February 2012 Entry: Don't Break the Ice

[artearth]

### LATEST WIP ###
dontbreaktheice.jpg

This is my first post, first map, first challenge so I hope I'm getting all of this right. I am going with "Don't Break the Ice" the old game where you pop little plastic cubes out of a frame and try not to be the one to sink the fisherman. I'm pushing that into an ice/mining camp of some sort with sort of a military/strategy feel. This is what I've been able to do over the last 24 hours or so, mostly working on ice and rivers and cracks. Not sure where to go from here - advice is appreciated!

[Bogie]

Great job with the cracks in the ice!

And Welcome to the Guild!

[dangerdog15]

Nice work! Thanks for joining the challenge.

[artearth]

### LATEST WIP ###
dontbreaktheice.jpg

I think this will do it for me. I tried to simplify a bit, add a little texture/shading to the ice, and still make it clear that it was referencing the game. I'd love to hear thoughts about how this could be improved. Thanks all!

[dangerdog15]

This looks like it was fun to make. What an original idea, and it looks so nice.

[artearth]

The ice is a simple white block carved away with lots of detailed use of the lasso tool, along with three effects: drop shadow, inner glow and stroke. (all in Photoshop). Texture and color are added as masks, using soft light and color layer effects.

This project started because I wanted to see if I could replicate the look of the WIP map that Schwarzkreuz rocked out on. The specific map is here.

I got pretty close but then started playing around with it and realized how cool the interior glow looked when you made small shatters in the ice. Sometimes even near invisible erasures (like half pixel, if that's possible) created subtle shading patterns that looked really cool. Here are some images showing the layer effects.

Hope this is useful to someone. I love this site for inspiration and tutorials!

layerDS.jpglayerIG.jpglayerST.jpg

[dangerdog15]

thanx for posting this info art. This'll be useful.