00:00
00:00
AcetheSuperVillain
A dark creature of the underworld, sent to raise havoc in the human realm. Also enjoys playing/making video games.

Age 37, Male

Ace the SuperVillain

The Underworld

Joined on 1/17/10

Level:
14
Exp Points:
2,006 / 2,180
Exp Rank:
31,511
Vote Power:
5.60 votes
Art Scouts
3
Rank:
Civilian
Global Rank:
82,011
Blams:
14
Saves:
60
B/P Bonus:
0%
Whistle:
Normal
Trophies:
1
Medals:
913
Supporter:
9y 8m 20d

AcetheSuperVillain's News

Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - October 12th, 2015


(To my NewGrounds followers, I apologize for the scholastic nature of this post, but my school requires me to post this assignment to a blog. I don't like having a lot of accounts floating around, so I'm going to post it here and share with all of you.)

 

The assignment is to choose a piece of art I don't like, and recreate it in a way that will be appealing. The artwork that I've chosen to dislike is Pablo Picasso's “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”.

3167862_144470290032_Les_Demoiselles_dAvignon_REFERENCE.jpg

The title means The Ladies of Avignon, and it's a euphemism. Picasso chose to paint a controversial subject in a controversial way. Picasso abandoned the realism that was expected of European art at the time and depicted his subjects with a chaotic menagerie of shapes, edges and linework. Picasso does not use any particular convention in his stylization of the subjects, and even switches styles in the middle of a particular subject. The three faces to the left are reminiscent of Ancient Iberian sculpture, while the two rightmost are based on African masks, subjects which were perceived as primordial and savage at the time. Picasso occasionally uses color to suggest form or distance, but in keeping with the theme, his use of color is haphazard and mostly flattens the image. The color profile is dominated by the reddish skin-tone that denotes the ladies while a grey-blue identifies some kind of textile, dividing them from the environment. The diagonal placement of the figures and anomalous positions of the two rightmost characters easily moves the eye from character to character through the scene.

 

Before discussing my feelings about Les Demoiselles d'Avignon specifically, I should explain that I have a beef with Picasso. I have heard so many artists and art critics call him the “best artist of the 20th century” or “fundamental to 20th century artwork” or something like that and I just do not see what they see. Picasso's works can be interesting to look at, and can make you think, but they don't hold a candle to the work of artists like Frank Frazetta or Salvador Dali. Picasso allowed sillier art movements to eclipse 20th century art like Pulp Art and Art Deco, which I find much more appealing and which show a much more direct evolutionary line to modern cartoons, video game art and movie art, which are so much more successful than “modern art”. In short, this guy ruined art for an entire century.

 

Studying Les Demoiselles d'Avignon carefully, Picasso is actually doing a lot of things that I like. I enjoy stylized, flat, “cartoony” depictions, and I believe art is best when we omit irrelevant details and exaggerate important features. However, the most important aspect of artwork is its narrative. Even if the artist does not intend to put a message behind their work, whoever sees the artwork will try to find meaning within it, and create the narrative for themselves. In this piece, Picasso has taken the narrative away from the characters who are being depicted in the scene, and made the narrative about the method of depiction itself. This painting of naked women has nothing to say about naked women, it is a message about angles and colors and perspective. Every aspect of these characters is haphazard and bizarre, reinforcing the notion that these are paintings, not people. While this is an interesting experiment to study as an artist or art critic, it is not a theme that resonates with the common person and it does not deserve to be called a great piece of art.

 

So here is mine. First I want to apologize to my NewGrounds fans for the lower than usual quality. I am not allowed to use digital media for the projects in this class, and I'm not used to doing things the old fashioned way.

