

Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrog View Post
Range symbol idea: cartoon mountain range with a dotted trajectory over the top.
I suggested just a fat gray arrow curving upwards.
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