Heir to the Throne: Portraits

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Velensk
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Velensk »

To be honest, I didn't find it all that characterful. Her displayed attitude always felt like one of a brute force commander (this is taking too long, maybe I should just use more forces and such). The only vaguely subversive thing she did was the fencer ambush which ironically suffered from being not brute force enough as even on hard Konrad has a decent chance of dealing with the entire ambush himself (if he's hanging back at the keep and fails to have other units spring the trap for some reason).
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Boldek
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Boldek »

to me, I thought the old portrait fit the old sprite as she wasn't very armed as she was more just the royal representative rather than one of the head marshals, so I thought that's why she was in a ball gown with a sabre, however, if the devs are planning to change her unit, than her portrait makes a lot of sense. In truth, I also liked the variety of a skirmisher leader, but it makes more sense for her to be chasing him over mountains and under caves in a suit of armor.
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MoogleEmpMog
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by MoogleEmpMog »

Velensk wrote:To be honest, I didn't find it all that characterful. Her displayed attitude always felt like one of a brute force commander (this is taking too long, maybe I should just use more forces and such). The only vaguely subversive thing she did was the fencer ambush which ironically suffered from being not brute force enough as even on hard Konrad has a decent chance of dealing with the entire ambush himself (if he's hanging back at the keep and fails to have other units spring the trap for some reason).
She also pretends to go in peace while guiding Konrad's army into the Valley of the Dead.

It's true she seems impatient, but impatience doesn't have to mean a lack of subtlety or a brute-force approach. You could just as easily argue her impatience leads her to eschew heavier gear that would slow her down when she has to engage in personal combat.
Boldek wrote:to me, I thought the old portrait fit the old sprite as she wasn't very armed as she was more just the royal representative rather than one of the head marshals, so I thought that's why she was in a ball gown with a sabre, however, if the devs are planning to change her unit, than her portrait makes a lot of sense. In truth, I also liked the variety of a skirmisher leader, but it makes more sense for her to be chasing him over mountains and under caves in a suit of armor.
... Er, why does that make sense? Fencers (and Li'sar as she is now) are better cavers and mountain travelers than the medium and heavy lines. They're well suited to hunting down Konrad's otherwise faster-moving army of elves.

There's no good reason for her to be out in a ball gown, but that's also not what her sprite had on. She was unarmored (until her upgrade) but wearing an outfit that would allow plenty of maneuverability. I'm glad it's changing - because it doesn't fit the Loyalists late medieval style. I just wish it was changing to something more like a Fencer outfit rather than a Swordsman outfit.

It sounds like that's not what the devs decided to go with, though. :(
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Thrawn »

Give the word, and I can split all of the peanut gallery discussion into another thread.
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by monochromatic »

MoogleEmpMog wrote:Li'sar was the only light infantry leader in the game. Combined with her use of fencers in the ambush in the first scenario she appears in, it always associated her with that line to me, and that association was a characterful one. It was an interesting distinction from Konrad and from the human campaign leaders in general. It also allowed her to effectively use her leadership on a different type of units.
If by leader you mean any hero unit, you're wrong. There's plenty to boot (Landar, Harper, Nym, Inarix just off the top of my head). Light infantry have a substantial presence in this game. Heck, all elvish units in general are light infantry. Personally, I don't think HttT needs more light infantry. Elves are fragile enough.

And I think the reason for a lack of canrecruit=yes units being elusivefoot like Li'sar is simply so one doesn't have to lose by a lucky strike from an Orcish Grunt. It'd make more sense for soldiers to make sure their leader is well armored and protected. Skirmishing was a role for low-level soldiers.

