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[Balathustrius]

I've never seen a Dwarf Fortress banner anywhere, and I thought it would be cool to make one for promotion or desktops or whatever.  Since Toady has said in interviews (I think) that DF is partly inspired by the 80's sword-and-sorcery movie Beastmaster, I thought something in that 80's heavy metal style would be appropriate.

Here's what I came up with.  Do you guys think this is dwarfy enough/too overthetop?  I tried to make it reminiscent of a DF artifact, menacing with spikes of whatnot and everything.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Photobucket shrinks everything, so you can't see a lot of detail on this.  A higher res version is here:  http://www.upload.mn/view/vio3mdckuosh33iwc6y6.jpg

It's all painted on a transparent background, so I can stick different backgrounds behind it and maybe make some neat banners.  Though I'm not sure if it's entirely done; now that I post it, I can see some things that might need tweaking.

Toady, if you see this, you can have it if you like.  I don't want to infringe on your IP or anything.

[Im_Sparks]

Feel free to disregard my suggestion, but I suggest you put some sort of fire on the low part of the background. Fire, heat and magma are a huge part of this game.

[Enzo]

That is totally awesome sir. Perfect amount of dwarfiness, and it does almost look like something from a hair metal album cover (in the good way). You should make it desktop-wallpaper dimensions.

Personally I think the background should be darker for more contrast, but whatever, it's badass regardless.

[sonerohi]

I note a problem and present a suggestion. The problem is, it has no hanging rings. The suggestion is to make it self-recursing.

[Puck]

IMHO that thing looks too much ... I dont know how to put it... hunter style. above ground style. IMHO it lacks dwarfiness. More earth, more stone, more metal, more underground feeling, please. Maybe it's just my personal perception of how dwarves should be. A bit more steampunk, a bit less caveman style.

My 2 cents.

[Judenbaer]

IMHO that thing looks too much ... I dont know how to put it... hunter style. above ground style. IMHO it lacks dwarfiness. More earth, more stone, more metal, more underground feeling, please. Maybe it's just my personal perception of how dwarves should be. A bit more steampunk, a bit less caveman style.

My 2 cents.

Dwarf Fortress has nothing to do with punk or steam. (Besides the occasional collision of water and magma.)

[Im_Sparks]

IMHO that thing looks too much ... I dont know how to put it... hunter style. above ground style. IMHO it lacks dwarfiness. More earth, more stone, more metal, more underground feeling, please. Maybe it's just my personal perception of how dwarves should be. A bit more steampunk, a bit less caveman style.

My 2 cents.

Dwarf Fortress has nothing to do with punk or steam. (Besides the occasional collision of water and magma.)

This!

Besides, I like the more gothic look of dwarf fortress as opposed to steampunk feel. The armor to me should be a clunky cross between space marine armor, viking armor, and plate mail.

[Mad Larks]

IMHO that thing looks too much ... I dont know how to put it... hunter style. above ground style. IMHO it lacks dwarfiness. More earth, more stone, more metal, more underground feeling, please. Maybe it's just my personal perception of how dwarves should be. A bit more steampunk, a bit less caveman style.

My 2 cents.

I'm going to have to agree with this. It seems too...orcish, I suppose. Smoothed stone, some gears, magma, crossed axes, stuff like that makes for a feeling of dwarf, atleast in my opinion.

Though it is still very pretty and very well done.

[Balathustrius]

Feel free to disregard my suggestion, but I suggest you put some sort of fire on the low part of the background. Fire, heat and magma are a huge part of this game.

Yes, fire was my thought too.  It's damned hard to paint, though.  Nonetheless, it'd be a good background.  Maybe magma...

That is totally awesome sir. Perfect amount of dwarfiness, and it does almost look like something from a hair metal album cover (in the good way). You should make it desktop-wallpaper dimensions.

Personally I think the background should be darker for more contrast, but whatever, it's badass regardless.

Thanks!  Yeah, I have a version with a black background.  I thought gray showed it off better, though.  It tended to meld into the black one.  If I can squeeze this into a desktop aspect ratio, however, I'd post them all.

I note a problem and present a suggestion. The problem is, it has no hanging rings. The suggestion is to make it self-recursing.

It had hanging rings from the initial sketch (as well as hanging, decayed dwarf heads), but I didn't like how they looked.  But I agree it would benefit from some, somewhere.

IMHO that thing looks too much ... I dont know how to put it... hunter style. above ground style. IMHO it lacks dwarfiness. More earth, more stone, more metal, more underground feeling, please. Maybe it's just my personal perception of how dwarves should be. A bit more steampunk, a bit less caveman style.

My 2 cents.

You know, I agree with you, and I was thinking this often while working, that it wasn't dwarfy enough.  How to add earth and stone to it, though?  It's surprisingly hard to fit them in and have the image still look cohesive.

I'm going to have to agree with this. It seems too...orcish, I suppose. Smoothed stone, some gears, magma, crossed axes, stuff like that makes for a feeling of dwarf, atleast in my opinion.

Though it is still very pretty and very well done.

Thank you v much.  Gears are a good idea to add dwarfiness, definitely.  The others are good, also, but hard to decide where to add them.

[[P]sYDoNiA]

Mate this is pretty good...
But would suit more to vikings...

What you need, is to make slightly more mechanical, like the other viewers said.

Try to make the gears non-obtrusive, like most of them sitting in the background...

Also, you need to add some renderings of creatures in the background, kinda half transparent.

Like, a gobbo half obscured by the banner in the background. The ends of the rendering that touch white-space should be softened and faded...

And, of course, add Armok's evil eyes and grin. If you don't like it add a firey aura around it and lets call it a SoF.

.:[P]sYDoNiA:.

[spokehedz]

It has to be made out of more stone. Gears and stone. Wood is for the pointy ear bastards who bring me cloth too damn much. And the horns? loose those and put some large serrated disks up there.

And there should be magma. This clearly has no magma at all.

[Organ]

To my eyes the axe blades look a little...it's too much. Also it looks really strange melding with the iron crossbar bit. I'd much rather they were separate and distinct, with the axe blades actually having handles. And antlers? Much too "aboveground" and reminiscent of elves to be the centerpiece of a dwarven seal, imo. Elephant tusks are fine. A mining pick and a mason's hammer crossed, with an anvil below, would be much more the type of imagery I'd go for. Oh and I'm not too sure about the font. That said, I love your drawing style as always.

[Maw]

Needs turtle shell!

[Jack_Bread]

Needs carp boneSKELETON.

[RedWick]

One of the blood splotches on the one horn looks like it lines up with the edge of antlers behind it, giving that bit of the horn a see-through look.  You might try moving where that edge lines up.

Beyond that, it looks great!