Final Fantasy IX

[D_Nikolaos]

Alright so here's what I've gotten accomplished thus far on my FF9 boxart. This is honestly still the same basic layout of my FF8 box, I figured if it isn't broken don't fix it, but despite that thinking I did try to set this apart from my FF8 box.

This one gave me some trouble, because again I had no art or pre-Dissidia images for FF9 to work with. I went around for a while looking for some good images to work with and found an official artbook scan for FF9 which helped a lot. Although unlike my FF8 box I decided to go with using a wallpaper for the main background to this box. That way I gave myself a little more breathing room and didn't have to scrounge as heavily for ideas.


Btw if anyone can point me to some higher resolution versions of Zidane and Kuja that would be awesome, the renders here are ones I made from the artbook scan, but I think that they were greatly re-sized before they were uploaded.
Although I could just go through and try to touch up Zidane's hair and face to try and reduce the amount of pixelation/distortion.

[D_Nikolaos]

Update:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/3...nd-d5axu9z.png

Not much changed in this update:
*I touched up Zidane's hair, and it seems like I got rid of almost if not all of the pixelation.
*Reworked moved the screenshots around.
*Added a drop shadow to the Synopsis and features text.

[D_Nikolaos]

Alright I just made the presentation on this update; Rendered out some scanned discs, added a background, repositioned the cover and added a drop shadow to it.

[EDIT]
Had some spelling errors and decided that while I was fixing them I would try a different blending to accentuate the text.
Tell me what you think.

[D_Nikolaos]

Does anyone feel that this is ready to be posted on the main site?
I'm just iffy about posting it right now, seeing as I already made a few mistakes, I'd rather see if anyone else can pin point anything else that I either messed up on or can be improved.


I decided to go to /ic/ for a critiquing and got this:

I don't understand this hobby. What's wrong with the original box art?
Well, I guess I'll take a whack at it.
The mysterious white patch in the corner of the front cover is distracting, even from the thumbnail.
The back cover looks pretty amateur as well, as I can see some text overlapping the screenshots.
The screenshots should have some border/and or shadow around them.
The readability isn't that great, since the picture gets dark around the middle area.
There's too much contrast in the background image.
I can't tell what those bullet points are supposed to be, but they certainly don't make things look better.
There is a strange blank space in the top left corner since the right corner is filled and all of the smaller text is left justified. I think you'd be better off left justifying the text at the very top.

My Reply:
The white on the cover was supposed to be my attempt at a continuation of the fog from the image used on the back. I was trying to give the image have a sense of distance.
I was trying to stay true to the original Pal cover and used the Iifa tree Official art as the background, and keeping the screens from having a border. But I could see to putting a drop shadow on them.
The bullet points are edited crystals from the jpn FF 25th anniversary site, I wanted them to resemble the crystal used in the logo, I guess that didn't come across as well as I thought.
And I can understand where you are coming from with the text, I can see to moving things around.

Thanks a lot for helping me out


[Since I can't link the images back here I'm going to provide a link to the thread on /ic/] _{(the thread has 404'd)}

[D_Nikolaos]

Ok so having spent a good amount of time on my thread on/ic/ I've come back to post the results of implementing the critiquing I received.



*I moved around the text on the back, using leading/line spacing, and honestly before this I had never even heard the term. So, after giving it my
best shot I (if I'm not mistaken) found out how to do it, and hopefully I executed it well.

*I also added some drop shadows to the screenshots, to help them stand apart the rest of the back.

*I also changed the crystal I used as bullets on the back to the original unedited version.

*The "Fog" on the cover was reversed to better fit the motion/direction of the Zidane/Kuja Renders.

[D_Nikolaos]

I've been getting some more feedback from a specific Anon on my thread on /ic/, does anybody else think that my having both Kuja and Zidane on the front cover is a bad idea or in bad taste?

I would just like to know since this is where it's going to be posted (alongside my DA page), so your opinion matters a lot more to me.

[darthnater]

I read through your and the Anon's conversation on /ic/, and no, I don't personally think having Zidane and Kuja on the cover together is a bad idea artistically, but there may be possible spoilers. However FF9 is over a decade old, and it really doesn't spoil anything more than Kuja appearing opposite Zidane in Dissidia does.
In other words if you want no spoilers at all, then Kuja wouldn't even be able to be on this box. However I say go for it, it looks pleasing aesthetically.

[D_Nikolaos]

Thanks a lot for your feedback. And sorry for the late response.
I'm really glad that you're liking it thus far, I'm planning on tweaking things a bit more, so hopefully it will end up looking a lot better.