Release Review for Seven Seas

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Seven Seas Review 
by Rufferto of Essence


When I had originally heard that Fairfax, a graphician who is rated among the top ones since several years, released a slideshow in January, I was really looking forward to write a prospective review for ROM. I have finally put my hands on SEVEN SEAS at the end of March. When I watched it for the first time I had to admit, that my first impression of the pictures was very disappointing.

EXPECTATIONS


The scene has seen quite a lot from Fairfax, especially through his pictures for RAW and from several competitions. Fairfax has shown us so many mountains, so many trees, so many clouds and so many landscapes. Loading SEVEN SEAS, I was really looking forward to see what Fairfax is able to produce besides his usual themes. The show starts off with another proof, that Fairfax is not really the king of logos; A blocky Andromeda logo reaching for the skies! The same can be said for the title screen. In a time when layout is written bigger than ever, Fairfax provides us with one of the worst designed logo screens, ever seen! However, my mood was still good, as Fairfax has often manifested his hate for painting logos. In the middle of the title screen we see a cloudy landscape! Then the first real picture, a 3 screen wide landscape with trees, lakes, meadows and MOUNTAINS makes its appearance!


Next picture: "Zenith" - A landscape.

Next picture: "Dreamland" - another landscape with an ugly figure in the foreground.

Next picture: "Winterpath" - A winter landscape.

Next picture: "Orthlund" - A mountainous landscape.

Next picture: "Encounter" - Two stiff characters in front of a mountainous landscape.

LANDSCAPES - A STYLE?


All in all 7 pure landscape pictures and 4 pictures using either standard trees or standard mountains as a background can be counted. That makes ELEVEN pictures showing absolutely nothing new. Why does a graphician work hard on a slideshow? In my opinion it is because he would like to give the viewer a summary of all his abilities, pulling out all the stops. Fairfax does not show much, which make us think, "Yes I knew it! He is the real number one!" In the information scroller Fairfax boasts about the fact, that only one picture has been copied from Boris. In my opinion it would have been better to copy several Boris pictures in order to leave out some of the landscapes. The way Fairfax is presenting himself makes me imagine his intention to gain a certain image. He certainly tries to use the landscapes in order to become something special in the giant pool of quality artists. A very commendable concern indeed, and maybe Fairfax has already succeeded! I guess most of you, no matter if graphician or not, are able to recognize a Fairfax picture immediately! Very nice, but I believe that there are more remarkable possibilities of reaching this aim. What about RA or COUGAR? You are able to recognize their pictures among others, because the WAY HOW they are painting is different from that used by most of the others! The majority of the popular graphicians has quite a varied offer of motifs, but their style of painting is always the same; thus one is able to recognize, whether a picture has been done by Facet, Ra, Cougar or Hof. A graphician does not need to paint the same things again and again in order to reach an outstanding position.

A MATTER OF TASTE?


Why am I not able to adore another mountain landscape from Fairfax, in contrast to most of the other sceners? The number of sceners who like to see the same motifs from the same artist over and over again MUST be very high, otherwise Fairfax would not be so highly ranked in all the charts. In fact, Seven Seas has topped the slideshow charts in the latest instalment of the Eurocharts! Many sceners are sure about the fact, that Fairfax will be the next chart topping graphician after the Facet era will end, although Cougar might prove this theory to be very wrong - it seems to be a pure matter of taste. Maybe I am standing alone with my opinions - this review is not an official scene critic, but only my very personal opinion. The themes of Fairfax's pictures just repudiate to my idea of scene graphics; no doubt that Fairfax would be the perfect one, concerning game graphics, where the pictures stand in close connection to the main theme of the game, but in the scene most pictures do not have any relation to what is going on around. However, I do not seem to be able to recognize the appeal of all these pictures; maybe the room of the average scener is filled with landscapes and mountainous pictures instead of any extracurricular and crazy wall hanging!

TECHNIQUES...


After all this confusion about WHAT Fairfax painted, I would like to focus on HOW he did it. Taking a closer look at the pictures I have to admit, that some of the landscapes are really fascinating concerning the use of particular techniques. The scrolling picture in the very beginning, features so many textures that other graphicians haven't ever tried to do, like fir trees, flat water or wood. Very nice indeed! However, Fairfax had a lot of practise, so the result is not that surprising. When it comes to the standard techniques like dithering or contrast I think that the pictures are sometimes a bit old fashioned. Fairfax mostly uses the ordered dithering (a la chess board), which many graphicians have already swept aside. This does not really give the pictures a bad impression, because they are mostly painted in Interlace modes; one cannot easily spot the dithering. If we take a look at one of the few Low Resolution pictures like "Daydreams" or "Shelob" one can easily spot the deficits, which are not usually seen in Interlace pictures. However, as every picture has its own pros and cons I think that it would be appropriate to write something in particular about each of them, being as objective as possible.

Zenith is much too colourful. Maybe Fairfax wanted to create a fresh spring morning's atmosphere through this picture, but the colours are really not that cleverly chosen. The blue background should have been a bit more pale. Probably there was a little palette problem, so Fairfax had to use the water and sky colours for the background. However, Fairfax writes, that he added the foreground to the picture, a fact which makes it look more interesting! Every picture, especially when it comes to landscapes, must contain a fore, middle and a background to avoid the viewers' boredom.

At a first glance Dreamland looks a bit cobbled together, because the smooth, dull meadows in the foreground, do not really fit to the rocky and bright mountains in the background. Somehow the link between these two parts is missing. According to the quality, the foreground looks very simple. The textures, as far as they exist, are badly worked out, especially the rocks in the waterfall, which are surely far below Fairfax's rocks standard. The gnome does not need any comments; it simply looks ridiculous!

