Question about contributing story images to main campaign

[Lendrick]

Greets.

I've recently been playing through the 1.7 version Sceptre of Fire [EDIT: I mean Heir to the Throne"] campaign, and I've noticed that, while there are some excellent story images near the beginning, toward the middle things revert to the old, blurred images, and at the end there don't seem to be any at all.

Now, I'm just testing the waters here (I don't want to make any specific promises, as I'm already contributing to another project, and I need to make sure that's done first), but if possible I'd like to help out with this some time in the near future. I commission art through my website, and since this involves paying people to do work, I'd prefer to find out exactly what the requirements are so I can be reasonably sure that it won't go to waste.

So, here are a few questions:

• First and foremost, is there interest in seeing this done?
• Does the art style for any further Sceptre of Fire story images need to be the same as the existing art?
• If so, is there contact information available so I can commission the artist who did the initial story images?
• If a different art style would be acceptable, should we skip the current story images, or re-do them?
• What license do you need to work under? I've heard GPL, but I could be mistaken there.

Thanks!
Bart
http://opengameart.org

[zookeeper]

Sceptre of Fire campaign

Did you mean Heir to the Throne?

[Lendrick]

That is, in fact, what I meant. Yes.

Bart

[kitty]

I'll assume that you are talking about Heir to the Throne as well. But first of all: thanks for your offer! Its much appreciated!

Of course we would like more storyscreens for HttT (as well as for all other campaigns without any story art yet). But it would be really nice to have the HttT ones in a style compatible to the existing ones - consistency is crucial for a good (and professional) visual impression.
Since the existing story images are of high quality I don't want to skip them - if you have a contributor not comfortable with this style just let him work for any other of the mainline campaigns.
For all those other campaigns you are free to come up with any other (high quality) style.

The license has to be GPL (which (as far as I know) was also the reason the original artist didn't continue this project). Here is his personal homepage if you want to try to contact Johann.

I'm not sure if I get the way you plan/hope this to happen. You don't want to do the art yourself - right? Who will do it? If you commision it - who will pay for it?

[Lendrick]

I'll assume that you are talking about Heir to the Throne as well. But first of all: thanks for your offer! Its much appreciated!

No problem, and yes I was referring to Heir to the Throne. I don't have the game installed here at work, and now I feel kind of silly.

Of course we would like more storyscreens for HttT (as well as for all other campaigns without any story art yet). But it would be really nice to have the HttT ones in a style compatible to the existing ones - consistency is crucial for a good (and professional) visual impression.
Since the existing story images are of high quality I don't want to skip them - if you have a contributor not comfortable with this style just let him work for any other of the mainline campaigns.
For all those other campaigns you are free to come up with any other (high quality) style.

Okay, that's what I wanted to know style-wise.

The license has to be GPL (which (as far as I know) was also the reason the original artist didn't continue this project). Here is his personal homepage if you want to try to contact Johann.

GPL 2 or 3? I'll see if I can contact Johann about commissioning more art.

I'm not sure if I get the way you plan/hope this to happen. You don't want to do the art yourself - right? Who will do it? If you commision it - who will pay for it?

Myself, and the people who donate OGA. Essentially, when I pick up a project, I'm promising results up front. I cover what I can with site donations and then pay the rest myself.

Bart

[Boucman]

wow.. thanks a lot, that's great, esp if you manage to get johann back into the game...

donation for art is an interesting way to have us non-artist participate artwise to wesnoth

[Lendrick]

wow.. thanks a lot, that's great, esp if you manage to get johann back into the game...

donation for art is an interesting way to have us non-artist participate artwise to wesnoth

Well, no promises on Johann, obviously. I haven't spoken with him yet, but I'll send him an email today and find out if his rates are something I can afford.

As for paying for art, it occurred to me a while ago that, while I'm not a stellar artist myself, a lot of artists are very reasonable about their pricing, and I could just pay them to do work and then release it under the GPL (or CC-BY-SA 3 or any other Debian-compatible license). I don't mind paying, so long as what I'm paying for is Free. It's a good way for those of us who don't otherwise have the time for building up great art skills to contribute to the community.

Bart

[Lendrick]

No dice on Johann, I'm afraid. He doesn't feel comfortable charging, since he initially volunteered to do the opening sequence. I'll poke around and see if I can find someone who can work in a similar style. I'm open to suggestions.

Bart

[kitty]

Wow, you work fast! It's a pity that you couldn't convince Johann but thanks for trying!

He has a very recognizable painting style suffused with light, I can't come up with another artist who does that in a similar way out of the top of my head...
I think we could settle with most other painterly working artists - and if their work reminded of watercolour with sepia-ish drawn elements even better But it would be great if the person could use Johann's character and costume designs.

[Lendrick]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if the works he did are GPLed, then the character and costume designs contained therein ought to be fair game, provided we GPL any derivatives. Right?

Bart

[kitty]

Yep, that would be my understanding, too.

[Jetrel]

I definitely agree that fixing up the few out-of-style pieces in HttT should be done, and are a great thing to nail first.

That said most of the other mainline campaigns have no story art at all, and are welcome to get some. Style requirements there are slightly more relaxed; you don't need to look like a Johann clone, you simply need to do a good job.

I'd also like to commend your willingness to do this - thanks.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if the works he did are GPLed, then the character and costume designs contained therein ought to be fair game, provided we GPL any derivatives. Right?

The character and costume designs in there are based on wesnoth characters that were already part of wesnoth before johann was around, so they're not something johann can 'claim' ownership of over us - much like, no matter how good a drawing and/or costume redesign you do of, e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog, you still can't claim that you came up with the character.

Besides the point, copyright law on visual character designs is very weak- this is why you can have characters that are more or less exact knockoffs of characters from other creative works, with just the names changed - because it's not illegal. Only the actual names themselves tend to be copywritable; everything else can basically have one element changed and be legally considered different, even if the gestalt is basically the same.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... tainErsatz
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Equivalent
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Substitute

[Lendrick]

Curses, I fell for your devious trap!

I just read tvtropes for an hour. I should know better.

[thespaceinvader]

Point of order: Suspiciously Similar Substitute isn't entirely relevant. That's more about unimaginative writing when replacing a dead character than it is about copycat characters in other works.