CN Medals need you!

[Count Darvaleth]

Fellow denizens of the dark,

Carpe Noctem has grown over the years. Some of you will remember when it looked completely different, back when the Countdown threads started at 1,000 and TVC I was in its infancy.

An area that has not kept pace as well as it perhaps could have is the medals & awards scheme. Our medals don't look hugely inspiring, and don't cover as broad an area as they could. The CN Staff have decided that this needs to change.

We're looking for artists who would consider dedicating their time to creating some fantastic-looking medals & awards for the forum. They will be themed both to the awards themselves and to CN as a whole.

Your input is very much appreciated, and is noted by the Staff!

Yours eternally, in life, death, and everything in between,

~ Count Darvaleth
Global Moderator


List of Proposed Medals:

Long Service award for members who have been active for an arbitrary length of time.

Helpful Stuff award for members who regularly help with queries and provide good advice.

Grammatical Headache award for those who insist on post legibility.

Recruiter award for those who regularly welcome new bloods.

TVC Member of the Quarter - Every three months vote for somebody who you think has made an outstanding contribution to the TVC roleplay.

Top Tactician - For helpful contributions in tactical discussion. (fantasy and 40k separate)

Top Strategist - For stellar tacticas and strategy articles. (also separate fantasy and 40k)

Member's Member - Criteria for voting is down to you: who's been your favourite member?

Golden Bat Medals (as before but with shinier medals!)

Dark Transmuter - For winning "Turning the world to darkness" P&M competitions.

Best fiction - For top-rate homebrew fiction.

Best GM - For best roleplay GM.

Best VC Army - Best looking army from completed showcases.

Best Plog - Self-explanatory!

Best Mortal Army - Best looking mortal army.

Invocation Contributor - for those working on and contributing to The Invocation Magazine?

The Beast - maybe for outstanding contribution in The Beast Within sub-forum?

Reputation medals - let's say bronze, silver and gold, for acquiring 10, 20 and 30 reputation positives

 

[Count Darvaleth]

So then, onto discussion.

Firstly, what medals & awards do you think we should have? And, if any artists have any samples or sketches, please do post them in this thread!

Some inspiration can come from Heresy Online, who have, in my opinion, an excellent award scheme that we could learn much from: Link

Any thoughts? What kind of medals do you want to see? What should they look like? How should they be awarded?

EDIT: If we compare our current medals with the link above from Heresy, we can see the difference! Whilst ours are lovely and suited our needs at the time, the forum has grown significantly since then and we need the awards to grow with us.

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

I'd like to volunteer (my albeit modest) services designing medals if people come up with them. While I mainly specialize in photography - and there are probably many more people with much better skills than me - I do a bit of digital work. Samples of my stuff can be found here to give you an idea of my technical ability etc.

In terms of medals for certain feats etc., I'd like to suggest a few:
Long Service award for members who have been active for an arbitrary length of time.
Helpful Stuff award for members who regularly help with queries and provide good advice etc.
Grammatical Headache award for those who insist on post legibility etc.
Recruiter award for those who regularly welcome new bloods etc.

Just some ideas there Darvvy, hope you like 'em.

P.S. How's it been for you guys? I've had so many RL issues lately that I haven't posted on these forums anywhere near as much as I'd like. Have we grown much recently?

 

[Count Darvaleth]

Always growing, but that doesn't mean we can rest on our laurels!

Those are some good ideas for medals, and thank you for volunteering! Depending on the response to this we might organise a design team together to make the medals the best they can be, so we are very grateful to you for putting yourself forward!

I'll start a list of proposed medals in the first post of the thread. In the mean time, what do people think to these:

TVC Member of the Quarter - Every three months vote for somebody who you think has made an outstanding contribution to the TVC roleplay.

Top Tactician - For helpful contributions in tactical discussion. (fantasy and 40k separate)

Top Strategist - For stellar tacticas and strategy articles. (also separate fantasy and 40k)

Member's Member - Criteria for voting is down to you: who's been your favourite member?

Golden Bat Medals (as before but with shinier medals!)

Dark Transmuter - For winning "Turning the world to darkness" P&M competitions.

Best fiction - For top-rate homebrew fiction.

Best GM - For best roleplay GM.

Best VC Army - Best looking army from completed showcases.

