So far, I'm counting:

• Sovereign
• LordVladec
• JErosion
• dreamwalker Logo only.
• adder
• Rhum
• Bibool
• uriak
• Buzzkillington1990 I assume it was an entry?
• T41
• Stealth_Hawk
• adazu

See you later for the G2G vote with:

• adazu
• Rhum
• uriak

Thank you to all our voters and congratulations to the participants.

Updated Buzzkillington1990's link and added drewwest's entry:

• Sovereign
• LordVladec
• JErosion
• dreamwalker Logo only.
• adder
• Rhum
• Bibool
• uriak
• Buzzkillington1990 I assume it was an entry?
• T41
• Stealth_Hawk
• adazu
• drewwest
  
  

Thank you all for your participation! Let me know if I made a mistake with a PM (one PM only, please, no need to spam! ).

Thanks for the kind words DeathXtract, periclesac, Telum, Buzzkillington and Drewwest! I truly, deeply appreciate it.

I'm still not sure whom I'm gonna vote for, but here are some of my thoughts about the entries so far:



Sovereign: I quite like the dome silhouette of the logo, and the bleeding effect gives a wonderfully creepy edge to it. Your ship is the strongest part of your entry imo, the Wailord lore was a lovely read!



Buzzkillington1990: Something close to the Cloverfield monster would be an unsettling sight indeed. "Lesser" creatures who have been indoctrinated is an original spin on the ship, and I can easily imagine the crew quarters on his back (partially grafted into his skin?)



LordVladec: I think the ship being a prototype for their final vessel for leaving the planet is a really cool idea. I hope people take notice of this part of your entry in particular as I think this is something unique to you. Your logo would work without colour as well, but I think it's good flavour to display what it might look like on banners for example.



JErosion: I really like the simplicity of your logo. It's clean and concise, as a logo should be, and the idea behind it is easily interpreted. Your ship design is among my favourites, I love the propulsion system you've suggested

in particular.



Dreamwalker: A sun with curly rays fits the exotic aesthetic well, and being hollow is also a cool addition.



Adder: I'm a big fan of the historical ship inspiration, and your spin on resource efficiency. It's pragmatic at core but with a decorative exterior, which suit the Cultists very well.



Rhum: I love your girlfriend's logo, the revised one is brilliant. The ceremonial dagger is very thematic, and it's simplistic to boot! The ship has a distinctive silhouette which is important, and you've picked up on a lot of Telum's aesthetic!



Bibool: This is a nice mix of historical influence and Telum's work, your final version is your best and I really like the little windows and candles. I think this gets my vote for creepiest entry too.



uriak: I really liked your work for the previous part of the contest, and I see your painting skills have improved further since then! beautifully atmospheric rendition of your ship design. Your logo is my favourite of all the entries.



T41: The opposite emotions idea for the front and rear of the ship is great. Your logo is my favourite part of your entry though, a very unique idea!



Stealth_Hawk: Love your ship idea, I think we share some opinions on the general aesthetic. Your logo is also very nice and clean.



Drewwest: Now that is creepy. I like the idea of it being able to walk on land, and the pincers are very menacing.

uriak wrote:
Very nice concept from adazu. I feel from the start I've not been siding with this vision of the cultists, though... there is a gap between the kind of stuff they seem to able to build/have at their disposition and the others factions. Even necrophages have some kind of raft instead of a creature.

Thanks, uriak. We will just have to agree to disagree on that point, I quite like this part of Telum's aesthetic. Regardless I think both interpretations have their merits, and I wholly endorse your vision despite the fundamental differences in direction. I think your concept could work just as well as a more organic idea, like Sovereigns.

Very nice concept from adazu. I feel from the start I've not been siding with this vision of the cultists, though... there is a gap between the kind of stuff they seem to able to build/have at their disposition and the others factions. Even necrophages have some kind of raft instead of a creature.

drewwest wrote:
Gotta say I'm friggin loving adazu's work!!!



"Awake the Kraken!!!!"

Agreed on both points

Gotta say I'm friggin loving adazu's work!!!



"Awake the Kraken!!!!"

adazu wrote:
Here's my entry, I hope you like them!







True size: http://i.imgur.com/Ath67us.jpg



I tried to stay close to Telum's aesthetic but still think of something creative and unusual. It was important to me that the ship silhouette works in all scales, and does not rely on small details to be recognisable as part of the Cultist unit. I've pictured a few variations on the shell and the rear keel, but the "captain" automaton and the overall shape remains the same. Before the update regarding water units I thought water combat might be a possibility, in which case I envisioned that this ship could grapple other ships like a kraken, perhaps at the cost of having no ranged attacks. The ship's build allows it to traverse stormy seas either on surface, submerged or semi-submerged, but this is all flavour really.







For the logo it was important to me that it remains similar to the others we've seen so far, but at the same time is unique both to symbolise their beliefs and to discreetly remind everyone that the Cultists were made by the players. To do this I inverted the motif, so that when the logos are cast against a dark background the mask motif is shadows (whereas the other logos are embossed) and when cast on a bright background the mask "lights up" (when the other logos would be shadows). I'm personally most fond of the trapezoid shape in the last row because it looks like the shape of the city towers, but all of them have their merits. The motif itself is of course the mask, the symbol of the queen and a picture of the people, radiant against it's backdrop symbolising the rest of the world or the universe.







