Topic: March 2015 Castlevania Dungeon Sprite Contest

[Donvermicelli]

Jop : Isaac Clarke from Dead Space

You took a character from an entirely diffirent universe and modified him
to actually feel like a castlevania like character. Kudos to you, great idea.
My advice to you would be to focus on fewer entries next time, while all antries
were pretty good I can't stop but feeling like if you picked one or two and worked them
out some more they could have been substantially better.


e105beta: Knight Artorias

Suberb pixel skills, I love the result. Sadly I feel like this is more like taking a character and
making a sprite out of him. Nonetheless he still feels in place in a castlevania game as an axeknight esque character.
My advice: mess around with the sprite more, step outside the boundries of just drawing what you see and add that little
extra flavour. I really hope to see more of this in the future.

Dracula9: Legacy of Kain - Kain, SotN-styled

While the same comment goes out to you as I gave to e105beta I would have to say that this sprite
seems more castlevanized, hence I'm giving you a little extra points. The sprite work itself is fantastic,
don't know how to describe it better. I'd have liked to see a second pose so I hade more of the sprite to admire
but even without it it's a great entry.

Final verdict:

(click to show/hide)

1: Jop   : 9/10
2: Dracula9: 8.5/10
3: e105beta : 8/10

Final note: the discission between Jop and Dracula9 was hard, in the end I felt like the Theme of the contest weighed
more than the art style. Congratulations to all the participants for outputting fabulous work.

[Shiroi Koumori]

We're just waiting for theANdROId's judgment.
And once he posts, can someone please tally the results.

[theANdROId]

I apologize for my delay.  I was out of town for another biopsy (everything is still working well by the way) and didn't realize the judging conflict until I was already gone.  I only had access via my smartphone, which just isn't the best way to work. :-/  I have the judgment done and posted below though, and I'll tally and add/edit it in at the end of this post.

My Judgments:

(click to show/hide)

While each person's art this month is most certainly well done, I must admit that for some of these I don't feel like they really capture the spirit of Castlevania.  It feels as if the entry is just a pixelated version of another character and not a Castlevania-ized version of that character.  But nonetheless, fantastic artwork provided by all.  On to the judgements:

First Place: Jop's Isaac Clark
- Something about this piece feels most like it could be from a CV game.  Even ignoring the picture with Isaac wielding a whip, I still feel like Castlevania was best represented in your depiction. (Sorry.  The whip is certainly iconic to CV, but I wanted to be sure my judgments wasn't only based on the presence or lack of a whip)  I can imagine this character appearing in nearly any way...NPC, enemy, boss, bonus character, or main character...you drew it to fit well!  Great job!

Second Place: Dracula9's Kain
- I really like the look of this sprite, and I can see it fitting right in with the rest of the Castlevania universe.  While I can picture him as an enemy of boss, he really seems more like he'd be the leading antagonist of a game.  Great work on this piece!  While I wasn't originally familiar with this character, your did well in your depiction!

Third Place: Kokushibyō's Zero
- This entry is quite a transition from the original character, and you did well!  To be honest, I don't really care for the Pikachu included, but the main entry is awesome!  I'm not sure what it would be like in the universe where a CV main or secondary character is something like what you depicted, but I wouldn't mind finding out!  Very good!

Other Entrants:
- Great work done by all!  I can hardly imagine the work I'm sure it took to pixelate some of the characters/images you chose, and your individual works all show skillful artistic talent!

Final Tally:

(click to show/hide)

-- Jop's Isaac Clarke wins first with 9 points
-- Dracula9's Kain wins second with 7 points
-- e105beta's Knight Artorias wins third with 5 points

-- darkmanx's Raziel and...
-- Kokushibyō's Zero are honorable mentions with 2 points each

[Shiroi Koumori]

Thanks for the tally, Android.

Congratulations to all the winners!
Please vote on the April contest theme.