My very first idea:
I was really wanting to do some sort of cool animated thing, so here I started. Also, I started out trained on the BL/CL combination of letters... and somehow "sharing" the L between them both.
Static version:
The Rest:
Rotating effect with just BL/CL:
*fixation on letters...
Rotating BL/CL with "#1" relating to finishing double-first:
*fixation on letters continues
...fixation begins to wane -- I wonder if maybe grayscale is good?
Rotating BL/CL/#1 in grayscale:
*letters persist!
Built out of 3D-blocks in CAD:
*yep, still letter-based!
... screenshot of CAD file in 3D iso
A wild transforming morph appears!
*Still letters!
Two-frame 'animated' BL/CL switch:
The letters are now meaningful - being applied to a trophy. Animation was beginning to look like a bad idea since it was unprecedented and I was unsure it would be well received after a brief survey of a few key people I trust on such matters.
Two-fram 'animated' BL/CL with letters as OVERLAY in front of trophy:
I'm now feeling confident that letters is not the way to go... icon should be IMAGE-centric, right? Especially for a game forum.
!idea! I'll do a trophy-shape constructed of letters BL/CL/amalgamation of the two !brilliant!
... hours later ... ")JN)U$)NJ@$)NU$@)! - this is way too hard, let's actually fully move away from letter... ohwaitnotyet, I'll do regular trophy thing with a BL/CL
shadow behind it!"
*Can you make out at 32x32 that the shadow is B/CL? I could, but then again I had drawn the thing -- a brief peer review confirmed suspicions it was NOT obvious or easily-discerned as a B/CL shadow behind the trophy.
!OH! What about making a pyramid consisting of BL/CL/1st on the sides! nopenopenope...
Letter idea now put to rest
Meta... what is this? I know
what it
is but what is it graphically? Image searches for ideas resulted in wheels of power (my own term here?) such as X > Y > Z > A > X. Some of them had fancy spoke interactivity connecting such as X and Z or Y and A!
For me, EtG meta is deck-content which is CARDS! Alright, I do a 7-card hand in the icon to rep "meta".
Master... what is this? I know
what it
is but what is it graphically? As a Master of Death I sometimes view my responsibility to that title as "fairly and justly ruling over the realm of
withing Elements". Ruling and justice/fairness eh? Like the idea behind kingdoms and KINGS! A crown! I proceeded to scour around for crown sketching ideas... I wanted to put jewels or something able to sensibly be colored so I could incorporate elemental-ness by-color to the icon. Pointy crown offer peaks, valleys, and head-band space just for some things like this!
I realized quickly a whole hand of cards at 32x32 is a bit silly so direction became "EtG card/cardback with a crown". Process of making, tweaking, and re-making ensued with input by an impartial 3rd-party "person to quickly bounce ideas off of" which resulted in the final 32x32:
with a minor attempt of simply re-reducing the larger base to 16x16 instead of 32x32 -- AND IT STILL WORKED! Hence, I confirmed with the CO that a
SAME image in two submission sizes was acceptable and then the 16x16 was finally included:
Thus concludes the rob77dp journey to creating my first ever electronic art submitted anywhere.
