Greetings and woses

[Jormungandr]

Surprise, I'm not dead!

Let me say that I am mightily impressed by the general increase in style and graphical polish that's occurred in Wesnoth of late - after having not played since 1.2.something, 1.4.1 is quite an upgrade. My hat is off to all of you fine artists.

I realize I've been vanished from these forums for quite a while, but I have some interest in getting back into the portraiture business. Of course, I also have almost no idea what needs doing anymore, so I thought I'd ask first. How can I help?

If nothing else, I notice from the "Grand Portrait List" that my old drake and saurian portraits have fallen out of date. I'm quite willing to rework them, if someone can give me some details on what needs to be done to fit with the current style of things.

[Boucman]

hey jormungandr, it's great to see you back

I'll let the technical detail to Jetryl

[Jetrel]

To put things in a nutshell, while you were out, this artist named kitty showed up, and rather unequivocally answered the question of what wesnoth's official style is going to be for portraits - she's (nearly) finished the elves, already, and has come up with a style that should nicely please any reasonable person in the audience.

Our general plan is to work from what she's started as a base, and make portraits for the rest of the races in the game to match. Some of the old ones will be outright retired, like the human portraits, but others can probably be salvaged by re-inking them, possibly reworking a few costuming details, and then recoloring them - good examples of these are the orcish portraits, and the mermen portraits. It's a pity to lose the human portraits, but we can inspire ourselves with some of the better ideas behind their appearance; especially faces.

Of course, I also have almost no idea what needs doing anymore, so I thought I'd ask first. How can I help?

A few things:
1] Sketches of potential portraits for the races that aren't done (humans, orcs, woses, dwarves)
2] More sketches for the drakes/saurians.

If nothing else, I notice from the "Grand Portrait List" that my old drake and saurian portraits have fallen out of date. I'm quite willing to rework them, if someone can give me some details on what needs to be done to fit with the current style of things.

The actual shaping of them is generally great, with a few exceptions (like the cloak on the augur, or the head on the drake fighter). What's really separating your work from what we'd like to be the official style, is the style of coloring and shading.

Which is gonna be hard to match; the good news is that kitty's working on a tutorial which should offer a bit of insight into the matter.


It's seriously awesome to have you back and gunning to do stuff, though. I'm actually looking to hop on the portrait bandwagon myself, soon, so we could really get something going, here. If you're itching to start, the best things to start working on might be some sketches of loyalist or dwarf units.

[Jormungandr]

Alright, I'll start working on some sketches, and see what comes of it.

To start with, here's a very preliminary wose. I like the pose, but the image would need to be reworked to fit in portrait dimensions, and the leafy bits need a lot more definition.

Mumblebaum wishes you to take Earth Day seriously.

[kitty]

hey!
nice to meet the creator of the drakes! i'm this artist named kitty...
i just wanted to say that i really love your work for wesnoth - your creature designs are fantastic! and the wose sketch is very cool, too. (but is the crown on his hunch not too lotr ent-ish?)

and even if it is surely for vain to disagree with the mighty art director - i don't think at all that jormungandr's painting style is too far away from what we are aiming for! we want soft painted portraits, and that's what the drakes are... perhaps a bit more darks and a bit more detail for the saurians and that is it painting-wise imho.
what *does* really seperate them is the linework. we are going for bolder inking with line width variation - and that should be easily possible to do on top of the existing ones.

[Jetrel]

hey!
nice to meet the creator of the drakes! i'm this artist named kitty...

Just because it's something worth knowing; all of the drake portraits were done by Jormungandr, but the drake sprites were all made by Neoriceisgood ( and mostly animated by me and zebulon, since neo couldn't be bothered).

and even if it is surely for vain to disagree with the mighty art director

I know you're kidding around, but - please do disagree with me if anything I'm saying seems wrong. Becoming right, at the cost of making a fool out of myself, is fine by me.

i don't think at all that jormungandr's painting style is too far away from what we are aiming for! we want soft painted portraits, and that's what the drakes are... perhaps a bit more darks and a bit more detail for the saurians and that is it painting-wise imho.
what *does* really seperate them is the linework. we are going for bolder inking with line width variation - and that should be easily possible to do on top of the existing ones.

Yeah.

The one other major thing that strikes me as being different, is the lack of a second lighting source. But you're right that we could probably pull these off without having to "recolor" the portrait - just by layering things on top.

[kitty]

sorry to go further off topic from jormungandr's greeting....

The one other major thing that strikes me as being different, is the lack of a second lighting source. But you're right that we could probably pull these off without having to "recolor" the portrait - just by layering things on top.

the majority of the mainline elves doesn't have two lightsources at all, i started using them extensive not until the wesmere portraits. thus i would like to say that multiple lightsources are encouraged but no requsition.
but when speaking about differences what strikes me most is the cropping of the glider, gladiator and skirmisher. i believe we a re going for waist-up and they are full body.


(and i know that neorice did the drake sprites, of course - i should have said "the creator of the drake portraits", i thought that would be clear in this context)

[Jetrel]

sorry to go further off topic from jormungandr's greeting....

The one other major thing that strikes me as being different, is the lack of a second lighting source. But you're right that we could probably pull these off without having to "recolor" the portrait - just by layering things on top.

the majority of the mainline elves doesn't have two lightsources at all, i started using them extensive not until the wesmere portraits. thus i would like to say that multiple lightsources are encouraged but no requsition.

Yeah, looks like you're right. That sounds like a good plan.

but when speaking about differences what strikes me most is the cropping of the glider, gladiator and skirmisher.i believe we a re going for waist-up and they are full body.

Yeah. I believe we actually have larger crops of those, still linked in the graphics library, which we could use to make torso shots.

However, I'd like to figure out some way to also commit any larger copies we have of art, into the repo, so that they can hopefully get saved for posterity (we've had a few forum crashes that deleted all images uploaded, in the past). They also might be useful for as-yet-unseen purposes in the game.

[Iris]

However, I'd like to figure out some way to also commit any larger copies we have of art, into the repo, so that they can hopefully get saved for posterity (we've had a few forum crashes that deleted all images uploaded, in the past). They also might be useful for as-yet-unseen purposes in the game.

The resources branch, which we use already to store Kestenvarn's layered map sources.

[Jormungandr]

In the spirit of experimentation, here's another wose sketch, this one dispensing with the branchy bits.

This look is less like the traditional ent/treant/tree-man, possibly too much so; the "treeishness" would have to come in large part from the coloration and texturing.

[Iris]

Coloring and texture, yeah, at least on the head, that looks too much like a Yeti.

[Jetrel]

In the spirit of experimentation, here's another wose sketch, this one dispensing with the branchy bits.

This look is less like the traditional ent/treant/tree-man, possibly too much so; the "treeishness" would have to come in large part from the coloration and texturing.

It's a great picture, and we can afford people a little bit of artistic license, but you can't completely redefine the anatomical nature of the unit. You just can't lose the branches of the tree, or it ain't a tree.

I don't think this is too unreasonable (you're not the first, though; we had a talented artist, a while back, try to draw a story picture for HttT depicting mermen ... with legs. )

However, I think one bit of good news is that you could probably add in the crown on top of this without breaking the composition. I could show you what I mean, if you'd like.. (btw - most excellent work on the knuckles. I need to brush up on drawing those.)

[Jormungandr]

No problem - branches shall be added.