EDIT: And this is why one should always finish reading the thread before replying. I didn't realize there was an entire page after that post! :doh:
Last edited by monochromatic on September 29th, 2011, 3:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Frogger5
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Frogger5 »

I think you guys are breaking down this issue to the point where it's out of context. :o She is a commander in the Wesnoth army. What would you expect from that? Any less than a fully armoured and fit soldier would be absurd.
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by mumble »

Jetrel wrote:Her age, and Konrad's age, have both been raised about 2/3 of a decade versus the previous portraits. Konrad and Lisar are now both about 22-28, give or take. What the exact age is doesn't matter; the key thing though is that they're now unequivocally adults, rather than teenagers.

Partly this is just to get away from tired cliches about kids saving the world, but also it's to provide leverage for more interesting character depictions, since they're old enough to be experienced (again avoiding the teenager trope of having clueless buffoons who need remedial education on everything, which really tends to bog down writing), but young enough to not be jaded, and to not be set in their ways and beliefs.
A-ehm, then you must think that Joan of Arc is a fictional character: she led the French side at Orléans when she was 17 and died by the age of 19; El Cid fought against the Moors at Zaragoza when he was 14 and was a military commander by the age of 20. In the antiquity and middle ages a teenager was an adult (by the age of 14/16): Frederyk II (Holy Roman Emperor) was freed of his tutor and declared of age when he was 14 (at the time he was already king of Sicily), became king of Germany at 18 and led the invasion of Lorraine at the age of 24. You may check the lives of the military commanders during the italian wars of the late middle ages: #Castruccio Castracani began his career when he was 19 #Federico da Montefeltro was 15 when he was knighted, he became a military commander at 16 and sieged St. Leo when he was 19 #Cesare Borgia (Cesar Borja) was bishop at 15, cardinal at 18 and was commander of the papal army at the age of 23 (after resigning the cardinalate) #Giovanni dalle Bande Nere was banished from Florence at the age of 12 for murder and was a military commander by the age of 18 #Cangrande della Scala was knighted at the age of 10, began his military career at 13 and became ruler of the town of Verona at the age of 17. The Archery Law made it obligatory for Englishmen between the age of 15 to 60 to own bows and arrows and to practice their skills with the longbow. If Konrad and Lisar are in their late 20s, I have to say that the plot is unlikely: (given the settings) by that age they should be experienced commanders with a whole life at their backs (Lucretia Borgia had her third marriage at the age of 21), not some kind of outsiders (I mean, Konrad's still got a tutor in his mid 20s?). Napoleon (who was a bit too late to be medieval) was a military officer at the age of 16 and was a general by the age of 24... :roll:

Regarding Li'sar's portrait:
  • Her armor seems quite heavy, if she's still a pedestrian it is likely too heavy and cumbersome for a woman "closer to Jennifer Anniston's build".
  • That chainmail is draped like a soft textile. Chainmails do not envelop a body that much:
    reference
    Image
  • As in the previous point: her breasts are too high and visible. Chainmails are heavy, should look heavy.
    reference
    Image
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Jetrel
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Jetrel »

mumble wrote:...
If you think I'm correcting stuff because I thought that was unrealistic, you're kinda myopic. Realistic things do not necessarily make for good fiction. All those people you referenced - probably one of the best examples being Alexander the Great, acted like teenagers. Often in the worst sense of the term; many of these people would come off like "mary sue" characters in fiction writing. We're not trying to avoid that because teenagers can't accomplish meaningful things. We're trying to avoid teenage leads simply for its own sake. Stories involving inexperienced teenage protagonists happening to have some innate genius and triumphing over impossible odds - sure, they're surprisingly realistic - but they're tired, they're cliche, and they're just an overdone branch of storytelling.

