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Author Topic: Anatomically-incorrect article art  (Read 649 times)

jecowa

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Anatomically-incorrect article art
« on: October 23, 2024, 10:54:07 am »

How do you feel about incorrect depictions of creatures in articles? (Orca man with feet, squid man with no feet, moon snail man with eyes)

The pictures should be there to inform, not misinform.
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jecowa

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2024, 06:32:55 am »

Just removed depictions of whale men with legs from their articles, which were the most egregious of the anatomically-incorrect animal-man art, in my opinion.

A Narwhal man with legs, which was already flagged for deletion for copyright violations

An Orca man with legs by raventree

An Orca woman with legs by AlsaresLynx

A Sperm whale man with legs, which is apparently "all over the Internet" and might be created by Rudy Siswanto. Licensing is "found on the Internet somewhere".

This art looks cool, but it's not Dwarf Fortress art, and it's giving readers a false impression of the capabilities of these creatures.
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jecowa

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Canon creature appearance
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2024, 06:34:00 am »

Sometimes there is conflicting information from official sources. Imo, the priority for determining what is canon is something like this:
  • Thigs Toady One has said recently (past ~6 months)
  • In-game descriptions (e.g. [Description]s and [Prefstring]s)
  • ThreeToe drawings
  • Body Tokens
  • Things Toady One has said a long time ago, even if it conflicts with even older ThreeToe drawings (since ThreeToe drawings can't be updated)
  • Creature Tokens (Just a note that creature tokens are sometimes more technical mechanics to make the game work than they are canon. Just because dwarves don't have a milk material doesn't mean that they aren't mammals.)
  • Premium graphics pack (just so you don't think i forgot about it)
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Bralbaard

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2024, 01:27:37 pm »

For people that started playing DF before the steam release, I guess the exact way art looks is kind of a moot point. The old game just left everything to the imagination of the player, and I guess it must have looked wildly different in different peoples heads. I guess that this meant people were not to picky about the art either, nor if the number of limbs was correct.

Now that the game has graphics, things are no longer left so much to the imagination. It would be nice to have correct art at the wiki, but I guess we are at a point were we could just use the in game art instead of random stuff from the internet?
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jecowa

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2024, 06:10:55 pm »

Most or all articles already have in-game art, but I don't think the in-game art is always correct either. The premium graphics depict all snail men without legs even though both species of snail men have legs and the ability to walk. The premium graphics pack also depicts bat man with arms and wings as separate limbs, it depicts leech man with legs, and it depicts the three whale man species lacking a couple of limbs each.

I think it's kind of nice to see other artists ideas on how these creatures could look, since, not counting the in-game sprites, the game still leaves a lot open to interpretation.


Albino Axolotl Axolotl man (left) & Premium graphics pack Axolotl man (right)

But, yeah, I don't think random art from Internet searches is ideal; it's better to have art created by Dwarf Fortress fans.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2024, 06:21:49 am »

Rodent men page needs some attentive work, its believed two mods attached to the same author who had to delete their account (steam terms, if you aren't able to fight it in court in a specific US county) have already been struck off the workshop for the perception of implicit copyrighting issues in conflict with Games Workshop IP's and the image in place on the page is material straight from their franchise books, which in turn was borrowed by TV-tropes.

One featured base icon-sprite rodent men, and another had fantasy warhammer orcs. Another type of orc-mod branching off that mod exists without being interfered with, but its believed that G.W is actively sticking a oar in to control their IP copyright may have the perception that Rodent Men was their original creation and would be unsuitable for DF representation.

  • Not saying changing it to cave-mice men and summarily leaving a picture referencing Redwall would be any better, fan art is imperative but mice/rodents are very popular and very egg-shell to step on.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2024, 06:25:33 am by FantasticDorf »
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jecowa

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2024, 06:35:44 am »

Which mods got deleted?

Edit: Just downloaded a few pages of mods off DFFD just in case.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2024, 06:47:58 am by jecowa »
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2024, 06:59:27 am »

I did make a alternative suggestion thread, but that still leans heavily on getting the permission to approve a particular perspective of Rodent men and roll with it from another studio in terms of approved artistic content & implementation.

Mods made by Random, who's account is gone too like i said., trying to follow url's to related mod pages by them just goes to a empty location.

Edit: fixed the link, whoops.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2024, 07:05:50 am by FantasticDorf »
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jecowa

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #8 on: November 02, 2024, 07:20:17 am »

Is this it?: Forthammer Fantasy by 7isAnOddNumber.

I tried doing an Internet search for rodent men and am getting some weird results.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2024, 07:25:17 am by jecowa »
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brewer bob

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2024, 12:40:39 pm »

Fun fact about rodent men: they don't have ears, according to their raws.

Code: [Select]
[BODY:HUMANOID_NECK:TAIL:2EYES:NOSE:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:HUMANOID_JOINTS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:SKULL:4FINGERS:5TOES:MOUTH:TONGUE:RODENT_TEETH:RIBCAGE]

FantasticDorf

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Re: Anatomically-incorrect article art
« Reply #10 on: November 02, 2024, 04:07:54 pm »

Is this it?: Forthammer Fantasy by 7isAnOddNumber.

I tried doing an Internet search for rodent men and am getting some weird results.

No, nothing has happened to that one thankfully as that content takes a back-seat and wasn't advertised quite as loudly, the ones like i mentioned were scrubbed entirely.
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