3167862_144470309592_laschicas_final_web.jpg

The first thing you will probably notice is that I have changed the subjects from humans to anthros. I feel like Picasso did a lot of what he did for the same reasons that anthro artists depict anthros. Both our depictions are confrontational and confusing, forcing the audience to reassess reality. Anthros also give us a way to depict savageness or primordial innocence in an era where we cannot feel such things about human cultures. The other important change is that I have abandoned proto-cubism for a modern cartoon-anime style. Although I do not like that Picasso focused so strongly on the artistic process rather than the characters, I do not believe that the artistic process needs to be completely excluded from the narrative of the artwork, and cartoonism does a great job of providing balance between the two. You may have noticed that one of Picasso's ladies has her head turned all the way around to look directly behind her. In my depiction, I have replaced that lady with an owl, to give myself an excuse to keep the same pose. I have kept more or less the same poses and positions as Picasso did, as he did a good job with that in the original composition (which makes it all the more infuriating that he decided to mess it up on purpose). Using human skin colors would have been the wrong kind of nonsensical, so I used some cartoony animal colors instead. I did a preproduction sketch with more natural animal colors based on color picking from photographs, but I used the school-provided color pencils for the final render and they didn't come with a color picker. I have abandoned the background entirely, in the style of modern Character Art. Since my ladies use a lot of paper-white, I used a light marker on the empty space around them to differentiate.

 

I read that fans of Picasso were disappointed with the frenchified title Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, since Picasso was Espanish, so I have been referring to my piece as “Las Chicas”.

 

I am required to show you at least one of my preproduction stages, so here is the sketch with natural colors.

3167862_144470296191_laschicas_natural_color.png

 


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - March 14th, 2015


So I used to think, pfft, why should I post to both DeviantArt and NewGrounds?  The art won't be as popular anyways.  

5 years later, hey, how many views do I get on the NG art portal compared to DA?  Let's see... HOLY CRAP U SRS????  NG got like 20x the views.  I posted some backlog art and NG got more views in 12 hours than DA got in a year.  

Guess I'ma be hangin out with you guys more often!  


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - April 13th, 2012


I decided to improve the Duel Mode gameplay from pixel brawler, Micro Super Defense Force. You and the opponents now have lots of extra HP, which will give you more time to mess around with the advanced functions like overpsy and guard breaking, and I remembered to turn the music back on (derp). If you played Micro SDF recently, you may have to erase it from your browser history to view the new version. Playing it on a different browser also worked for me.

Micro SDF Duel Mode improvement


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - February 18th, 2012


It would seem that after uploading Micro Super Defense Force a month or two ago, I failed to notice in all this time that Duel Mode still had a playtesting shortcut that took people directly to the final boss instead of fighting each enemy one by one like it's supposed to.

So, if you played the game already and were like "...wtf?", that's how it happened and you can enjoy Duel Mode as it was meant to be now. If you played Micro SDF recently, you may have to erase your browser history to view the new version. Playing it on a different browser also worked for me.

HURRRRRP


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - October 1st, 2011


Things have been going slowly, but I now have a playable demo of the next iteration of Super Defense Force. This one has simple graphics so that I can focus on the gameplay without reservations. Right now, only Martialist is playable.

Play it - (NG Dump)

Arrow Keys = Move; F = Jump; D = A-Attack; S = B-Attack;

Press right, right or left, left rapidly (>>) to dash. You can dash in midair, or jump while dashing to jump forward.

Different attack variations are available depending on whether you attack from a neutral stance, while dashing, while pressing backwards, while airborne or airdashing or by holding down the attack button. (The current character can also attack by pressing F+S simoultaneously) Some attacks cost "psy", which is represented by the 3rd, purple bar beneath your character. Psy is accumulated when you hit, or get hit by an opponent, and depleted when you use a psy-attack.

Guarding happens automatically when attacked from a neutral stance. Chance of guarding successfully is represented by the 2nd, blueish bar beneath your character. Some characters will be able to counter by pressing an attack button quickly after guarding. This feature is a bit unfinished.

You can challenge AI Marty in various degrees of difficulty.

Easy - cannot dash, jump or use psy; slower movement and attack speed; 1/8 player HP
Medium - cannot use psy; 1/4 player HP
Hard - 3/8 player HP
Extreme - infinite psy; 1/2 player HP
In a real game setting, these different versions would represent thugs and bosses and so forth. I could also introduce additional powers like infinite guarding, faster speed, more HP or combinations thereof.