We don't need another *#&^@ eragon/harry-potter/sword-of-shanarra. Etc: chrono trigger, final fantasy, fire emblem, legend of zelda, every freaking jrpg ever made. No thanks; we're bucking the trend. Konrad and Lisar simply didn't have a chance to change the world at age 15; despite likely being done with their tutoring, because there just wasn't a world-conflict happening. What they did during those 5-8 years is an excellent opportunity to give them more interesting backgrounds.
Since they're old enough to be experienced (again avoiding the teenager trope of having clueless buffoons who need remedial education on everything, which really tends to bog down writing)
Amongst other things, I'm gently steering on our writing crew by doing this; it's intended to eliminate any reasonable possibility of them invoking the dumb apprentice trope, which unfortunately almost gets invoked de rigeur when you have an old mentor and a young student. Everyone and their mom seems to want to redo "wart and merlin" from "the sword in the stone." When you run a project like wesnoth, sometimes you do certain things to trigger other things, not completely as standalone actions.

Kinda like when we changed "rapier" to "sabre" to shut people up about a piercing damage type; it wasn't a change done for it's own sake within the game, it was a change done to affect the meta-project.
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Thrawn
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Thrawn »

Chainmail discussion has been moved, per request. Please don't bring that back into this thread unless Kitty has something to say about it. Thank you
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vodot
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by vodot »

This new art is fantastic. Keep it up. Is this going to be implemented in 1.10? (Please?)
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Pewskeepski »

If the whole set gets completed by then, yes. Which reminds me - is version 1.10 going to be released next? Or is it going to be something like 1.9.10?
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Crendgrim
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Crendgrim »

There recently were rumors about a feature freeze for 1.10 starting in November, so I don't expect another development release before that. [1]
I guess our the¹ developers will have enough to do to fix the open bugs, polish up things and so on.


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¹ edited on shadowmaster's wish, whyever.
Last edited by Crendgrim on October 21st, 2011, 8:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Iris »

Here, when a feature freeze is set in preparation for a stable series there’s always a period of (usually bi-weekly) development releases labeled as beta and release candidates first.

The upcoming release is 1.9.10 and it will probably be labeled as 1.10 beta 1. Then 1.9.11 will be beta 2, and so on.

(Also, “our”? :? )
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Guest »

shadowmaster wrote:
Jetrel wrote:(it's possible the very last remaining bit of copyright infringement that particular person gave us, and it was waiting on a redo of the portraits).
Image
The Wizard/Mage/Sorcerer/Lich class line from Ogre Battle - March Of The Black Queen, correct? I think it's a bit of the robe, and maybe part of the legs or arms. The staff could be from the Witch class. I don't recognize anything else, and I was the guy who made the character data spreadsheets for that game, so I'd know.

****

And - this is just a personal peeve of mine - but where is the head protection? Do the would-be monarchs of Wesnoth have such hard heads that they can forgo helmets while galumphing across the battlefield? But this is just a realism nerd complaint I have against most fiction, and it can be safely eschewed with the argument that this is fantasy, which was used earlier in this thread.

Li'sar looks fine. The apostrophe in her name is the only thing that offends me, not counting her lack of head gear. Speaking as someone who was only 150 pounds while serving as an infantryman in the Marines, I verify that the armor and assorted gear makes you look a lot bigger than you really are. And, heavy as it is, you don't become a beefcake by wearing it everyday. You get the sort of physique one would expect of someone who does strenuous physical labor every day - a sort of wiry hardness. Kind of like what you get when you do calisthenics (push ups, pull ups, squats, lunges) and running for months on end, but with a smoother definition and less mass.

You may want to implement a slightly different effect when Li'sar holds the sceptor. Different color or something.

Looking forward to replaying this scenario with non-goofy looking portraits.
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Re: Heir to the Throne: Portraits

Post by Iris »

xibalba wrote:The Wizard/Mage/Sorcerer/Lich class line from Ogre Battle - March Of The Black Queen, correct? I think it's a bit of the robe, and maybe part of the legs or arms. The staff could be from the Witch class. I don't recognize anything else, and I was the guy who made the character data spreadsheets for that game, so I'd know.
The head, taken from the mainline Skeleton unit more than half a decade ago. (See this.)

As for the lack of helmets, I guess you could assume they just don’t wear them while talking. It’s not easy to convey emotions with a fully-covered face, after all.
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