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United States216 Posts
I’ve been working on the DotA 2 overlays and I now have the pleasure of sharing them with you. This project was quite the challenge, but it was that kind of challenge that gets you excited. The following are some of my thoughts.
‘BRING IT ON!’ ![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/Sven-Sketch_D095/DotaDraft_18_thumb.png) Final Draft 16 : 9 aspect ratio ![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/Sven-Sketch_D095/DotaDraft_19_1610_thumb.png) Final Draft 16 : 10 aspect ratio
I had this intense sense of nostalgia as I was designing and illustrating aspects of this overlay. I spent about 7 years at WCReplays.com as graphics staff. It was where I learned of eSports and found something of a home for my passion of competitive gameplay as well as my artistic aspirations. I spent a lot of time trying to marry the idea of fantasy art with eSports. As you probably know, that concept is pretty much behind us as we have had the pleasure of consuming content from HoN, LoL, dare I say WoW, and of course DotA.
During my time at WCR I was able to meet some personalities that you may be familiar with: Grubby, ToD, and Phreak to name a few. I have a very warm place in my heart for those times as I struggled to learn all I could about my ‘crafts,’ so to speak, while sharing and exploring the very new idea of eSports with those of like-mind.
Delving back into a fantasy based eSports project, I realized how much I’ve grown as an artist over the years. It was a sense of reflection. I fairly easily achieved the look and feel I sought for the project. This was in direct contrast to the feeling of constant struggle over the basics that had plagued my work just a few years ago. When I have a concept or an idea, I find that I now am able to shape it onto the canvas with a great deal more confidence. What a fantastic feeling that is!
So for all those who struggle with your craft, know that the struggle only will make you stronger. I still struggle every time I approach my work, but it is with much heavier concepts and challenges. Every new design brings with it new hurdles. Sometimes things work better than I expect, and sometimes the design beats the $#!+ out of me. The trick is to never give up. If you take anything from reading this, I would hope it would be: obstacles will make you stronger, but only if you continuously choose to face them head on.
The TeamLiquid DotA 2 overlays inspired me to sketch out Sven. Since DotA All Stars, he has been my favorite hero by far. The rogue Knight, a misunderstood Paladin, the Badass Berserker. I can’t dream up much cooler of a character. I was nicknamed ‘Blue Boy’ in my early years, because I constantly wore blue (hence the ‘Raihn’ ID). With Sven also being a very blue dude, I felt quite akin to this fantastic character.
I had planned to fully render the illustration, but some friends told me they think it looks cool as is. I’ll give you that it does have a certain energy to it, and by accident it almost has a Chinese ink painting feel to it. This wasn’t intended to be the final, but I’m interested in the concept of just leaving it where it is.
What do you think? Should I fully render this guy, or leave him suspended in imagination? There is a lot to be said about inviting the viewer to participate in the image. So I am quite curious as to your thoughts.
Thanks! :D
 
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Another kick ass overlay, great job Raihn! Keep up the good work brother! :D
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They look really awesome. Do you only use Photoshop or does Illustrator and stuff come in as well?
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Italy12246 Posts
Awesome job 
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wow, leave him the way he is, he looks AWESOME.
the unfinished illustration looks so much more badass than a finished one would
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Northern Ireland22208 Posts
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United States216 Posts
In this I didn't use Illustrator at all. I try to keep everything as 'hand drawn' as possible with my TeamLiquid work. For some reason I feel like putting all the curves in without use of paths conveys some of the values I think TL is about. I perceive TL as a very personal and unique community, and doing as much 'by hand' in my way to hopefully convey that in some way.
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United States216 Posts
Thanks for all the positive feed back :D <3
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Great stuff Raihn, nice to see you working at TL.net! ^^ p.s. hi from wcr!
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The overlay looks great. I like it more than the game's default HUD.
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Melbourne5338 Posts
Heh i get the joke, you play dota2 through steam
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United States216 Posts
@Goshawk - Thanks so much, good to hear from you :D
@Liquid'Korak - haha, thanks so much! that is quite the compliment! :D
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Looks really good, the only thing that I don't like is that the hero portrait & name are covered, which sucks for new players
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It is a beautiful and simple overlay, but I have one suggestion: Covering up the hero portrait with webcam is fine, but covering the hero name sucks for people new to the game (like me). I eventually figure out the name by watching the chat and waiting for the streamer to kill someone or die, but it's a bit annoying. I don't know if there's a way around this, maybe the name fading in and out or something. Anyway, otherwise it's really great.
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Your art has always been rather badass Raihn, its good to know that nothing has changed in that respect. I had your firelord drawing as my desktop background for almost half a year.
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Amazing. <3 TL, <3 TL community <3 Dota2
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United States216 Posts
@ SpaceG and Zim23: Its a good point. We did consider alternative but have settled on this for the moment. Thanks for bringing it up, we will be looking at this more closely, perhaps there is a way to solve the situation. If we can't immediately, I'm really excited about the talks of making the UI editable in game. This means we'd have more options to work with. Thanks for bringing it up.