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - July 7th, 2011


Same batshit 360 combat of the earlier games, and soon to include:

9 playable transforming fighters in 16 color schemes,
Dozens of customizable weapons and equipment,
Mission select system
More enemies and allies; 18 fighter sized and 12 destroyer sized ships
Improved HUD, radar and auto-tracking systems
...and whatever else I come up with

I may sell the final game as shareware, depending on what sorts of systems I can find.

Alloy Tengu 3 is coming


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - May 16th, 2011


Greetings All,

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/54 84c30e1fa2c8aa000b7588e07dbb81

SDF(Derp Test) is almost finished, just one more attack to draw for the sword wielding guy and then I just need to fully program him and the Martial Artist and maybe add the alternate color picker if I find the time. (check previous news entries for history)

I was hoping to have it finished Friday or Saturday, but I just learned that I'll be 1621 miles away from home at that time, so I'll either rush it or wait til the next weekend.


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - April 24th, 2011


http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/54 84c30e1fa2c8aa000b7588e07dbb81

Control with the S, D, F buttons and Arrow Keys.

Super Defense Force is moving at an alarming rate! You can now play as Majokko (magical girl) and Martial Artist, and an enemy Majokko will challenge you when you get 2000 points.

SDF "Derp Test" will go live to the portals once I get all 3 characters and at least 1 additional enemy "finished". (Bear in mind, Derp Test is skipping most of the aerial and dashing functions to save time; post-Derp Test will include these features) There may be a few additional features like alternate colors and story ambiance too.

Visit 8bit Rocket's Forum for constant updates. I can make a post in the NG forums too if people would prefer.

Super Defense Force is coming harder


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - April 18th, 2011


Greetings all. I have a new beat 'em up on the way that is very close to becoming presentable, so take a look if you want:

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/54 84c30e1fa2c8aa000b7588e07dbb81

Right now only the girl is playable and the robot enemies won't hit back yet. (This might change later today) Fight with the S, D and F buttons. Press backwards to use a reverse attack.

SDF is supposed to be a sort of giant cross-over like Super Friends or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but using more "modern" characters based on anime and video games. To keep it legal (shock!), SDF will use satirical amalgams of stereotypical heroes, like big-sword-guy, fantasy-martial-arts-guy and magical-girl, instead of specific trademarked characters like Cloud Strife or Son Goku.

Since it's going to take a relatively long time to make each character, I'm going to release SDF in episodes with 1 or 2 new characters each time. I have a long list of characters I want to make, including:

big-sword-guy
fantasy-martial-arts-guy
magical-girl
female-android
helmet-ranger
female-super-spy
delinquent-street-punk-girl
mad-scientist
kaiju

and others ...

Super Defense Force is coming


Posted by AcetheSuperVillain - January 22nd, 2011


Several new projects are currently in the works of varying priority:

#1 Universal Beat 'em Up Engine - http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/f5 c72c6bef0b072c832d287350e6affb - (Shift, Z, X for now) Code named "El Putador", this project is designed to create a reusable brawler engine that I can use to quickly alter graphics and move sets to create completely new brawlers without needing to start from scratch each time. The first game will use some of the races from the Diabolical Dungeons of Dr. Devil. (As of this post, only Barbarian and Mutant have Z attacks, Goblins and Slimes will get theirs in the future)

#2 Alloy Tengu 3 - A sequel to Alloy Tengu 2. The problem is that anything that really make the game more interesting, like a shop or squadron manager would require making menus and menus are a giant PAIN IN THE ASS to make with Flixel. However, the Alloy Tengu formula still has loads of unlocked potential and as soon as I figure out what to do, I'll make it happen again.

#3 4X Fever - http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/26 a5845c9c302374d48deb164d5d3aa3 - This is a simple little proof of concept "engine" that I threw together in a few hours today. If you don't know what a 4X game is, check Wikipedia. I've always wanted to make a simple 4X game, but I'm not sure that I really want to deal with the necessary AI right now. It's also very likely that i would use either the UBE or Alloy Tengu for combat, since they already exist and are probably more fun than whatever dice-rolling system I'd come up with otherwise.

#4 Rogue-likes - Sure, I can make Rogue-likes. Who says I can't? What's it to you?