Looking for opinions on the art direction for a tabletop wargame I'm designing (poll)

Hello everyone, for the last few years I've been designing a competitive wargame inspired by warmachine and set in a steampunk fantasy world populated by talking animals. I showed off the game at a game designer event last weekend named Protospiel, and it was praised by the few guest publishers and playtesters I showed it to. The game is planned to have acrylic or cardboard cutouts mounted on a base, but I am open to doing models if the opportunity arises. Unfortunately, I have to decide on the game's art direction. Although the characters are cute and expressive, the overarching story is meant to be taken seriously and is quite dark.

Style 1: Anthro style inspired by Zootopia. The benefits of this style over style 2 are that it is more mainstream. The environments are simpler to design, as not everything has to be designed for four-legged animals like in style 2. The characters are easier to pose and are better suited for fitting on a circle base if they are plastic miniatures, but also can have a greater variety of poses if they are illustrated.

Style 2: The protagonist species are inspired by ponies. However, this does mean that most people who look at them will see the resemblance and may dismiss or criticize the game without trying it because of the resemblance. In this art style the creatures' cities, weaponry, and furniture are all specially designed for four legged animals, creating a unique looking fantasy world. There are a few problems though, such as the characters needing a short ranged telekinesis to be able to manipulate tools and objects and their poses are limited, too wide and the cutout won't fit on a base and if I went with plastic miniatures they may have a hard time fitting on the base.

I would greatly appreciate any and all comments and what your preference would be between style 1 and style 2. I also have a poll here:
poll-maker.com/poll749445x13ec4C08-30

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=9bQB5wdDDcQ
imgur.com/a/CHB2K
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

First off, the obvious:
>furries

Second: How is this even a question? The first, it looks better, lends itself to a greater variety, seems more natural and on the other hand the second style is just MLP rip-off with all the problems that will cause, while the first is "generic enough".

I don't know if this is a joke or not.
I'm not laughing.
Not even smiling.

It's either not a joke, or a bad one.

No. 1 definitely. Makes much more practical sense for character to have hands to manipulate tools and weapons. And the second style looks way too much like MLP. The first one is still furries, but I've seen enough non-furry anthropomorphic animal stuff that I could deal with it. The second one just looks like some weird MLP fan-spinoff that's probably also porn.

Jesus christ, you pretty much traced the artwork in the ponyfinder book.

GLOBAL
RULE
3
it's for your own good

It isn't a joke, I know that in tabletop gaming there are few worlds that focus on talking animals and felt that it would help the theme stand out from the world war (or weird world war like dust), science fiction, high fantasy, or steampunk themes commonly seen in the genre.

I actually have been working at this for longer than ponyfinder's been around, nor have I seen the rulebook for ponyfinder since I don't play rpg's

>The protagonist species are inspired by ponies. However, this does mean that most people who look at them will see the resemblance and may dismiss or criticize the game without trying it because of the resemblance. In this art style the creatures' cities, weaponry, and furniture are all specially designed for four legged animals, creating a unique looking fantasy world.

I feel like your trying to sell people on style 2 but you know it's just MLP but steampunk.

The only thing that would make me interested in this game would be if you presented a diverse cast of beast people toads, birds, boars.

If it's just a generic furry cast it's only going to be off putting to most people regardless of how solid the rules are.

I would take a screenshot of your trace displaying how you pretty much copied everything down to the stroke but I'm not posting pony shit when its a global fucking rule.

Enjoy your ban tracy.

This, user. Style one is better by far, but if you go only for your standard furry races (canines, sheep, felines) you're missing out on a lot of neat design area. Reptiles and amphibians, ovines, birds, they're all more interesting than "more furry wolf people"

Well there are very few worlds that are specifically built around four legged animal characters, a cohesive art style built around that could be interesting. However, I am aware that the caprans (goat species) can be easily confused with ponies and that may be offputting to people who don't like them

I just looked up ponyfinder artwork and this looks nothing like it, do you need glasses?

or you could try something like this

That does look really good, is it from redwall?

yes, acceptable furry

Definitely Redwall

Do you think style 1 is at least reasonably close to that? I think the caprans (goat critters) have the digitgrade legs which prevents them from looking too humanoid

>Suggesting Redwall style
>Someguy that can barely draw
I doubt it

Check Armello.
youtube.com/watch?v=9bQB5wdDDcQ

I actually prefer style 2. It gives it a more unique look and opens up the door for more interesting methods of doing technology.

I do have some more designs I haven't shown here at this link for power armor and heavy weaponry, but didn't want to show them for the comparison imgur.com/a/CHB2K

>opens up the door for more interesting methods of doing technology.

Considering he's just strapping human equipment on hoofed mammals without hands, this is probably not going to happen.

well check this out imgur.com/a/CHB2K a lot of the weaponry is wrist or saddle mounted rather than looking like a standard gun

>Well there are very few worlds that are specifically built around four legged animal characters, a cohesive art style built around that could be interesting.
The problem is what you are describing is almost MLP to a T but instead of a modern/fantasy world it's a steampunk/fantasy world, this doesn't feel unique because it's derivative.
>However, I am aware that the caprans (goat species) can be easily confused with ponies and that may be offputting to people who don't like them
They're cute like ponies, they've got the same proportions as ponies and they're posses or movement is the same as ponies. People confuse them for ponies because they're derivative of ponies.

Finally why use actual furry races? What is wrong with calling them goats? And what is that other guy a sergal why not just make them wolves/dogs.

The big problem with #2 is that Hasbro will sue your dick off. It looks JUST like MLP, and while Hasbro licensed goods, and they don't mind people buying artwork and crafts of their characters third party, doing any kind of large-scale published work that bears that much resemblance could easily catch their ire. I recommend #1 just to avoid legal trouble from ever being an issue. You can't win against a megacorp, chummer

Since the chances of me buying any of this is very slim, it's understandable if you ignore my opinion.

I think you should go with option 1. It'd most likely save a lot of time designing stuff, and relying on telekinesis for most of what goes on seems kind of lazy.

Also, I feel like the resemblance to ponies would deter alot more people than it would attract. I think option 1 looks better too.

I was working with style #2 for a long time until recently when the artist I'm working with came back from a hiatus, but the telekinesis bothered me immensely when writing the lore and did indeed feel lazy or contrived.

>telekinesis bothered me
>straps and wrist mounted tools and weapons aren't

How the fuck did they even get to the level of using tools in the first place without hands? Did they use humans just like in Gulliver's travels or what?

I handwaved it by saying that the animals on the planet evolved from a substance called Ragnicite, which came from a meteor that struck the planet a very long time ago.

Ragnicite sounds like Ragnarök + bug poison. A little thematically off from a source of life.

>Quadruped wears power armor
How the fuck does it even put it on?

Hmm, maybe I should consider a different name for it then

OP, almost everyone in this thread has told you #2 is shithouse. You should really consider heeding their advice.