In Winterpath, we can see the consequences of a missing foreground. The piece lack unity and expression; a real pity, because this mountain picture is somehow quite appealing. The colours are cleverly chosen, especially when it comes to the sky and the touch of yellow on the snowy mountains. It looks fresh and interesting. However, taking a closer look at the mountain structures, we can spot the fact, that Fairfax has problems to set the right pixels if there is only few space to play with! There are no clear lines any more. On small areas the lines can be made up through colour fades only and each pixel's colour is very important. Cougar solves these problems perfectly!

Orthlund has a real depth. The brightness slowly increases, as the distances to the objects get bigger. The foreground is quite dark, while the background mountains are very bright, and again with this appealing touch of yellow. This is surely one of the best mountain pictures from Fairfax, and above all everything fits together!

I was quite surprised, how such a boring motif like Encounter could make the audience at The Party 2 push it up onto the second place! Once again Fairfax proofs, that he is able to manage any texture like coats, cloth, metal, rocks and fir trees, which is actually one of the most positive aspects of any of his pictures. However, the two figures in the picture look like wooden puppets, and not like human beings! There's not the slightest bit of dynamism, an aspect which is considered as one of the most important ones according to scene graphics. The lack of facial expression is to consistent. How can such a talented graphician waste his time and energy through boring and uninteresting pictures like this one? It might be a matter of taste, but can anyone deny all this evidence?

The first thing which is immediately recognized in Purpleworm is the unfitting colour selection; A fantasy motif in pale purple colours! The worm is not frightening at all, and it looks somehow decorated! The woman in painted in perfect proportions, However she looks like a statue, and again that bit of dynamism is missing. A little more facial expression would have been enough to avoid the 
"I am standing here since 30 years"
 appearance. Fairfax writes, that his hard work on Purpleworm has been a waste of time - I would agree with him, especially concerning the motif.

An old fashioned and boring motif Flute player shows the same symptoms as Encounter and Purpleworm; no dynamism and no expression! The flute player resembles a scarecrow than a merry character having fun playing the flute. Artificial. Static. The thing I like about this picture is the use of palette for the trees, which slowly spreads from brownish colours in the foreground to dusty blue-grey colours in the background.

Fairfax seems to have problems to deal with the decreased number of pixels in Low Resolution. Shelob looks a bit sloppy and rough; if you want an astonishing picture in Low Resolution one has to work much harder on the pixels than if it was in Interlace. The chess board dithering cannot be used too, in order to avoid rough looking structures. This dull character of the picture is also strengthened by the lack of reflections. Maybe the spider would have looked better with some light points. A fact which is worth to be mentioned is the background with the circle like dither shades, which are put around the spider. It gives the picture a dramatic character, which is also strengthened by the dynamic movements of the small figure. In fact this seems to be one of the best pictures in SEVEN SEAS. If Fairfax would have spent some more time on it, it would have ended up even better.

I decided to chose Daydreams as the best picture of the whole slideshow. To summarize its qualities: good facial expression, good proportions, good colours, outstanding motif and very nice contrasts. The way the light shines on the face harmonizes with the darker skin tones. Maybe Fairfax could have worked out the beard texture a bit more realistically, but all in all this one turned out to be my favourite.

There's not much to say about Soria Moria. Fairfax writes, that he just did this simple piece because he had nothing better to do. Yes, it IS simple, especially the background, and Although it is interlaced, you can still easily spot the dither areas.

Smoker is the only picture featuring the non ordered dithering technique. Fairfax just HAD to use it this time, because it is impossible to paint skin texture with the ordered method. Smoker is one of the better pieces in this slideshow. It offers an interesting and uncommon motive, drawn in Low Resolution! Unfortunately the proportions could have been worked out in a much better way; just look at the hands. However, it is not the easiest task to make a Chinese look like a Chinese. It requests watchful observation of the original picture. The fact that Fairfax copied the picture from a photo made this probably even harder.

Depths is in some aspects comparable to Shelob. It looks too dull and there's a big lack of contrast. The shades are too normal. The picture would have looked better if the brightest colours were only being used for punctual reflections instead of getting included into the general spreads. Maybe the picture should have been completely based on reflections, especially the bubble. Really nice motif, but the quality is decreased, because the Fairfax style does not fit that well in here.

Mindriot has some dynamic aspects like the mimic and the gestures of the woman; A very interesting motif! However, this picture reflects very clearly, that Fairfax uses Interlace to improve his pictures' quality. If Mindriot is converted to Low Resolution it can be easily seen how generally simple the techniques behind the more impressing pieces are; poor anti aliasing and sloppily worked elements, which one just tends to overlook in Interlace.

FINAL WORDS


It is hard to find the right words for an overall judgement, simply because Fairfax' work is hard to compare with that of other popular artists. The main reason is, that Fairfax' themes are generally different from the usual ones; in MY opinion in a negative way. Fairfax is an oldie amongst today's top graphicians, according to his style. He has not basically changed his techniques through the years. Today there are so many artists using innovative and outstanding styles, but Fairfax is still on the level of 1992 or earlier. Personally I would not rank him among the top ten graphicians. His techniques are not much innovative, and furthermore he mostly uses paints in interlace, which makes life so much easier for an artist. Once again sceners seem to be deceived by the quantity of Fairfax' work without paying enough attention to the quality. In my opinion Fairfax can never compete with other graphicians like Ra, Cougar, Joachim, Titan, D-Sign or even Facet