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Arcane Publishers Edition Vol 6
Publisher: V Shane
by Tyrel L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/30/2005 00:00:00

Every once in awhile I go looking through the stock art section to see what's on sale. Sometimes I find something that looks like a good collection for the right price, sometimes I don't.

The Arcane Publishers Edition Vol 6 is one of the deals that turned out to be a good investment.

What do you get? 63 TIF images of things ranging from armor to elves. Although the focus is elves, many of the character graphics really are ambiguous enough to be attributed to other species or factions and no one would really be the wiser.

I paid $10 on sale for this image pack, but I think the full price of $25 (at the time of this writing) is still quite reasonable. The quality of the art is there, and the composition is good, too. All too often an artist will capture one or the other, but not both. This artist has managed to do both quite well, at least in my opinion.

Now, looking through the set, a lot of the armor and weapons graphics I probably would not be able to use with the project I have in mind, but they would be perfect for some sort of an item book, or for populating a faux merchant's catalog ala the stock found in games like the old NES Dragon Warrior series (that's the first use that springs to mind). They really do look nice.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: High quality art, good composition, large selection. Quite a bargain considering the number of art pieces that you get out of this collection.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: No real dislikes, per se. It might have been better to split this product into two separate sets, one for armor/weapons and one for character graphics, but combining the two isn't an issue -- especially at a $15 discount since I bought it on special!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Arcane Publishers Edition Vol 6
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Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection One
Publisher: Ronin Arts
by Tyrel L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/16/2005 00:00:00

This set includes a variety of graphics of varying quality levels. The larger art pieces of the best, while the collection of "head art" is the weakest. Unfortunately, most of them are along a very strong space opera slant. I would almost call it a Buck Rodgers feel, in that many of them incluce heavily exaggerated depictions of the "heroes" of the series doing various things. This limits the usefulness of the collection as a whole, though there are still some elements that can find a use in a project.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Presenation of the art is excellent. Individual TIF files are accompanied by a PDF archive for easy reference when sorting through the art.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I would say most of the art would never be usable in a project that was not directly tailored to the content. If you were putting together a book that centered around the antics of this particular melange of characters you would be fine, but otherwise there are too many "group shots" that I don't think would work outside of a proper context.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection One
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Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection Two
Publisher: Ronin Arts
by Tyrel L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/16/2005 00:00:00

The quality of this set is better than that in Number One, and has a fair mix of items -- though fewer total images than the previous one. The art is all fairly consistent in quality, which is more than I can say for some character art in the other set.

The art is split almost down the middle between character art and ship art.One bonus is that you do get some colored ship artwork in this set (and one features fairly generic spacefaring humans, too). They don't look bad, though the setting your are applying the art towards would definitely have to be in the same vein in order for this art to not look out of place.

Some of the art is still a bit outlandish and not easily applicable to most projects, but at the price I paid it wasn't a bad investment.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: There are several pieces of fairly decent color artwork (two ship, one person). I was happy overall with the quality of the art in this set. Could it have been better? Yes, I am sure it could. It could also have cost a lot more, too.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: There are still several pieces of art that, without being written into a context within the story or text, would be hard to use. However few of these are as ludicrous as some of the ones found in the other related collections.

Additionally, one of the images you get includes a set of top-down space ships that look like a person was just learning a vector drawing program and exported them from there. I know they are more than likely originally hand drawings, but it really is a graphic that should just have been omitted because of just how bad they look.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection Two
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Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection Three
Publisher: Ronin Arts
by Tyrel L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/16/2005 00:00:00

The third in the collection, this one is also by far the weakest. All of them are scenic views of the established collection characters performing various tasks or getting into trouble. The collection lacks any truly "generic" pieces that could be used outside of either a product built around the images, or something that is aiming for a more light-hearted setting. If you are looking for something that can be used in a non-whimsical science fiction setting, you should look elsewhere.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The artwork quality isn't bad, which is really the major shame here. If the graphics had been drawn to be more generic then they would be great, but as is it would be really hard to use any of them in a project. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Another reviewer mentioned that they didn't have use for a telepathic bear in their products. Well, from this collection, I have no use for a picture that prominently features said telepathic bear's buttocks as the main feature of the image.

Similarly, a lot of the images leave something to be desired in composition and tone. I was looking for something a little more serious, and there isn't much of that here. But that is a problem with the intended use, not a fault of the authors. As mentioned above, the art quality is really pretty good -- there just isn't much that I could do with the art outside of a product built specifically around the artwork.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Sci-Fi Clip-Art Collection Three
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Grand Fleets Rulebook
Publisher: Majestic Twelve Games
by Tyrel L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/18/2005 00:00:00

I bought this book first in electronic format and then as a POD through RPGNow/Lulu. I have played a few basic games of Grand Fleets, and I found that it is a fun system. The system shares a lot in common with Starmada, at least from my perspective, and it made it easier to get a handle for the game system since I had a little experience with Starmada.

Both forms of the books are good. The POD copy turned out very nice and I would highly recommend it. Playing with the electronic copy required a lot of scrolling back and forth. In print form, it should be easier to flip back and forth between charts.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: It was approachable, and the authors give formulas and guidance on how to convert ships from later periods (WWII) if the player so chooses. All in all, this seems to be a good starter WWI/WWII naval game. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I can't think of anything about the product I didn't like. There several different modifiers (such as for ship sizes) which you will forget to add when you first start playing, but that is not out of the ordinary.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Grand Fleets Rulebook
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