Best Plog - Self-explanatory!

Best Mortal Army - Best looking mortal army.



These ideas would all need fluffy names and descriptions, and their own awesome medals. But what do people think to them as they stand?

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

Those sound like good ideas, could I suggest some themed awards?
Something like this:

Dark Marshall: tactical contributions.
Master Necromancer: Great conversion and modelling advice.
Sanguine Artist: Great painting and painting advice.
Fallen Aristocrat: Great role-playing contributions.
The Beast: not really sure on this one, would make a great title for an award though...

Just some ideas for the pot, feel free to suggest more and restrain some of the stronger cheeseerv:

 

[Count Vashra]

How about an award for being really good in the Liber Mortis section called Dark Historian?

 

[Bullhax]

Sounds like a really cool idea, sadly my skills making stuff like that is very limited so I hope others jump on and make some awesome medals!

The beast could be some sort of combination when "unlocking" a predefined set of medals.

 

[Raven Torrid]

Nice. Altho I'm not much of an artist, if I can by any chance think of any decent design ideas (or even make some rough sketches), will suggest here.

Which way do you think we should go with the general design of the medals?

1) one basis uniform design on which to build and variate
2) many various designs

For instance, Heresy Online is based on choice 1). All of them are Military Medals, but each with different motif, depending on the award. If we are to go that way, first thing that comes to mind is maybe a VC shield as a basis, with different motifs on them. Or maybe the same thing, but with a Grave Guard-ish banner as a basis.

Or maybe, something between 1) and 2)? If there are award categories, make each category have it's basis design on which to variate, but different for each category?
In which case the categories would probably follow the sub-forums division in a way. Let's say: technical support, tactics, painting & converting, roleplaying, etc...

Just some thoughts.

Regarding the types of medals, can't think of much at the moment, but for start:

Invocation Contributor - for those working on and contributing to The Invocation Magazine?
The Beast - maybe for outstanding contribution in The Beast Within sub-forum?


EDIT: Just noticed Invocation contribution already had it's medal before. :slapface:

 

[Count Darvaleth]

Yes, the general theme of the medals was something we wanted to discuss, good point.

Would people rather all different, dotted about, individual unique medals? Or medals that tend towards a general CN theme and look more uniform and unified, with variation depending on the award, instead of a giant free for all?

I would tend towards having more of a general theme (like you say a coat of arms or shield underneath) then individual motifs over the top. What do people think to that idea?


Also, fluffy names for awards are great, and we're taking all suggestions on this! We won't change the names in the OP so that it gives everyone a chance to contribute, and then we can decide based on what has been presented (instead of which one came first, although that could still end up being the best!).

Thank you all for your contribution so far.

 

[Bullhax]

Definitely the coat of arms idea sounds like it could be really cool, especially if they were to be individualised add extra flash on the larger awards.

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

I agree with a coat of arms style. Maybe we could have minor awards as shields and major awards as banners. We would have to decide what was major and minor though...

 

[Raven Torrid]

I would tend towards having more of a general theme (like you say a coat of arms or shield underneath) then individual motifs over the top. What do people think to that idea?

Yes, I concur on this as well.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Coat of arms sounds great, however just bear in mind the limited space we have to work with. We will need to agree on dimensions.

Liking the suggestions so far though

 

[Raven Torrid]

Couldn't help it, had to mess a bit with the design these days, apparently it's much more appealing than studying for an exam. :tongue:

Drew this in AutoCAD...tried to make it in 3D as well but just got pissed cause I'm not skilled enough in AutoCAD 3D or Blender. XD Well, the main reason to make it in 3D would be to be able to put light sources and give textures a more realistic feel via shadows. Not much other than that, as the medals will be shown in 2D (I reckon?), from above, in XY plane that is. Pretty sure there are other ways of giving it a more realistic & elaborate feel, in Photoshop, Corel or something, but I'm not skilled enough in those.

Well, this is just my 1st attempt at a design, it's easily manipulable in AutoCAD anyway, do say what you think or have in mind.

 

[Bullhax]

The skull is a bit too cartony for my taste but other than that it is spot on. I really like it as a preliminary sketch, the added shadows would work wonders I believe.

