OK, so I haven't been drawing for a long time, mainly due to severe self-esteem issues, but more importantly, my family isn't the type to allow their son to earn a living doing NSFW art.
I remember talking about the painfully slow progress in making new art, and the most plausible defense I was given, was that the game was done "in their spare time", and the duo supposedly each have their own day jobs.
So earlier this year I found that I have extra cash, and I spent it on a used iPad Pro 2017, Apple Pencil and subscription to Clip Studio EX. I also had to relearn everything after dropping drawing for so long.
I can complete a full color, full view character artwork in 4 hours split over two days, each day spending one hour before going to work and another hour before going to sleep. Then I can complete the background between one hour to 4 hours, depending on complexity. I am by no means a pro, but the thing I realized with new technology and new features packed into new softwares is that many tools are available to speed up the drawing processes for today's artists. For example, Clip Studio EX has built-in 3D poser that you can download from the main website and customize to fit your reference. That's to say nothing about other things such as perspective rulers, halftones, brushes... basically today's digital artists are given tools that make their jobs much, MUCH easier than they were just 10 years ago.
And again, I'm no pro, and I don't even draw that often. Someone at Alis' level of skill and experience could have easily completed her artworks with less time because of consistently making drawings.
And yet I can make complete artworks in less time than a couple who makes much more money than me on my day job?
A part of me wants to excuse them for, MAYBE, still being stuck with old software and tools, but last I checked, they get more than 10k USD EVERY MONTH. With an iPad Pro 2018 and Procreate, she should have been able to become more productive. But here we are, still arguing about this.
So I was looking through the artwork (for science); The eyes from Hiro in the main menu, are different than the eyes from Hiro in older scenes. Scenes with Centaur i.e.
The original Hiro is hot. The latest Hiro has a punchable face.
So I was looking through the artwork (for science); The eyes from Hiro in the main menu, are different than the eyes from Hiro in older scenes. Scenes with Centaur i.e.
The original Hiro is hot. The latest Hiro has a punchable face.
Dude, you can't even create your own artwork but instead try modify their images in MS Paint. You're in no position to tell the dev that their artwork is "wrong".
I do have an online portfolio, but considering the nature of this site, I can't link it here.
...and yes, that also means that I can't post my Poison artwork, when it's complete, on my portfolio anymore because I already showed it here. sigh...
My point though is to tell you guys that I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to the kind of work required in art because I am involved in it. I know it isn't easy, especially when you are working on your own without a professional editor telling you what's right or wrong with your piece, and how self-doubt can sometimes ruin a totally OK result. I just find it difficult to believe that someone who gets cash as much as Alis does can't improve her productivity when you don't even need to spend over 2,500USD for a Cintiq and full subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud to do that.
EDIT: On this note, I highly, HIGHLY doubt that Majalis is ignorant about the latest hardware and software that can help them do more. However, just in case Majalis or anyone else is curious about drawing on iPad Pro + Apple Pencil and Clip Studio EX before considering to invest in it, I am open to entertaining questions about what I know drawing on it. The cost for iPad Pro 2018 with Pencil 2 is at least 900 bucks, so the money required is no small feat, but it is still much MUCH cheaper than Wacom Mobile Studio 13 which is 1500 bucks.
People love to complain about a game they clearly like well enough to keep playing it to complain about (or keep modding it so they can keep getting attention). Crawl back into your own thread, Jorja. Find a different game to latch onto if this one is so much of a joke. Maybe offer more criticism than "Lack of content" because there's clearly content being added with each update. That's a transparent lie.
the $240 dollar figure is also patently bullshit and argued in bad faith. It assumes you are paying for all four updates a month, which no one does. Patreon lets you pay $5 a month, flat.
I do have an online portfolio, but considering the nature of this site, I can't link it here.
...and yes, that also means that I can't post my Poison artwork, when it's complete, on my portfolio anymore because I already showed it here. sigh...
My point though is to tell you guys that I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to the kind of work required in art because I am involved in it. I know it isn't easy, especially when you are working on your own without a professional editor telling you what's right or wrong with your piece, and how self-doubt can sometimes ruin a totally OK result. I just find it difficult to believe that someone who gets cash as much as Alis does can't improve her productivity when you don't even need to spend over 2,500USD for a Cintiq and full subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud to do that.
EDIT: On this note, I highly, HIGHLY doubt that Majalis is ignorant about the latest hardware and software that can help them do more. However, just in case Majalis or anyone else is curious about drawing on iPad Pro + Apple Pencil and Clip Studio EX before considering to invest in it, I am open to entertaining questions about what I know drawing on it. The cost for iPad Pro 2018 with Pencil 2 is at least 900 bucks, so the money required is no small feat, but it is still much MUCH cheaper than Wacom Mobile Studio 13 which is 1500 bucks.
