For the artists out there

[Cless]

It's time to get these finished: The elemental orbs. I tried to draw letters in them, but they looked terrible.

What we need are eight icons, that represent:

Void (as in, the void, a vast nothingness)
Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Thunder
Light
Darkness

The icon can only be drawn as line art. We don't have the flexibility to support colorful icons. The palettes for reach orb are used for the glossy effects.

If you're going to draw an icon with a wide proportion, it can be no larger than 12x10 pixels. If tall, no more than 10x12 pixels.

The more intuitive the icon, the better. But some may be difficult.

The icons I feel are best will be chosen.

[Cyllya]

So... it can only have one color (besides transparent background), which will become white and have the colored orb thingy placed over top?

Well, the orb color should help clarify what the symbol means. Ya know...
Swishy lines = ???
Green circle with light green swishy lines = WIND!

Is square-shaped not an option?

[Cless]

So... it can only have one color (besides transparent background), which will become white and have the colored orb thingy placed over top?

Actually, it has to be placed inside the orb. And I'll deal with the crappy gradient conversion.

Is square-shaped not an option?

If you're going to go square, you only have 10x10px to work with.

[Cyllya]

Ehh... like this? o.O

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Ehh... like this? o.O

no no, i think he meant, 10x10 for the symbol itself, if you want a square-ish symbol. the sphere around it is separate.

also, adapted from "that" project:



it seems like light, darkness, and void will be especially hard... especially because you're basically limited to 9x9 if you want four-way symmetrical icons.

[Cless]

the icon itself is limited to 12x10 (wide), 10x12(tall), or 10x10(symmetrical) maximum pixels. I don't know where Kaji's getting this 9x9 for symmetricity (apparently not a word, but you know what I mean). I'll deal with inserting them into the orb graphic, so don't worry about that part. I just need the icon to be placed into it in the specified resolutions or lower...

[Infoseeker]

Have any of you played Valkyrie Profile 2? I think the light and void rune designs used there would be perfect....lemme go find an example.

EDIT: Or if you want some inspiration here's a website on runes!

dammit can't find a website showing the game's runes, guess I'll need to make a screenshot of it myself.

[Demon000]

I tried to work on some of those and Kaji is right void darkness and light are hard.
Anyway here is what i made.



I think it might work for void

[Infoseeker]

pokeball 4tw!
 xD

[Demon000]

I know I know, it's pretty simple but I think void should be. 
I really want to see those from VP2

[Demon000]

I also modified Cyllya's one for light.



Sorry if it's not good.

[LenaAndreia]

 Here's my attempt. ^^

Void
Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Thunder
Light
Dark

[Demon000]

I really like those LenaAndreia. You're good at this. 
I've tried to make something like that for void but it didn't end up well.

[gyozilla]

Just wanna mention don't take Void (無) as literally void/nothingness. This might've been 空 (sky/heaven) as one of the 5 elements but it's too similar to wind. It's a spiritual kinda thing (zen-like). Think of something like aether. It's a spiritual/otherworldly kind of energy. The opposing element for ToP PSX is 物 (physical/material world). It relates to atomic forces and spiritual energy, so Maxwell and Origin are this element and absorbs it.

I'll just throw it out there if icons don't work, you could use planetary symbols.
Pluto, Saturn/Earth, Neptune/Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Sun, Moon.
No sailor moon jokes ;p  But yea, too bad it's not really intuitive (and darkness <-> Moon symbol could be confused with Luna).

Void
- human bust with mental waves (spidey sense?!)
- nucleus with electron
- something spiritual / pure energy ( a simple energy swirl [however many swirls, just dont look like a tornado], a supernova burst, or something like a blackhole).
No mushroom clouds~

Light
maybe look more like the sun or ray-like than an energy burst

Darkness
i like the moon symbol even if you don't use planetary symbols or sun for light, but i guess it relates too much with Luna. Leaving it all black might confuse it with Void. You could have something cast a shadow.

Light/dark sets
(use gradient to draw the shadow or leave it out)
(some kinda lantern, i guess light bulb is not fantasy enough)

(icons are just representative, i'll leave the final for better artists)

[LJkAze]

Why not use the TOE one? save alot of time i guess? unless u want a hole new one?

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Just wanna mention don't take Void (無) as literally void/nothingness. This might've been 空 (sky/heaven) as one of the 5 elements but it's too similar to wind. It's a spiritual kinda thing (zen-like). Think of something like aether. It's a spiritual/otherworldly kind of energy. The opposing element for ToP PSX is 物 (physical/material world). It relates to atomic forces and spiritual energy, so Maxwell and Origin are this element and absorbs it.

I'll just throw it out there if icons don't work, you could use planetary symbols.
Pluto, Saturn/Earth, Neptune/Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Sun, Moon.
No sailor moon jokes ;p  But yea, too bad it's not really intuitive (and darkness <-> Moon symbol could be confused with Luna).

Void
- human bust with mental waves (spidey sense?!)
- nucleus with electron
- something spiritual / pure energy ( a simple energy swirl [however many swirls, just dont look like a tornado], a supernova burst, or something like a blackhole).
No mushroom clouds~

Light
maybe look more like the sun or ray-like than an energy burst

Darkness
i like the moon symbol even if you don't use planetary symbols or sun for light, but i guess it relates too much with Luna. Leaving it all black might confuse it with Void. You could have something cast a shadow.

Light/dark sets
(use gradient to draw the shadow or leave it out)
(some kinda lantern, i guess light bulb is not fantasy enough)

(icons are just representative, i'll leave the final for better artists)

i have the feeling that the simpler it is, the better. i really like your energy swirl and supernova ones. the first one () looks especially good to me; the second is potentially too close to light, imo. another idea i had was just to leave the orb blank

also, maxwell's element in eternia is apparently 元/元素. i wonder if they changed it from 無 because they didn't like it and wanted to replace it with 元, or they wanted to make it separate.

as for light and darkness, it seems like a centered sun or star thingy (see ToP GBA) would work best for light. ToP GBA used an inverted (black) light symbol for darkness, which seems like not so great an idea. the moon symbol would work for darkness, except luna is light-element, which would confuse things. i used an evil-looking eye sort of thing with a vertical slit pupil for darkness in "that" project, but i couldn't manage to make a good 10x10 version.

EDIT: some ideas? (adapted from that project.)