 

[Raven Torrid]

Glad you like it. Yeah, the skull is...well...made it to show that a skull should go in that place, probably not anatomically correct either. (looks better than just a circle for the same cause, tho ).

Regarding the difference between the initial concept & finished product look - this is the logo of my local gaming club. Left is the preliminary design, just like mine, and right is that much more elaborate, final look. Am currently trying to find out which software was used to draw it.

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

I'm a hobbyist Blender user, so could make your design in 3D. I'm a bit busy at the moment though, so wouldn't be able to do anything before Friday. Looks great as a basic concept by the way!

 

[Raven Torrid]

Nice! That's cool, I'm kinda in the same situation, got exam on next Monday so should really get to that.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

That looks great! That is exactly the kind of coat of arms I was thinking of. Then individualised motifs would come over the top of that.

I will edit in the medal ideas into the OP, more suggestions welcome!

 

[Raven Torrid]

Some thoughts and ideas regarding individual motifs. Do we want them to be literal or figurative...or both?

I'll show examples on these:

Dark Marshall: tactical contributions.
Master Necromancer: Great conversion and modelling advice.
Sanguine Artist: Great painting and painting advice.
Fallen Aristocrat: Great role-playing contributions.
The Beast: not really sure on this one, would make a great title for an award though...

Literal:

Dark Marshall - A vertical sword in front of the coat of arms.
Master Necromancer - When I think of converting, I think of X-acto knives, greenstuff & glue...not sure how that would look. :tongue:
Fallen Aristrocrat - A mask of some sort?
Sanguine Artist - A painting brush with a drop of blood in the place and shape of the brush bristles, goes well with both the painting and the proposed name of the award.


Figurative:

Dark Marshall - Blood Dragons symbol, as Abhorash is a master tactician.
Master Necromancer - Necrarch symbol, as they create undead abominations from various body parts, just as we use a bunch of different bits for our conversions.
Fallen Aristrocrat - Lahmian symbol, as they infiltrate society and pretend that they are something else.
Sanguine Artist - Can't really connect this to Bloodlines, without it being far-fetched. Can anyone imagine a Strigoi with an artist beret and pallete?

Also pretty sure that not all medals could be made into figurative form, like Recruiter, Grammar etc. But maybe I'm wrong!


Bonus:
The Beast - Something like this comes to mind, coming out of the coat of arms. It is an image for an old Gabriel Knight video game, appropriately called - The Beast Within.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

Could it not be a mixture? So for areas where it is more obvious what the figurative motif relates to (blood dragon symbol for tactician), then that would be more VC-flavourful than a sword. However, in regards to painting, the brush would be much more recogniseable (and perhaps more sensible... ) than a Strigoi with an easel.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I think it is going to have to be a mixture. I like the mockup and look forward to see what the rendered version looks like.

As before, just remember these will have to be scaled down to fit into the postbit on the left of posts. They don't have to be as small as they are now, we can make them a bit bigger - in fact we could probably do with testing what is a feasible size.

However I just want to mention it now, so you don't spend ages putting lots of small details on the design, that when shrunk down can't be made out anyway.

But so far so good guys - impressed with the thoughts and effort so far.

 

[Raven Torrid]

Aye, a lil' bit of both seems like the best way.

Was contemplating the size/detail thing...they have to be distinctive enough, yet not too much overdone cause much of it would get "invisible" at smaller sizes. Should be some combo between distinctiveness and simplicity. Heresy Online managed that nicely.

Our current medals are ranging from 24x24 to 32x32 pixels...can we expect the new ones to be up to 50x50 or 30x60 or something like that?

For reference, here is the Heresy Online ones (as they look on site, also positioned beneath the user avatar), which are 30x60, along with the concept, in 34x60, due to it's slender shape.

And also, a bit bigger version, 45x80:

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

That sounds good adding slightly larger awards, I'll bear the detail levels in mind when doing the renders as well.
I've not got any time to do Blender tonight (I've got a Karate class), but I did remember I made a poster last year in college for a project and part of it was a skull. I've attached it to the post and wondered what you guys thought?

I can obviously refine the design as I'm quite a bit more competent now than I was a year ago (it was my first time using Illustrator), but what do you think as a basic concept?

Cheers, Monkey

 

[Raven Torrid]

Looks quite nice IMO.