Yes, Alis recently got a Cintiq, and we've had a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud for a long while; before that she was using an Intuos Pro. She does most of her work in PaintTool SAI, with certain things done in Photoshop. The Cintiq did show somewhat of an increase in productivity, and she loves it, but she'd gotten very used to using a Wacom tablet, so it wasn't a huge productivity win. She's been using Photoshop and SAI for over a decade, as well, so not much change there. She doesn't have a set pipeline (well, there is a pipeline, but not a technical, artistic one, just a timeblocking exercise that I'll get into) for producing artwork, using the same brushes/presets/etc., or even the same technique from picture to picture, with some pictures using linework and others being painted, etc. I'm her (untrained) editor, and it takes about four-five days of work to complete a standard ToA picture, some less, some more. First she does about six or seven sketches of a given concept, or sketching new concepts. We shop around the sketches with patrons and people we trust to pick the one (or sometimes two) we'll work on, then she moves on to linework or the basic color blocking for a painted picture. Next she'll get the full color image done, but it will typically not be detailed or particularly shaded/lighted, so that detail work comes next and then variations and revisions. Somewhere along there she'll do the background, if the picture has one - sometimes it's part of the sketch, sometimes it's added in later.
She can do faster pictures if necessary - the Wasp Oviposition picture is an example of a picture that was completed in a smaller timebox by necessity, but A) she worked on it at the target resolution, rather than at a high resolution and then downscaling, so it's less detailed and we have no hi-res variant B) we ran out of time to do the egging and cumming variations, so we have to revisit it later to get that stuff done, as well as potentially upscaling and fixing it, which takes longer.
Obviously, faster work can be done if you develop a technical pipeline, as many artists have, by committing to a more singular style, but that isn't how Alis has ever operated - look through our gallery on, say, hentaifoundry, and you'll see that she approaches most of her pictures using different techniques and styles, and always has. It also absolutely takes longer to correctly compose a picture involving two or more people having sex, which has been most of our pictures recently (though new character designs have their own challenges and typically involve even more revisions).
Ok troll. Talk about assumptions. How do you know that "no one" pays for all 4 updates a month? It's clear that the generous people that provided us with links for weeks on end did, in fact, spend $20 a month. If you do some simple math and I know it's hard for some but that does, in fact, come out to $240 a year.
You're mistaken. You don't need to pay for four updates a month to have access to the weekly builds. Most people pledging at the weekly tier do so on a once a month basis.
Every time I say anything about this game I get jumped on by the white knights. I'm sick and tired of it, to be honest, because who else around here took the time to mod this game besides me? Oh yeah, no one and this is the thanks I get from some of the "community".
What a joke. Enjoy your game that has not had an actual WORTHWHILE update in almost a year.
So you both don't know how patreon works. Cool. You as the patron can set the max updates you support. You can opt to pay $5 a month instead of $5 per update. Don't act like you're a genius if you don't actually know what your talking about.
It's $5 per update so at four times a month that comes to $20 and if someone decides to do that for the entire year it is, in fact, $240. You can't argue basic math.
Speaking of assumptions what proof do you have that some people don't? For months on end, we used to have the same person provide us with the links so right there that proves your wrong.
As I've said numerous times, this is false: see the attached image. You can set a monthly maximum on Patreon pledges to a Per Update creator, and that does not have any effect on Patreon's functionality. Anyone in the Bunny Tier sees all Bunny Tier posts, which is all you need to access the weekly builds. We only use it for determining how many votes someone gets in the patron surveys.
The only reason we are a per update Patreon is that our Patreon was originally for our art and stories, not for ToA. We had the Patreon for over a year before ToA began development. At the time, we posted art for free to hentai foundry once or twice a month, so we made it a per-update Patreon so people could incentivize us to post more often if they wanted to. Based on that support, we started to post four guaranteed updates a month, split between art and stories, and we've continued that since then. When ToA started development, only one of those four updates were ToA-related; now all of our work is put into ToA.
The pay per update thing has been fixed, I can attest to that. I paid 5 dollars this month and got every weekly update, so that complaint is just not factually true. You just have to set it up when you pledge to do 1 pledge a month. I asked this question of Majalis_ToA over a month ago in this thread and he clarified it so saying you have to pay over $240 a year to get the game is just false.
So you both don't know how patreon works. Cool. You as the patron can set the max updates you support. You can opt to pay $5 a month instead of $5 per update. Don't act like you're a genius if you don't actually know what your talking about.
The artist only gives us 4 pieces of art a month at most. I know artists and have asked them about this they all joke about how slow that is for a game which makes thousands of dollars to be at pace wise.
Gunsmoke SU has been doing a great job at releasing sht.
They just got the super girl update with at least 4 new art in a momth and a half. Let alone 2 new characyers and bordello scene which is about 6 new art works.
Didnae expect the developer to respond to that post, thanks for the info. Quick question is there any plans to expand Lupa the mouth fiend and the ghost's content? Just wondering because those 2 are in my top 6 fav characters.
There aren't really characters/character types that we don't plan on expanding. Though you mean Lura the Mouth Fiend, Lupa is the loopy blonde werewolf that we just animated. Actually, both the Ghost and Lura are two of my favorite characters.
They just got the super girl update with at least 4 new art in a momth and a half. Let alone 2 new characyers and bordello scene which is about 6 new art works.