Moonrise #1 - score: 9.5 out of 10

Mongi:
Let's face it, most of the demosceners are so much more talented than the artsceners. A lot of really good artsceners have gone to the demoscene. And really good demosceners have become professionals (for example Future Crew, and the makers of Motorhead). They certainly have their own special style.

Boz's work is really good. The shapes are really soft, and the lighting very realistic (although the characters aren't =). He could have used more bumpmaps in some places though.

Logan's pics are kind of interesting, but technically the same level as the others. I like Final Fantasy a lot, and this pic was really funny. The "mech" looks like a combination of Gundam Mobile Suite and Robotech, that's interesting.

Made's portrait of the girl is really photorealistic, but with some demoscene touch to it, and some refining. Technically superb.

Splif, of Aegis Corp fame (mods, K-Jöfol which Splif have made th graphics for, litestep?), is fantastic. His style, although made in truecolor, have a demoscene touch to it. The shading is VERY smooth, and the ideas often whacky and original. The technique is next to flawless.

One of the most impressive pics is Zaac's "Shirley". Drawn with only 32 colors it is amazing. The dithering technique is really well executed.

Although most of the pics are technically almost perfect, they are completely different from artscene art in style. With groups like ACiD and HRg as examples, the artscene tend to be much darker and "deeper". If classical painting is in one end, and modern computer generated graphics in the other, the demoscene leans toward the latter style, while the artscene try to be close to traditional art. What's typical of demoscene art is, whether they are 256 or truecolor pics, that they are very sharp. There is never any random blurring to hide bad technique, and seldom any blurring at all. It's only used when necessary, for example perspective use.

The classical textfile description of the pics is actually really good now. Since most people use windows viewers, we never get to see SAUCEs anyway. And if we would like to see the descriptions, it's much easier to view a textfile, rather than a start a SAUCE reader.

Another question is how dedicated and involved the members are in this group. None of the pics are the name "Moonrise" in them, and I bet most of them are old pics from the demoscene. We'll see if they will ever release again under the Moonrise label.

score: 9

Root88:
It really is amazing what these Demoscene guys can do with limited palettes. Some of the pics have 256, 128, and even a mere 32 colors. These Demosceners claim to work pixel by pixel. These things really are unnecessary in our part of the scene, but admirable none the less. Moonrise did receive a very high rating but if you would have pulled the best ice, acid, hrg or cia images from the past six months you would see similar scores. Generally quality is better than quantity, but I doubt there would be a scene if releases only came every six months. Still, the fact that their first release scored so high is impressive. Almost all the pics have that Demoscene flavor to them, hopefully Moonrise’s artists will keep an eye on our scene and maybe be inspired into other directions.

BOZ-FUNK.JPG was humorous, one minor detail the stood out was that some of the items such as the chain and speedo could have used a touch of airbrush on the shading to make it look at bit less cut and pasted. The sparkles hurt my eyes, but the smoke was a nice touch.

BOZ’s other pics showed excellent modeling skills and use of textures. He also seems to have mastered the hair plugin for 3dsmax. Putting more time into the backgrounds of these pics would make a big improvement.

Logan’s pics really aren’t that bad, but they are completely overshadowed by all the other artists tremendous work.

Mada please tell me this isn’t a copy. I know that in the Demoscene it is not looked down upon much, but in our scene such a thing is punishable by death. If this is not a copy, it’s one of the best pics I have ever seen.

MS-ATRIP.JPG looks like Splif was eating some of the mushrooms in that pic when he thought it up. Good job! ;) Judging by the nick, I will asume I am correct in this assumption. The waterfall really got my attention.

MS-DEMON.JPG I hope Splif didn’t see this guy while he was eating those mushrooms. Technically brilliant, and it freaked me out. I like that.

MS-GAMF.JPG Appears to be a pic of a little girl that lost her teddy bear and found it again. Once again technically brilliant, I love idea behind it also.

ZA-JULIA 128 colors! Are you kidding me!? I know how you guys go about doing it, but I still don’t know how you do it.

ZA-MELI.GIF only 256 colors is remarkable. This looks like a trace of a photomanip. Whether it is or not, this is still an amazing image.

score: 9.5

(note: only 32 colors!)