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Magic Skill Icons

Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 18:49
by Othello
Hey everyone,

I thought I'd take a shot at making icons for the different types of magic. My first one is for fire magic, in two flavours. Please comment on it.

Thanks!

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 19:07
by Crush
I really like the concept. I would prefer the first one over the 2nd. Feel free to create icons for the other magical disciplines with the same concept (element in a sphere). In case you don't know the disciplines are:

fire
water
earth
air
lightning
ice
metal
nature
healing

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 22:55
by Othello
I had a go at water... it took quite a while to tweak. I'm not happy with it yet, but its a start. Any good idea for earth magic element images?

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 23:09
by i
Indeed, nice done. Personally I think that they definitely could be animated.
Also it would be nice to make them look as elements in glass orbs.

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 05:40
by Len
Othello wrote:Hey everyone,

I thought I'd take a shot at making icons for the different types of magic. My first one is for fire magic, in two flavours. Please comment on it.

Thanks!
Very nice

Image

However, it would be great if you would put the weapon icons into similar bubbles

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 07:27
by Othello
I'm not sure about the wapon items in orbs. One of the reasons I put the elements in a orb (especially the fire) is that you can define the background (more required for the fire-whirl than the 'camp fire' though). Since fire needs a dark background to really stick out I decided to create the orb for it. The weapons on the other hand need all the detail (and space) they can get since they are more complecated then the elements. For consitency I would rather remove the orbs from the elements than add them to the wapon icons.

The animamation is a great idea... it'll be a tough one to animate the fire, but atleast the concept is simple... not sure how to animate waterdroplet though. I could make it look as if it was falling, with smaller droplets in the background... I was also thinking about puting a wave in the orb for water... A wave you can animate quite well, however, while experimenting with that it looked a lot like the (old) bittorrent icon :). For now I think I'll draw the statics. Since they are all pure SVGs I can always animate them later.

Thanks for your comments so far!

What images would you use for the following disciplines:
- earth (lump of clay.. not very gecognizable...)
- metal (a nut (for a bolt))
- healing (a heart symbol?)

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 08:11
by GonzoDark
How about renaming this topic to just "Magic Skill Icons"?

// GonzoDark

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 08:23
by Othello
GonzoDark wrote:How about renaming this topic to just "Magic Skill Icons"?

// GonzoDark
Good suggestion!

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 08:42
by Crush
Othello wrote:- earth (lump of clay.. not very gecognizable...)
I think it could work.
- metal (a nut (for a bolt))
I think that's not really it.
- healing (a heart symbol?)
Too cheesy. Maybe a red cross? Or you could go for the less cultural impacted look and try a "healing hand".
Len wrote:However, it would be great if you would put the weapon icons into similar bubbles
The weapon icons lack a consistent element like the orb form of the magic icons, but I think making them orbs wouldn't be right. Weapons should have a different consistent element. How about adding the "pow" effect in the background of the fist icon to all the item icons?

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 15:06
by EJlol
Too cheesy. Maybe a red cross? Or you could go for the less cultural impacted look and try a "healing hand".
The red cross made once a statement that they didn't like it that their logo was used in games.
http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=016637&tid=001

I like the healing hand idea though.

Re: Magic Skill Icons - Fire

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 15:19
by ElvenProgrammer
Crush wrote:
Len wrote:However, it would be great if you would put the weapon icons into similar bubbles
The weapon icons lack a consistent element like the orb form of the magic icons, but I think making them orbs wouldn't be right. Weapons should have a different consistent element. How about adding the "pow" effect in the background of the fist icon to all the item icons?
I think the pow effect is quite distinctive of the punch. I'd prefer something simple like a rounded black square around the icons. Maybe also glossy as in the magic icons and with a light background.

Re: Magic Skill Icons

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 15:58
by Dr Wahl
Ideas for Earth:

- Mountain
- River bed
- Planet Earth (viewed from space)

Ideas for Metal:

- Any type of Ore (iron ore, copper ore, etc.)
- Sheet Metal

Ideas for Healing:

- Syringe
- Bandage(s)
- Pills
- Blood (drop of blood maybe?)

I also like the cross idea, but I would prefer to try to use something that is a little less cliche, however, this is a hard concept to create an image for without using something that has been (over)done.

Re: Magic Skill Icons

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 16:49
by Crush
Dr Wahl wrote:- Planet Earth (viewed from space)
It isn't even determined yet if The Mana World is really a sphere.
- Blood (drop of blood maybe?)
I would associate a drop of blood rather with vampirism than healing.

Re: Magic Skill Icons

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 17:23
by Dr Wahl
Crush wrote:It isn't even determined yet if The Mana World is really a sphere.
I understand that conceptually, we may not know the shape of TMW, however, I was thinking of symbols that make people think about nature. however, I see your point. It would definitely be confusing if the world of TMW was flat and we showed a sphere for a planet.
Crush wrote:I would associate a drop of blood rather with vampirism than healing.
True. I kinda forgot about vampires. :)
This could be done in other ways though, such as showing a wrist with a laceration and blood dripping out.

Re: Magic Skill Icons

Posted: 16 Apr 2008, 17:30
by Crush
We could also go for the rod of asclepius (rod with a snake - you've seen it for sure) which is an ancient symbol of the healing professions predating the cross by a few millenias. Variations of it are widely used by different medical and paramedical organisations all around the world.