Death Guard UI concept and idea thread.

[mel_danes]

Well folks I need some hope. I've been over a couple designs and they all fail horribly. I am trying to create a custom User Interface for the Death Guard, they are part of the Denizens of the Warp. My intial ideas have just been washing out. This is my first time creating a game interface. I have done graphic work for years, but this thing is killing me. Trying to tie all the nurgle and death guard imagery into a cohesive interface and having it fit into DOW and it's pre-existing window layout. I've done some mock ups for other races and they were kind of fun, easy almost. Well this button is all I'm happy with at the moment.


I've done nuglings hanging from console beams, had them bathing in funk behind panels. It all looked dumb to me.

Any ideas and input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[IBBoard]

I've just looked on the GW UK website and there isn't much Nurgle reference there - in 40K or in Fantasy :\
The simplest idea for Nurgle would just be a decayed version of the Imperial interface (or something close to it anyway), adding rust and possibly some slime to it.
The button (I'm assuming to replace the skull to open/close the bottom panel) looks good, although I'm not so sure about the blue. I can see that it is a Death Guard gas mask over a nurgle symbol, but the blue looks a little vibrant and out of place. Possibly something more pale and grey so that it looks more like fly wing colour? I'm thinking Space Wolf Grey at the moment, but I haven't uploaded my scan of the paint pot top stickers so I can't give you a hex code - maybe later

[mel_danes]

Well here is the top part.



And the reinforce backdrop.



Any thoughts?

[IBBoard]

Very cool. The gungey-ness on the top of the screen looks right for Nurgle, although its a shame the interface icons over the top of it are so vibrant and crisp and seem to almost stand out above it. I don't suppose there is much you can do about that though.

I like the critter on the reinforcement background as well - did you draw him or find him? The only thing with him might be what it looks like when you've got a few overlayed reinforcement buttons, how it'll look when you're missing certain parts of the image.

[MadMaffMan]

Looking very cool.

I like the gunge hanging from the top interface....very icky.

I see what you mean about having bits of the Nurgling image hidden....seems a shame to hide such cool work. How about a cluster of boils or intestines hanging through a rupture in some skin or a swarm of big black flys of Nurgle.

My sister is a nurse and some of the medical books she has got have pics of different illnesses and diseases that look very much like something Nurgle would come up with. I'll have a look in some of my GW artbooks when i get home, see if they've got any good ideas in them.

[mel_danes]

Well thank you both. I do appreciate your opinions, yes finally critiques!
I'm glad the "yuck" is working. Was not sure how that would work out.
The reinforce backdrop. It is inspired by a drawing from the Lost and the Damned hardback, a great book for nurgle stuff. In the original illo the nurgling is bathing in a round tank, he is a little more compact. I just looked at it and then drew my version in photoshop. As for covering it. Well when you have a lot of icons there it does cover it up. During my testing I found i usually don't have the reinforce icon maxed out. For massive periods of time it is just empty. I think it will work fine. I may need to move it to have the whole interface flow properly though, so we'll see. I'll post some more work tonight.
Thanks again.

[IBBoard]

Lost and the Damned? The old 3rd(?) edition Warhammer book? cool Damn you and your artistic talents though

With the background, I think it should be ok if you get one or two icons in the normal places, and like you said a lot of the time you don't even have icons on it. Once it has a few more icons on it, you'll lose the picture but I think it is still backgroundy enough to work and not look out of place.

[MadMaffMan]

Well the World Of Warhammer book describes Nurgles deamons as

"....bloated bodies covered in leathery green skin, alive with open sores and pustules, carbuncles and infections of all types. From this noisome membrane hangs the creatures internal organs and maggot ridden slime."

Charming......sounds like my old PE teacher.

All the scroll work and artwork around the edges of the pages is based on that type of thing, as well as things like flayed skin, skulls and creatues that look like monsters that have melted together, a bit like the creature in the film The Thing. That's the remake not the '50's classic which was a vegetable.

If you go whole hog and make it look truly Nurgle like your going to have nightmares for months and need counselling.

Hope this is some help.