@ Chimpalimp: Thanks so much, really glad you enjoyed the FL, cleansed by FIRE! SOO fun to play in War3. I had a huge win rate with that hero, only because I would pick him up on my last push omw to finish a game I'd pretty much already won. I called him 'the closer' hahaaha. SO FUN.
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Really nice work. Quality is evident and really liking the whole approach you took.
edit: Just read the last part and I think you should do what you want with the sven illustration.
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Great work. Very simple yet elegant with the TL blue <3
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Absolutely phenomenal work on the overlays. It's very interesting to see the different iterations of it as time progressed. As for Sven, I prefer him in simple black and white. I feel that the gray scale really invites the viewer into the work, almost enticing them to color it in themselves, which I feel could let them connect more with the piece.
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Super nice, I like how you didn't just leave the top bar blank in your overlay aswell
really good stuff dude
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Man that looks much better than the default UI.
It feels like the blue is easier for the eyes to not focus on aswell, making the UI feel much less bloated (gief scaling option, Valve!).
Great work!
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It looks awesome. But I assume you won't be sharing the files so others can use it too?
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That is a sick overlay, many props to you sir.
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I would give the sword a touch-up as it looks inferior to the rest of the drawing (the circle looks like scribbles, the blade is only faintly sketched) and then leave it as it is, its bloody amazing.
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I've said to some of the Liquid members in their stream chats, and I'll say it here.
This overlay is the best overlay ever. I have yet to see anyone put this much quality in an overlay. Incredible work.
Also, keep that Sven the way it is. If anything, just clean it up a bit more.
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Great job on the overlay, honestly one of the best I've seen.
For the Starcraft 2 overlays, it switches between an ingame version that fits the UI there perfectly when you're in game, but switches to a different one when out of game. Is this something that is possible for Dota 2? Seeing the empty frames when they are in queue bugs me a bit.
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Excellent overlays, so great to be able to watch Liquids own dota2 team stream with this :3
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while i like the overlays for their unobstructiveness, i kinda dislike the sven sketch 
he looks like a random agi hero (like antimagefun), however this manly badass carries a sword that is bigger than himself and crits for 3k (fnatic vs nth anyone ?).
cmon, sven is here to pump you up! not to be some sort of gazelle ready to sproink around like boobies-bambi.
edit: this is how i see sven everytime i play against him or see him on stream:
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/1/1f/Techno-viking.jpg) technoviking, a reallife sven lol
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Lalalaland34491 Posts
That is a beautiful UI. Is it just for the Liquid Dota2 team or will it be available for public use? I would love to use this on my stream, for example.
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They way it looks right now, Valve will likely allow HUD skins as a workshop items ( http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2012/12/dota-2-5th-december/#hud-skins ).
You should definitely think about releasing your overlay as a HUD skin once this becomes an option. You would of course have to adjust the area around the webcam to fit the hero portrait but otherwise it seems pretty much ready to go (I don't know anything about technical stuff like formats).
Maybe you would have to make it neutral (remove team liquid stuff), but possibly you could actually release it as is, becaue Na'Vi as an exampe released a Na'Vi branded courier.
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Why remove the TL brandings? I can imagine people to use it anyway. I would.
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Very good overlays! There is a lot to learn from teamliquid designers. Great, professional work.
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cool to see you're into dota
box
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sweet overlay! 
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Just a correction regarding the second Blizzcon picture. You've tagged it as FoV, Keyes....., but the first guy is actually FuRy (ex 4K).
Awesome work overall.
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United States216 Posts
AwefulPlayer: It is a good point agi vs str. I was planning on rendering him out much 'buffer'. I usually try to draw a more realistic size before I apply the exaggerations of the character. My primary concern first is always to have a sound structured figure.
h0munkulus : Thank you for the information. I'm really excited about doing something like that, I haven't ever really looked into the Steam workshop, but I think this would be something I could really get into. We shall have to see what the future holds.
box: Thanks for the comment, good to hear from you, sir! :D
Piledriver: You are totally correct. I knew that too! GGERRRRR WHAT WAS I THINKING ?!?!?!?! I did an avatar for FuRy at one point as well. Thanks for noticing, I will have to fix that up!
Thank you all for the great feed back and the compliments. I am very glad that you are enjoying the overlays. On that subject we will be continuing to improve the overlay. Very soon there should be a version released that reveals the Hero name. I would be interested in seeing what you think of that iteration as well. Thanks again! :D
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Wow. Did not know that Phreak worked at a Blizzcon at one point. Curious to see exactly which year, though.
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sorry for bump this but, this overlays are avaliable to download?
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Very nice. But how can i download it. I want it. Plz help me!
Thanks!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/DotaDraft_17b.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/Sven-Sketch_D095/DotaDraft_19_1610.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/blizzcon_pic2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/blizzcon_pic1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.joshuakeyes.us/wordpress/raihn/images/Sven-Sketch_D095/sven_sketch_01.png)