Here you can see how the logo could work with the other factions'.

...



...



...



Do we even need this competition? adazu's already won!



Seriously, this has to be some of the most awesome stuff I've seen thus far in this competition.

Telum wrote:
@adazu: Wow. You just made everyone's life harder. Those are seriously brilliant designs. Digging the silhouettes. Perfect balance between organic/sea creature and automaton machinery. It has a certain grotesque elegance but also looks very functional at the same time. It reflects both the architecture and the units nicely, while still bringing in something new. It's both refreshing and fitting at the same time. Strange stuff.

I think you have my vote if you end up in top 3!

I was just about to PM you and tell you to have a look at this.

@adazu: Wow. You just made everyone's life harder. Those are seriously brilliant designs. Digging the silhouettes. Perfect balance between organic/sea creature and automaton machinery. It has a certain grotesque elegance but also looks very functional at the same time. It reflects both the architecture and the units nicely, while still bringing in something new. It's both refreshing and fitting at the same time. Strange stuff.

I think you have my vote if you end up in top 3!



*EDIT*

@drewwest: Glad you made it. I'm always a fan of clean simple shapes, and you captured the essence of their design well with both ship and logo . I imagine your ship walking sideways like a crab, awkwardly, shaking, until it reaches water. Which is both awesome and a scary thought.



This part of the competition will be really though to judge.

Heres my entry. The Ship is half inspired by a modern day battle cruiser, and half by a roman trireme. Retaining the aesthetic look of the cultists already established by Telum - this ship is an intimating, silent, steam assisted juggernaut. The lower side of the hull is organic in nature, but the rest of the ship structure is made up of a steel like material. The ship itself has four 'limbs' on both sides of the hull, and two front facing claws. This 'naval' structure can also invert its limbs to traverse land if required (typically when the capital city is not directly next to Auriga's oceans).



The ship at sea





The ship traversing land





The logo of the cultists is largely inspired by the central building that houses the queen. The logo bares her face (much like the automations) for all the world to see

Laquantus wrote:
Yep , he/she just made an entire faction appearance and units , so the same logic of Nosferatiel .

Perfectly understandable, but some feedback on the suggestions so far would be considerate of him... and you too, Nos

great work adazu

I also like Stealth_Hawk's idea , Sovereign and Stealth_Hawk are my two favorites. of course everyone's done a nice job though!



EDIT: I also like adazu's (man I like the sea creature idea!)

Here's my entry, I hope you like them!







True size: http://i.imgur.com/Ath67us.jpg



I tried to stay close to Telum's aesthetic but still think of something creative and unusual. It was important to me that the ship silhouette works in all scales, and does not rely on small details to be recognisable as part of the Cultist unit. I've pictured a few variations on the shell and the rear keel, but the "captain" automaton and the overall shape remains the same. Before the update regarding water units I thought water combat might be a possibility, in which case I envisioned that this ship could grapple other ships like a kraken, perhaps at the cost of having no ranged attacks. The ship's build allows it to traverse stormy seas either on surface, submerged or semi-submerged, but this is all flavour really.







For the logo it was important to me that it remains similar to the others we've seen so far, but at the same time is unique both to symbolise their beliefs and to discreetly remind everyone that the Cultists were made by the players. To do this I inverted the motif, so that when the logos are cast against a dark background the mask motif is shadows (whereas the other logos are embossed) and when cast on a bright background the mask "lights up" (when the other logos would be shadows). I'm personally most fond of the trapezoid shape in the last row because it looks like the shape of the city towers, but all of them have their merits. The motif itself is of course the mask, the symbol of the queen and a picture of the people, radiant against it's backdrop symbolising the rest of the world or the universe.







Here you can see how the logo could work with the other factions'.

Too bad I'm still at work

Good luck to the sneaky updaters

I received a few private messages with people confused about the time of the thread was closing. Though it was mentioned 2 pm CEST (we're based in Paris, France) in the first post but we will re-open the thread until 6pm (in 2 hours and 30 minutes!) to allow participants to post their entries or edit the one they have already submitted.



I hope you all understand - keep in mind that we're all doing this for the community faction..!

I'm thinking the top of the bridge is covered to hide the disgrace of the lords pedaling hard to action the propeller helix.

Oh my, just saw that post. But yeah, my ship is more in line with others. The cultist tied elements are mostly the blocky stern with the same patterns as the city buildings and the logo. It's nice that they are all sail based, since it fits more the game atmosphere imho I just wonder how that BL ship is supposed to work, do they throw dust to propel themselves?

Wow, this is short competition ._.



Also, Uriak's painting happens to be coincidentally close to ships on devs blog so I guess we don't need to worry about other faction being not fantasyish.



Anyway, there are actually lots of cool ships ._.; I was expecting there to be more boring industrial metal ships, but there are lots of cool ones... Still like idea of sea creature cyborg ship, Rhum's post has a lot of cool ships and wow Bibool's ship design is great as well ._.

Also, yeah, I realize that lore text Sovereign wrote isn't about whales from earth, but as OP said, this contest is again about visuals and visuals he provided look like whales, soo... Yeah. Besides, I'm all into weird alien critters, so alien whale seems mundane in comparison unless it has enough features to not be confused with a whale. Still, big huge marine animal with mechanical parts added is good idea for boat for them.