Dear Everyone,

I work for a Shanghai mobile game company (called Artme). We are currently working on a new game, to be released in early 2015.

The game (Herofall) is being developed by Chinese people but is actually intended for Western gamers. I am myself French but not really a professional gamer. Therefore I am trying to get advice from Western gamers.

Herofall: Warlords of Skyland is a mix between strategy and ARPG games. It is based on a famous Chinese legend: The Monkey King. Each player has a Skyland (floating realm) with creatures working on it, the ultimate goal being to invade and defeat all other players in order to become the Legendary Warrior. For this purpose you can get up to three heroes.

Below are our three heroes, that's for them I need advice:

Hu King (Celestial Tiger)

[attachment=24969:Tiger.png]

Siang Liu (Snake woman)

[attachment=24970:Siang Liu.png]

Chung-Erh (Wizard)

[attachment=24971:Wizard.png]

Could you please tell me what you think about them (facial expression, outfit, equipment, name...)?

Thank you very much for your help!
Marine

There is no real sense of depth to the character portraits. The lighting and posing is kind of bland, and they seem like they were drawn in three different styles. I would try to settle on a more cohesive style choice, and look at the composition of the pictures.

Your tiger looks like it was made in an angry birds style, his anatomy is very cartoonish and his highlighting and shading are as well, but his pose is advancing and aggressive, he's the only active character in a portrait.

the snake woman looks like an old-school ink and watercolor painting, the shading on her woman half is good, but her snake half looks flat and there is no reason for her tail to be in the air like that, it looks like it's nailed to a wall, or being picked up by someone.

the wizard reminds me a lot of torchlight, his features are the most exaggerated and he's well painted, but his minions look tacked on in the background and there is no light coming from his flaming imp. His pose says something between "come get some" and "i'm not really sure" and his clothes look like they are in a slight breeze instead of a maelstrom of arcane power. Also his face looks a bit constipated.

If these were the images previewed for your game, I wouldn't be terribly interested in them purely because they are kind of "meh", but I believe you could improve it a lot just with a more interesting pose. let the minions be coming around and in front of the wizard, maybe some lightning or fire in his hands, and rage or malice in his eyes. play up either the bestiality or femininity of the snake woman, put her in attack or seduction mode, angry snake face or sultry temptress. and look in to the animal ferocity for the tiger, (think Rengar from League of Legends.) Right now he looks like Tigger stuffed into plate armor, make it more battle worn and consider throwing him in to a pounce. Teeth out, claws extended, stuff like that.

There is a tangency on Hu Kings's foot with the cloth from his waist. I would avoid that if possible. It is confusing to look at that area and you cant tell clearly what is going on there.