Let's be honest, although Dave talks about the dice in all of his card reviews, I usually don't put a whole lot of thought into the aesthetics of a die. Sometimes it's just so distracting, though, and you can't help but think about it as you roll dem bones. Today I want to talk about dice color, and dice quality, and talk a bit about the upcoming Uncanny X-Men release as well and whether or not some lessons have been learned about dice and pretty colors.So, let's get one thing straight: not all dice are created equal, and what's the point of having a blog with my opinion if I can't use it to make fun of some of the dice in this game that really should have been sent to their room and not come back until they were painted properly?
The Good
So, there are some really great dice, both young and old: My personal favorite will probably always be Vibranium Shield, nothing is quite as classic as the crisp lines of The Shield, but it really pops on the die and it's very easy to pick out of the crowd above. Similarly, Deadpool has that same clean linework followed by the crisp black paint. I personally also feel Angel and Storm share the same pretty white-on-blue coloration.
I'm a fan of the Punisher die as well, it has his classic skull and the clean colors to go with it, as does Ghost Rider, with that bright yellow on the black background.
I must say, there's a major theme to the 'good' dice for me, two high-contract colors, but, additionally it seems like at least one of the colors is black or white.
Some honorable mentions go out to Wolverine, Hulk, Human Torch, Captain America, and Spider-Man.
The Bad
Two dice come to mind immediately when it comes to just plain bad dice design. I have no idea what happened, but I've never seen a Venom die that doesn't look like it's been through a cheese grater. Maybe that strange, mottled look is intentional, but it stands apart in the sea of dice as looking weird. I think the effect was supposed to be some sort of pearlescence, and there's a similar effect on the Colossus die, but it just doesn't work on Venom.
My second 'What on Earth were they thinking?!' die goes to War Machine. Who thought light grey on also-light-grey was a good idea? Please go back to color school. Black on light grey, or white on dark grey would have really popped, instead I struggle to tell IF it's not a face, much less which one it is.
It also has the distinction of being the only die I pulled, looked at, held upside down, and thought it looked a little bit better that way, before I went and made sure that it was actually the right die for the right card.
One other bad element, for me, is how alike in color Nightcrawler and Black Widow are. They are also both fist characters which makes it incredibly hard for me to tell them apart when I'm sorting my dice box.
The Ugly
I'm just going to come out and say it, this is a personal preference, but a lot of the die colors just don't work. I've never seen a properly painted Colossus die, the green is not at all flattering on the Phoenix die, Thing's face is pretty ugly (sorry Ben!), and Mystique looks like an inhuman blob.
There are also more than a few designs that just take a while to focus on before it really snaps into place: Iron Man, for example, is clearly his arc reactor, but the size of the dotting makes it pretty difficult to find it colored properly; the Doc Ock die... let's just say it took me a very long time to figure out what that was supposed to be portraying (my first guess was very amusing to Evan when I said it over Skype, and he informed me it was a tentacle, not another aspect of the villain); as much as I want to like the Nick Fury die, the SHIELD insignia is way too busy for such a small surface area; Gambit's coloring is incredibly muddy; Doctor Strange's die wants to be pretty, but the black on green doesn't do anything for it's visibility.
The list goes on, and it's obviously me being very picky, but at the same time these are dice that need to pop, I want someone to see them across the FLGS floor and ask me what I'm playing because the dice are just that cool. I want to make them into earrings and have them look neat at a distance! I make them into earrings anyway, but some of them aren't very pretty.
So, Did We Learn Our Lesson?
I say yes. It's not perfect, and obviously we'll need to see them in person, but there is definitely some improvement in the coloring. Iron Man is still a bit weak, and I'm worried about Vision's coloration. Mystique is still a pretty awful design, so there's not much to be done there, but otherwise the colors and the indentations on the new dice look much cleaner and much deeper, this will get more paint in the grooves. I noticed that about most of the new designs.
The colors on Spider-Man leave me a little worried, and the Ice Man colors are also a bit... over-inked, and I'm still not sold on that pearlescence effect on Ant Man, but other than that I think things are looking up. I know some people have said that the colors aren't as bright, but I have to say they look pretty good to me, you don't have a huge number of options if you are trying to stay within the range of colors that look good together.
But I bet the guy who colored Cerebro is the same one who colored War Machine. I thought I sent you to color school.
Juggy, Scarlet Witch and Iceman look so cool!
ReplyDeleteWolverine looks ok, but the promo art for the upcoming set has him in his brown and orange costume, doesnt it? Glad to see they are just pulling stock images without much planning.
ReplyDelete.....the image they used for Colossus's OP prize still bugs me, because that is not what he looked like while empowered by the Pheonix.
Back on topic...new Captain America looks super crisp. Best looking one based on the image above.
Yeah, the Colossus they show is when he's acting as the avatar of the Juggernaut
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