artisticdude's Art

[tr0ll]

wouldnt a necromancer have to be gagged as well as chained in order to prevent them casting magic?

[battlestar]

Only if aesthetically pleasing and possible to display (human/elven mouths are usually not shown in wesnoth sprites due to how tiny the face is.) And he's physically bound by chains but it's actually couple of magic runes (elsewhere in the vicinity) that are doing the job.


I flipped through all 70+ pages of this post, gotta say there're some very good stuff in here. And there are some very strange stuff too.
-Do you still have the frames for ? Would you mind posting them if you still do?
-I can't figure out what this is...

[homunculus]

(no, i don't think i am going to suggest the paranary (or was it catebola?) here. the body is probably more heavy than the chains+arms, and the arms-chains would be more or less straight.)
i think the necromancer would suffocate if left hanging like this for a significant time.
like being crucified.

[...]he's physically bound by chains but it's actually couple of magic runes (elsewhere in the vicinity) that are doing the job.[...]

which brings up the question: why not use the existing cage as done elsewhere, with the additional bonus that people are used to it?

[battlestar]

Then sounds like the chains should be straight. I'm not worried about suffocation, he's supposed to be undead, just well preserved enough to fool people into thinking he's among living.

Desiring for a more dramatic feeling than being caged. Being chained up is more like a torture than imprisonment, so at some levels they aren't quite the same. In the future, may try to convert the base-frame into a unit wiggling in chains. Wouldn't it be fun to watch someone struggle for eternity?

[artisticdude]

As vultraz pointed out on IRC, she's a bit short compared to other units, but meh... She just hasn't hit her growth spurt yet. (*Cue inevitable comments about dwarf/human interbreeding).

EDIT: Fixed the hand a bit, now it doesn't look so much like a stump.

[Zerovirus]

As vultraz pointed out on IRC, she's a bit short compared to other units, but meh... She just hasn't hit her growth spurt yet.

Probably just growth deficit thanks to medieval-era malnutrition and whatnot.

[dirtywhitellama]

Too much coffee?

[homunculus]

It is sad to watch as you seem to be actively destroying the awesome concept that you had in vultraz's thread (as far as my opinion goes).

Your initial peasant woman seemed appropriately chubby, and even looked like she had stronger bones, and she seemed to be slightly leaning forward, as if trying to say 'I can lift two heavy buckets right away, marry me!'
I could definitely imagine buckets and farm tools and milking cows etc with her.

Like Zero made a nice try, but it could have been, say, a housemaid, or maybe even a generic non-noble woman.
But yours looked definitely like peasant woman and nothing else came to mind.

[francophone]

I love your version homunculus. Do I can use it for a campaign, as "celest villager" (with wings like celests lvl 1 a little shorter)?

[artisticdude]

Must all peasant women be buxom and brawny?

Midieval peasant women weren't all dual-bucket-wielding tanks. Even though I understand where you're coming from, it would also be quite possible for a woman who does a lot of physical activity to be lean rather than buff or chubby, since body type depends a lot on genetics as well as environment. And because she isn't actively toting her buckets around, I can't really think of any justifiable reason for her to be leaning forward.

[homunculus]

@francophone Oh, come on, how am I supposed to know that?
The problems why you might not be able to use it could be numerous, like some health problems, or injuries, or some social issues, or whatever.
I have never even seen you, how would I know what problems you might have

Must all peasant women be buxom and brawny?[...]

It is like the orc armor, AFAIK it is supposed to be 'generic armor, maybe leather', but when you look at it, the first thing that comes to mind is bronze plate and anything else would sound like 'bricks are soft and Wesnoth orcs wear leather'.

And, even better, not all scientists look like Einstein.
I can assure you, I know many, and none of them even remotely resembles Einstein.
But if a scientist sprite is needed, you would draw Einstein, right?
Even exaggerated Einstein is what is usually done.
Otherwise it would look like 'just some guy', and the viewers would be confused.

If an office employee is needed, it might be worth considering to draw it so that it hints at back being slightly bent in the middle (a common posture defect from sitting in the chair all day).

The justifiable reason, as I see it, is not to confuse the viewer.

The chubbiness of the peasant woman is IMHO way within the limits of cute, especially considering Wesnoth unit proportions, and the posture is by far not as much bent as a 110 years old wicked witch.
It is more like 'where are my buckets?' posture.

I could return the question: must all females in Wesnoth be slim?
There are enough elves and mages and princesses for that kind of sprites.

[artisticdude]

draw it so that it hints at back being slightly bent in the middle (a common posture defect from sitting in the chair all day).

Also a posture commonly seen among the younger generations as they leave the hallowed halls of learning at the end of the day. (sorry, just had to get that in!)

I could return the question: must all females in Wesnoth be slim?
There are enough elves and mages and princesses for that kind of sprites.

Oooh, you got me there. Can't argue with that!

We don't have enough mutant termagant barmaids in Wesnoth. But I, artisticdude, shall begin the crusade:

peasant_girl.gif (1015 Bytes) Viewed 4827 times

* * *

Okay, kidding aside, I do understand what you're saying here. Stereotypes tend to be more readable/understandable than others in any given situation, you're absolutely right. But at the same time, a lot of the characteristics found in the stereotype I used tend to help sprites at this scale be readable as female. Females in general tend to have less bulky builds than males, so making them slimmer is one way to imply (and implications are the heart and soul of small-scale pixel art) femininity. Sure, you could do it without necessarily resorting to certain tricks like slimness (by using long hair, more prominent chests, etc. instead), but the more you can do to ensure the viewer reads the piece as you intended it to be read, the better.

That, and I'm just in the habit of drawing female sprites as slender.

It would be an interesting challenge to see how far I can push the boundaries of certain stereotype definitions without necessarily falling outside that stereotype though. I may try experimenting with that.


By the way, I don't think you really answered francophone's question. He's asking whether you will allow him to use your edit or not.

[francophone]

@francophone Oh, come on, how am I supposed to know that?
The problems why you might not be able to use it could be numerous, like some health problems, or injuries, or some social issues, or whatever.

Humor or misunderstanding? I'm too poor in English to get an idea. So my question was Homunculus if you allow me to use your sprite (+ wings) to a personal campaign.

PS: It can be muscled because my celests are hermaphrodites.

[Dugi]

@francophone Obviously, humour.
The game is under GPL, obviously you can reuse it, so he pretended to be unable to understand how could you have problems to do it.

On topic, the game is supposed to appeal to users, so every woman in the game should be slim (except witches and those who have storyline reasons not to be). Remember other computer games - all women are slim in almost any game.

[artisticdude]

The game is under GPL, obviously you can reuse it...

Just for the record though, the sprite he edited isn't in the core game, hasn't been officially uploaded to the add-on server yet, and isn't explicitly listed as a potential contribution to mainline, so technically it doesn't fall under the GPL unless it is unambiguously stated that it is licensed under the GPL.

Of course, obviously I'm licensing my sprite under the GPL (indeed, I'll say it here and now: unless I explicity state otherwise, everything drawn by me in this thread is licensed under the GPL), but it's always good to double-check before using an image that you aren't sure is GPL'ed.


And on that note, here's the more-or-less finished fat whatever baseframe. I don't think anyone wants/needs/will use this, but who knows...