New Tomb Raider Box Art

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 4:22 am

The new Tomb raider game comes out towards the end of the year and they recently published what the boxart will look like.

I have strong opinions about it but I'm wondering what other people's impressions are before I share mine?

Post by **linflas** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:39 am

how funny, i just discovered that new episode yesterday !

i was quite disappointed by Legend and Anniversary, mostly because of Lara's box design (didn't like the nose) but she looks fairly better for this one.
and the underwater or black panthers screenshots look promising !

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:50 pm

How does she look better? -- you can't really tell, because they cropped off half her face. The thing that compels us to look at people and connect with them are their EYES.

This is one of the most stupid compositions I've ever seen and it seems to be becoming a bit of a fashion.

Meh.

Post by **linflas** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:12 pm

i kinda like her mouth...

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:46 pm

Actually, that's one reason it's a good composition I was thinking

We connect and make people 'real' seeing their eyes. Therefore, if the artwork is off (and let's face it, some people would hate the look and expression no matter what) then you wouldn't connect with Lara. By hiding her eyes, (but showing the rest of her face) it is very easy for everyone to imagine what she looks like off camera, coming up with a pleasing expression. she's alluring. She's determined. She's got a wicked glint in her eye. Etc. Everyone's happy, as everyone's free to finish the work.

Meanwhile, the composition also makes the the character feel larger than life, certainly making the game box seem larger than the artwork around.

Plus, let's face it, they'#s also made sure all the most famous thigns are as large as possible - who cares about her knees downwards, and as said who wants to gamble with the artwork of her eyes - appealing mouth, iconic shortswith the leg-straps, big guns, and tight shot of the rest of her body - job done.

As an experiment, it would be interesting to see either a) the original of this (if it was a full body drawing) or b) get someone with talent to extrapolate the rest of the picture, resize it to the box, and see if it is more appealing, or if the decrease in size and fully drawn face rob it of impact.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:56 pm

I'm more interested in connecting and engaging with people than simply looking at them. Yes, this is a fictional character and it's only a picture; nevertheless, it would have a lot more resonance with me if I can see her eyes. I don't give a gnat's toot about her belly button or boobs.

The thing is, I understand exactly the sentimemt behind the composition -- exactly the reasons you put forward Beo. But it just looks like a really bad amateur crop; there are better, more subtle ways of hiding character features that don't involve lopping off half their head.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 5:40 pm

Yeah, it's bad composition: Tthey put the title on top of her breasts

.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 7:22 pm

I comped together a version with her face from one of the other renders. Her expression isn't right -- I couldn't find a fiercer one -- but the point is you can see her eyes which for me is the problem with the cropped version.

Black Eagle · Post by **Black Eagle** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:27 pm

Parallax wrote:Yeah, it's bad composition: Tthey put the title on top of her breasts .

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:34 pm

Actiually, the first of the new LW novels had exactly that, with a cowled face (since LW is the player) and everyone seemed to hate the entire concept until a face was introduced

Funnily, the crop doesn't work with the comped face, so there must be somethign suggetsive about the mouth/head tilt and shadowing that is interesting compared to the flat picture

Anyway, you are correct though, you don't really lose anything with the head there, so the crop wasn't really necessary I guess!

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:43 pm

Yeah, the tilt in my version is wrong, but it was the best head I could find. I'd love to see the original version with her whole head!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:35 am

Still, you proved your point so stop being a perfectionist about it and find us that original drawing!

Or, you know, get some rest

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:51 pm

Actually, I don't really care about covers or artworks, I'm more interested in the game. Since I liked Legend and thought Anniversary was really good, I'm looking forward to this.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:17 pm

I don't care what you say, Gambit, as far as I'm concerned, that's a drat good photoshop job you've done here. And it allows for an interesting experiment:

Scroll up the page until you get Gambit's full picture cropped like the original. If you're anything like me, your eye is attracted to the center of the picture, towards her Sarlac Pit of a bellybutton. And right there in your field of vision is the title. Now you know what the product is.

Now scroll up some more so that the fully reconstructed picture is in front of you. Now your eye floats up to her face. Yup, that looks like Lara Croft. You can even barely make out the title out of the corner of your eye. It's Tomb Raider: Underwear.

All in all, I think they cropped the picture because of the uncanny valley. Yeah, I know, the eyes weren't on the original, and we all want to blame Gambit for them (even himself), but let's face it: 3-D models don't look alive yet, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. If you scroll up slowly, and ask yourself if the picture you're seeing is CGI, by the time you get to the eyes you have your answer, plain and simple. Same goes for the source picture where Gambit got the face.

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 7:25 pm

Tomb Raider:Underwear! Lara plunders the depths of her knicker drawer for an ancient lost artifact... her box of dil... uh, yeah anyway

Seems to be a bunch of different comments there, what's your overall summary? That CGI characters shouldn't be used on box art? To be honest, I don't think that is CGI, it looks more like a painting to me.

Regarding the belly button being the centre -- on the original it's the exact centre of the box art if you draw lines from each corner. Certainly some focus manipulation going on there...

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:27 am

why does she keep pickles in her underwear drawer?

on a different note, it's now pretty common place to do paintovers of CG characters for box and mag art. Most of the companies will do it even for preview shots of "in game" to show what they hope the game *WILL* look like, but not what the game actually looks like at that point in production.

yep.. bunch of cheaters...

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:15 am

This week Zero Punctuation gives the old girl another chance and reviews Tomb Raider: Underworld.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Underworld

Yeah I know this thread is about the artwork (later migrating to her chest), but there are a few references in there to the front cover.

Edit: Link contains.... Mature Content

Post by **Gambit37** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:39 am

Yeah, watched that the other day. Fun stuff, but a bit hollow even for Yahtzee: focuses on the franchise more than the game itself.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:28 pm

camera handled by an 8 year old autistic kid hooked up to an IV of sherbert... a tear came to my eye at the perfect description.

Early prince of persia games from ubisoft had similar issues, but they have become dramatically better.. so why not laura?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:30 pm

Funny comment about the art, meant to say I saw the full body (with face) advert on a phonebox a few weeks back

and I've been thrown so much by work stuff etc tat I forgot it was ZP day yesterday!