That looks bad-ass!  I am beginning to like this game more and more each time I read one of your journals.

Hooray for stylized art. We need more of it, that's for sure.

Put 12 FPS games in a line-up and only one sticks out: Team Fortress 2.

Blizzard gives its games character, distinctness, and longevity by using stylized art.

With enough money, anyone can make tech demo graphics like Doom 3 or Quake 4 or Unreal 3. (And only a small percent of users have PCs capable of displaying them in all their glory.) It takes real artistic and technical talent to pull off suitable stylized graphics like you find in TF2, Elemental, and even Civ IV.

And like Ephafn said, stylized graphics don't age, which is a huge plus, considering that PC games stay around forever thanks to digital distribution.

Thanks for the updated artwork, Brad.  Much appreciated, as always.

I'm encouraged to see you consistently adding content to the Elemental forum, despite the long release date.  It seems like whenever I start to wonder what's new with Elemental, up pops info from you.  Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

great stuff!

Right now i got a 6800... but in a few months a new pc WOOT! Nice update and I like the art style! Come on show us in game soon... just can't wait.

Looks cool.  How about this idea on buildings.

Use the Gal Civ 2 ship building idea, but for buildings.  You give us jewels to place where ever we want.  We can save our design types and what not.  People can build whatever they please this way.  All cities would look different determined by however the player wants to build them.

Maybe this is too much for just an art aspect of the game, but people LOVED designing ships in Gal Civ 2.

Nice!

Add another "thumbs-up" from me for the artwork so far.  I actually have liked the screenshots I have seen so far and the detailed example above is even more impressive.

I have been going back through older games trying to figure out which ones I want to play before beta starts and while trying Age of Wonders again, I just can't get used to everything being so "busy" and hard to see what is going on in them on the world map.  They are very pretty and colorful, but hard to quickly analyze.  It is mostly because I have hardly played the games, I am sure, but I just don't care for it for some reason.  Your art style for Elemental so far seems much easier on the eyes and I like it .

With all brutal honesty, I consider this to be the worst graphical design I've seen in a game in years. I'm really looking forward to a MOM sequel, but the current screenshots like e.g. https://www.elementalgame.com/Screenshots/Kingdom_Knight_Snow_1280.jpg look like they are from a mediocre Browser game.

And about the characters ...

https://www.elementalgame.com/Artwork/Worker_Concept.jpg

It's not even April 1st, so why would you post a joke like that? I don't get it.

yotix: i won't miss you when you don't buy it because of "graphical design". Hey, just some "brutal honesty" here too.

@Wintersong: Let's stay on topic? My pointing out that not everyone likes this graphical style was not intended as an insult; your message however is.

If you don' like what I'm saying - that these graphics look less than mediocre - try and defend the graphical style instead of insulting a poster.

The game is still more than a year away I would personally hold of judging it harshly until mid-2009 if you don't like the art style. That being said I don't agree with you Yotix but you also need to remember there are going to be 12 factions with different visual styles so just because you don't like the barbaric european style buildings above doesn't mean you wouldn't like at least one faction's style. Also criticism while no fun to receive is a necessary part of the design process and does serve a very important function. After all if you only take suggestions from people that agree with you ideas and innovation stagnate extremely quick.  

Just want to express my full support for art direction,since i agree  most strategy games look too similar nowadays.Picture above is some sort of test render,i guess,but still i dont understand why you have more then one light casting shadows in scene,looks confusing,to me at last.

It's probably safe to assume that it own't be like that in the actual game. Unless the world has multiple suns, anways

I must say I like those screenshots. It's the best and most detailed so far. I must admit I was a bit worried about the water color style, but these ones look fancy indeed.