i like quite a lot of it perticulary basara's support

I think most of it is really good. Basara's support is very different to any other card art we've seen. I like his character art, for sure. Raging/Raising Storm I nearly cried tears of joy when I saw them. Elena's artwork's really good and Chun-Li looks classic. They even managed to make T.Hawk look good And Kazuki? Kazuki's gotta be up there (as well as all his support) as one of the coolest artworks we've seen in a long time.

HOWEVER, there are gripes within this set. Gaira's art? Just no. Big Dreams looks like it could have been drawn by a 5 year old. Remy's art, while simple is a bit too much so for my liking (although Supreme Flash has awesome artwork).My biggest whinge, however, is who on earth allowed Sogetsu to look like THAT?! I was really looking forward to playing him, and I really like his effects as well, but that picture? Even I won't sink to that level of androgeny! It's Disney Vega all over again!

Viewtiful_Joe said:

1) Art wasn't even drawn for the set, it came from a backcomic in one of the earlier SF comics by Udon. The entire story is like that. Yes it's awful.

2) Who cares about Sogetsu when the foiling looks like someone dropped their foily juice all over the cards.

I personally am very unimpressed with a lot of the art in this set. The set in itself I love though, but the idea of reusing art is very tacky, lazy and unprofessional. Gaira was extremely disproportionate to Tam Tam's size, Kim's art made me want to vomit, Sougetsu had a couple cards that looked way off, and Chun Li's art was awkward but at least it was better than the latter.

But Kim looks like Hugh Jackman! Heh yeah seriously, the majority of the art in this set is TERRIBLE. Course I've come to expect it from Udon. I'm sure anime nuts like it though

Most of the art is craptastic. Kim's cards in particular I really don't like (seem to have little resemblance with the character). The disproportionate Tam Tam on Gaira's cards is terrible. Also while the Sogetsu character cards leaves a lot to be desired, most of the art on his support seems quite cool.

SF side, I have to mention Light Hearted. While the picture is absolutely fantastic, I wouldn't have linked it initially with Elena.

we haven't had our prerealease but from what i have seen the art is blah.

Hewittzil said:

Honestly, nobody should be beating on Tam Tam. Not because of any particular reason other than nobody's gonna get THAT art right.

Homme Chapeau said:

For some reason, when reading that I had a mental picture of someone trying to boston crab Tam Tam

I love the art especially the SF stuff looked so much better then the set 9 deadly ground art good job FFG.

Scubadude said:

anything can look beter than deadly ground.

Hewittzil said:

That is because the Boston Crab is awesome and educational.

Overall I am very happy with a lot of the art in Flames of Fame. Kazuki, Sogetsu, and Basara all have some great artwork. I also dig most of Kim and Ralf's stuff too, although some are not that great. I am glad to see FFG getting away from the Imaginary Friends a little. Their artists are very hit or miss and some are just downright atrocious. The art on the Terry, Rock, and Gaira stuff is mostly terrible. Nakoruru's stuff is ok, but not that great either. I like the new individual artists they've brought in who add a bit more flare to their stuff. It gets old seeing the same IF art style over and over for the SC and SNK sets.

As for Warrior's Dream I would say the art is basically almost all horrible. The re-use of art from the comics is ok sometimes, but some of the art is best not re-hashed. Remy and Bison have horrendous art. Udon is about as hit or miss as Imaginary Friends is, but when you're re-using comic art, you can at least see it before hand and make the decision to order up some new artwork. Elena is about the only character in Warrior's Dream with consistantly good art.

All that being said, the foiling is the worst I've ever seen on a CCG. FFG really needs to get that aspect taken care of before the next sets. The foiling just completely ruins a lot of cards. If they can't do it better, I'd rather seen no foils at all.

banstylejbo said:

Ok i agree there to a point, yes some of the Flames of Fame artwork rocked and we all love them but Sogetsu? in my oppinion no, he doesn't look the same in any 2 cards of his and it took me a while to realise it was him in Familial Loyalty, the character card looks like a woman which confused me greatly wen first pulling him in our Pre Release.

As you said, it is nice to have some individual artists having a stab at doing the art again but i liked it when we had 1 artist do 1 characters set of cards so they were all interpreted in the same way, it just doesn't look right when u get a set of your favourite characters cards then look at the lot and think you have have got some wrong because they look so different from one another to a point where that same character could be a different person in each one.

