Campaign art - Descent into Darkness

[Noitakuningas]

I'm not sure about the hair on the lich Malin. His hair in his human form doesn't look long enough so that it'd show from under his hood the way it does.

[Reepurr]

I'm not sure about the hair on the lich Malin. His hair in his human form doesn't look long enough so that it'd show from under his hood the way it does.

drawing already exaggerates the length of his few remaining hair

[Telaron]

The Malin Lich looks good to me. The only thing I can comment on is that the clasp for his cloak seems to be rather dull in the decay stage and yet it is bright and shinny in the Lich form. In my mind it might look better if it was the other way around or even if the Lich stage's clasp had an even duller appearance. Just my two cents.

[Jetrel]

I don't understand why Drogan's armour is rusty. Especially since that sword hilt is so sparkly...

Because IRL, non-stainless steel is a pain in the butt to keep from corroding, and - with the exception of joints and moving parts, corrosion has to progress to an extreme stage before it actually starts affecting the protection given by armor. So unless you have a whole team of pages following with you, meticulously oiling and polishing your armor every couple of days, it's gonna get some surface rust pretty soon - just like copper and silver will get a patina. And unless it's a suit of late-medieval "articulated plate", with joints and hinges and such, where the rust immediately causes real problems (by way of gumming up joints), you're not liable to care too much, because it doesn't really hurt the protection value.

I mean, people cared, a lot - don't get me wrong. Armor was extremely expensive, and was a prized possession, like a car. But people had little or no leisure time, and you know people IRL are pretty bad about keeping up with routine maintenance on e.g. their cars and houses.


This is why late-medieval "articulated plate" was pretty much reserved only for nobility (knights, etc). No one else had the crew of "roadies" necessary to take care of it. I suspect people without the crew still managed to get a lot of protection, since you can easily do breastplates, helmets, greaves, and a few other bits without joints, and just cover the rest in leather.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Well polished armour did have two advantages, though, when fighting in the sun:

1. The higher reflectivity would give you couple of minutes more before your armour turned into an oven.
2. One of the many surfaces was always likely to reflect the sun into your opponent's eyes.

Not that I object to the rust in the portrait. I've painted some tin roofs in my time, and after the rusty patches had been polished, they had to be painted over the same day. The morning dew was enough to give then a film of new rust.

[LordBob]

Quite interesting, all this

On a side note I've done Dela, which means we're only missing the ancient lich-Malin (inking already well underway) before the gallery is complete.

[StDrake]

import the ancient from IftU?

[LordBob]

It's an option we have considered with Zookeeper. Either way I've had a semi-ancient lich sketch sitting on my desk for a while, so now's as good a time as any to finish it. It can still be used as an alternate lich or replace the canon Mal Keshar, both work fine by me.

[Arawn]

Ok, plot question: What on earth is Malin doing in IftU? Isn't he dead at the end of DID?

[Reepurr]

Ok, plot question: What on earth is Malin doing in IftU? Isn't he dead at the end of DID?

Him dying at the end of DiD is only assumed. He could survive, well, forever.

The general idea is that Malin is revived some time before he appears in IftU, though in the iPod version at least, he talks as though he's never been revived and probably never died either.

[thespaceinvader]

Indeed - bear in mind that the original title of the final scenario was 'forever and ever, amen', and even now that it's been made harder, it's pretty easy just to continue on until you get bored and give up.

Malin appearing in IftU isn't that difficult to conceive - he's immortal (well, technically, he died already, but y'know), barring outside influences, all liches are.

[kitty]

Well, simply put : no. If there should be a more advanced Malin-lich, it will be consistent with the Mal Keshar portrait Kitty drew for IftU. I'm not introducing such nonsense as humanskin coats and sword-collecting liches into Wesnoth.

I'm glad to read your stance on such ridiculous equipment for liches! But don't feel bound to my rendition of Malin for IftU, for one his character is really, really different there, much more comical and furthermore if Shadowmaster will ever revive it, I'd gladly adapt my version to fit in with yours! And that said, the latest Malin Lich you posted looks great!

I know you fiddled a lot with the skin tones and lighting on Malin_old-decay and while the overall colour scheme works really great now I think that some of the definition of the face's and hair's shading suffered in the process. It feels somehow uncharacteristically soft and due to that undefined. But no one else would notice that so feel free to ignore that

Drogan's armor is splendid! Do you consider him finished? His face looks widely flat. And the skin tone is rather close to the rust's hue and the gray beard merges very much with the surrounding metal…

I like Darken's attitude a lot and the unhealthy skin tone fits his character vey well. But I think he could benefit from some additional contrast. I miss darks on the lower part of his robes, his neck and generally the right side of the head.

Dela's eyes seem somehow disparate - is that on purpose? If you intended it in order to make her kinship to Malin stand out more (she is his sister, right?) it should be even more distinct. Her hairline sits a tad high and as a girl she shouldn't have and adam's apple that prominent. Her, for Wesnoth, extremely red lips work really well making the rather androgynous figure readable as female.

[homunculus]

[...]But no one else would notice[...]

i don't think you are identifying yourself as one with me, so i assume it means i am no one.
which in this context would not be incorrect, i guess.
lol.
i agree it is not bad, though.

[LordBob]

Revised version for most of the cast, accounting for recent (mostly Kitty's) comments :
- Added shadows and polished Darken's necklace
- Lowered the hairline and fiddled with Dela's face
- Added some rust on the chainmail near Drogan's face and desaturated his skin
- Fiddled with decayed Malin's hair and face, and polished his brooch so that it remains consistent with lich Malin's
- Cleaned a dirty patch in the transparency of lich Malin

[tr0ll]

they all look awesome! each one projects a mood.
the rodent is a nice touch too. could one be added in the game to match?