Portraits for Northern Rebirth

[Darth Fool]

A quick comment on the scales. You have drawn them laid out with perfectly straight lines except at the edges. While the lines of the individual scales can be straight, the scales should not be lined up in that way. This gives the impression that the scales are all in a plane and perfectly flat. At the very least, you should have some curvature to them to give the impression that the dwarf's chest is more cylindrical. I don't know if you need to go into more detail than just cylindrical, but to give it a 3d appearance that is the minimum.

[Taurus]

Nice! Hey, if you are feeling enthuastic about dwarves, perhaps you can do Stalrag as well. If he is good enough then he may even be included in the mainline, as he also features in HttT.

[Jetrel]

Listen, you MUST break their poses out of the horizontal plane.

It looks really amateur to have them facing the screen head-on, like a "mug shot" photograph taken by police.

It's much harder to do it that way, but it looks much better.

[gdou]

You are drawing much better than I could do.

Just a quick comment on the new drarf with the hammer. Just to make it even better.

Taking as hypothesis that the dwarf is posing for a photo, his right arm does not look good. I think that it is because nobody would wear the hammer like that. All the weight of the weapon is on this left arm. So the guy would put the head of the hammer the closest as possible to his torso (in order to minimize the lever effect with gravity). So, I think his left arm should be bend, so that is hand is close to his shoulder, and his elbow is close to his hip. The handle of the hammer would then not be horinzontal anymore...

Good luck.

[battlesquid]

SkeletonCrew:
Yep, the shield looks too new. I have left it that way because I might add some logo to it - in case Taurus wants that.

The hammer arm has a few issues, I'll work on that as well as the hammer itself.

Darth Fool:
Yeah I guess I could add a slight curve across the torso, though it was my intention to make their armor seem a bit rigid and inflexible. That would allow the armor not to curve much. I used the below image as reference.

Taurus:
Sure, I'll finish Hamel first though.

Jetryl:
You're right, I keep forgetting about that. I'm considering whether I should do that in this particular picture, as doing so would require me to start over... Hopefully in either case it will stick until next time I start on a sketch
What do you think, should I start over with these guards?

gdou:
I'm not sure I see what you mean, but here is the reference shot that I'm using for that sketch

[Maeglin Dubh]

Put a ten pound weight on the business end of the staff your girlfriend there is holding, and you'll see his point.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Guard 1 looks more like a puffy human than a dwarf. Broader chest and shoulders, and shorter neck would help.

I'm considering whether I should do that in this particular picture, as doing so would require me to start over...

If you want to get good at drawing, never shy away from redrawing your piece. Even if you're happy about it, it often pays to try once more, to see if you can do even better. Think it this way: if it was music you were learning, you'd never think you've practiced a piece enough once you've gotten it right once, you would have get it right most of the time, and if you would really want to consider yourself good at it, you'd have to get it right 99% of the time.

[troodon]

I think the portraits of Rakhshas and of Stalrag are excellent the way they are right now, in version 1.5 of Northern Rebirth, and they should not be modified.

[gdou]

battlesquid, sorry if my post wasn't so clear.

Maeglin Dubh has well understood my point. The fondamental difference between the hammer of your drwarf and the stick, is that the stick is balanced by construction, which is not the case of hammers ...

try to hold the same way a big sledgehammer, you will feel putting a lot more effort on the left arm than on the right ... So, naturally, you will try to equilibrate it by blending your left arm.

kind regards.

[Taurus]

I think the portraits of Rakhshas and of Stalrag are excellent the way they are right now, in version 1.5 of Northern Rebirth, and they should not be modified.

I think they are good too, but the problem is that they are not Wesnoth specific. Rather they are images I found on the internet, and asked the artist if I could use them. If Northern Rebirth ever goes mainline - which some people are saying it should these days - they will have to be replaced.

Oh, and battlesquid, I actually could use those other dwarf pictures if you compleate them

[battlesquid]

Maeglin Dubh:
I see what he means, but I wanted him to look battleready, not just letting the arm hang down weighted by the hammer, rather holding it up with his muscles..

Sgt. Groovy:
Good comparison. I'll probably do them over again later as I do want to get better at drawing.

gdou:
I see what you mean, and you're right unless he is flexing his muscles holding the axe up that way.

Taurus:
I'll work more on those guards later, meanwhile here's Hamel in color.

Comment on colors welcome.
Note that I have not shaded anything except the axe gold plate (a bat)

[Maeglin Dubh]

I think he was proposing the hammer be held thusly....

[Krispos]

Hehe... my foam broad sword weighs five pounds. I realize that's not a lot considering claymores weighed about 50-70 lbs (no one even suggest they weighed more, because if they did, then you find someone to go out and pick up a 100lb dumbell and swing it with the skill of a claymore.) But they do horrible things to your arms when they clash. In other words, they're decently weighted (hence the pain/realism ratio Five pounds of ducttape/foam slamming into your forearms is not fun)

[zookeeper]

Split the axe grip discussion to http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14374.

Krispos, you may want to repost what you just said there.

[Krispos]

Thanks, I wondered why, when I went to look at my post, the discussion was gone before it