So in my oppinion yay for getting away from Imaginary Friends and more towards different artists but I would prefer it if the art was more constant.

Just my thoughts as I was quite dissapointed that one of the best sets wev had so far is so badly drawn.

Oh and before I forget, I dont find the foiling too bad, i quite like having shiny non promo characters, but then again, iv been playing a completly unfoiled character for most of my UFS career hehe!

the foiling was either overdone to the point that the art was nearly impossible to see, or had weird shapes cut into it that made no sense at all (foiling on r. Mika - i hope it was just my copy that was bad, but i doubt it.)

I really want them to do away with Foiling cards all together.

Not only is absolutely horrible this time around, but it also warps my cards and I hate that.

We're big boys, we don't need shiney stuff to draw us in.

Archimedes said:

I dont know about that! hehe!

"Oh look Shiney!" *dashes off in other direction*

GouHadou said:

Hahaha no.

Mine is absolutely horrible. I don't know what happened, but my "Fire foily guy out of a cannon" comment sums it up completely. Never before have I seen such a botch job make it to retail.

Theo said:

I fully agree with that Shiney things are awesome

TaintedDoughnut said:

Shiney cardboard is epic win and is better then normal haha.... But I didnt like the foiling of the characters too much but the UR's and rares were really good and I liked not getting 14 characters in a box .

The art for the most part is a HUGE let down, I mean IFS, and Glass House Graphics were doing a great job, and now we get craptastic art and foiling....and we pay more for boosters!? 0_o

The freakin arts craptacular cause FFG should have got the guys at IS just to make the art and who likes the fact that we now have a promo Nak V2. Basara's art does look good though.

Theo said:

Sogetsu's character card and Familial Loyalty aside, I think his stuff is rocking. Especially High Tide and Lunar Slash.

As for the foiling, it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't look like they dunked the card in foil. There was no care taken to make sure the foiling went with the artwork and as a consequence the cards are way too shiny. That is the disappointing part.

I liked a good portion of the new art. There were a few pieces I simply didn't care for and a bunch of 'meh' art that I couldn't care one way or the other about. That said...

OH GOD THE FOIL BURNS THE EYES!

Depending on the light and relation to it, oh god does it make it hard to focus. I mean I'm all for foily cards and all, but I needs my retinas.

It's a mixed bag for me; some artists I'd really like to see a lot more of, some hopefully never again -.-'

Gonzalo Ordonez - (Elena, R. Mika) - Thumbs up. Elena just looks great, uses lighting effects much more than Udon/IFS ever did.

Kati Niemzcyk - (Nakoruru) - No thanks. The art isn't technically bad, but doesn't feel up to UFS standards. Made Ruru look kinda Disney-like, which makes me almost glad they didn't have a new character art as she would be the one to have done it. Though Mamahaha on Voice of the Land does look pretty good.

Mike Neshitt - (Kazuki, good Sogetsu art) - Big thumbs up. This guy's art pretty universally rocks. Love Exploding Death, Kazuki's character card, well, pretty much all of his pieces. Want more.

Darci Robbins - (bad Sogetsu art) - Pretty sure it's well established that we'd all prefer not to see any more of this in the future.

Glen Giron - (Gaira) - Proportions aside, the art looks fine. Kinda simple in terms of backgrounds and such, but provided he gets the characters' sizes down better it wouldn't be disastrous to keep him on.

Alina Ursov - (Basara) - Probably not a style that would work for just any character, but wow does it look good when it does. FFG simply has to keep her (?) in mind, especially for the next DS set. (Though of course there are some non-DS characters she could do... Cervantes, anyone?)

Greg Norman- (Kim) - Kinda back and forth on this one; I like the (watercolor?) style in general, although Kim himself doesn't look *great* in the pictures. I think it'd be worth giving this guy another go or two with some other simpler-looking characters to see how it turns out.

Mark Anthony Taduran - (Alex) - While none of it will blow you away, it all looks quite fine. Somewhat similar to Udon, but a bit better I'd say. Wouldn't mind having more of his art in the future.

Udon, IFS - Nothing new here; as always, the majority of it looks alright, with some particularly good ones and some particularly meh ones.

As for the foiling, I think the concept of having selective spots foiled to make it look spiffier was an okay idea in theory, but clearly in practice it didn't turn out too well in most cases. (Though there are a few where it works) Don't think anyone would complain if they just went back to simple full card foiling.