Zombies

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aquileia
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by aquileia »

Disclaimer: Unqualified feedback, feel free to ignore...

IMHO, exposing ulna and radius was poorly executed:
  • There's no reason why these would be completely bare (and clean) without any rotting flesh while the rest of the body is mostly intact
  • Without any muscles to hold it in place, the stretched out hand looks off (I know there's necromancy at work, but WCs are only 8 gold, so there can't be much magical energy involved)
  • As the hand is disconnected from the body, the black contours of the hand stand out much more (plus you broadened them compared to the previous iteration) - I can't explain why exactly, but it now looks a lot less realistic
  • While it's anatomically correct that the bones account for most of the wrist's width, it currently looks as if the hand was fused to these bones; you get the impression there's no change in cross section at all. You'd expect to see some shreds of skin at the wrist to give the expression that there's something missing, that it doesn't belong that way.
Perhaps that's also the reason why there was no feedback - I really feel bad right now for posting mostly negative feedback, especially as I couldn't do better myself.

Don't get me wrong, I liked your previous version, but that change somehow ruined it to me... and if you had adressed the issue LordBob and vultraz pointed out, the one with intact forearm might IMO have been in mainline by now:
vultraz wrote:I much prefer LordBob's arm position. It looks more twisted and zombie-like. The current one looks like he's holding it out in front of him steadily, as opposed to an unsteady undead creature with minimal control over muscles.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by beetlenaut »

I don't think this version is an improvement either. I did use the previous version in my undead campaign though. ("Secrets of the Ancients" on a server near you.) I agree with aquileia, and I think his left hand has lost some definition and gotten harder to read. Sorry.
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doofus-01
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by doofus-01 »

Fair enough.
aquileia wrote:Perhaps that's also the reason why there was no feedback - I really feel bad right now for posting mostly negative feedback, especially as I couldn't do better myself.
As long as you give specifics, and don't issue vague & sweeping insults, there's no reason to feel bad. My grousing in the
[EDIT: Uh, got cut off there (?) ... What I meant to say is that my grousing wasn't that no one was paying me any attention, it was that they were doing that while posting in this very thread. Sort of like when someone makes eye-contact, then proceeds to try to walk through you. And if anyone reading this is confused, those posts have been moved.]
aquileia wrote:and if you had adressed the issue LordBob and vultraz pointed out, the one with intact forearm might IMO have been in mainline by now:
Sort of a contradiction there though, since changing the pose means starting over. Can't blame me for at least trying to find an alternate route (especially when the demand seemed somewhat arbitrary).

This isn't dead, I'll have another version, just not today.
Last edited by doofus-01 on March 13th, 2015, 2:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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aquileia
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by aquileia »

doofus-01 wrote:Sort of a contradiction there though, since changing the pose means starting over.
Well, I said issue, not issues - redoing his left arm (to our right) should be possible without changing the pose of the remaining body. The way his hand is stretched out just seems too resolute, while in LordBob's paintover each consecutive limb (I mean upper arm, forearm, hand, fingers) seems to be under less and less control, with the hand basically hanging down and the fingers slightly curling to the stress of the sinews/muscle fibres.

It's not up to me to decide whether a portrait is ready for mainline, but IMO with an updated left arm & hand it'd fit nicely for the WC and Soulless.
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doofus-01
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by doofus-01 »

Alright, let's try this again. I also changed his other hand, where the scabbard on his left side somehow got in front.
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iceiceice
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by iceiceice »

Not an artist, but I think it looks pretty good :)

The things that draw my attention when I look at it for a while are
  • The posture of his hands is very good, I mean it effectively conveys the idea of rigor mortis.
  • I like the scarring that is done to his arms, it seems to be roughly similar on both arms, while having some variety. I don't really understand the folding of skin that is occuring at the top edge of his left arm, but the tearing below there I think is good.
  • The stake in his right arm is pretty well executed I think. Also the circular pit.
  • I don't really understand the folds / flaps of skin on the right arm either. The part below the nail looks like it might even be a vein? I guess the idea is that the skin is sliced or torn? These are not features that my eye rejects, I just don't understand what exactly has happened to his body.
  • The yellow of his fingernails is a hue that stands out, I'm not sure if that's desired.
  • His clothing and scabbard looks quite good in general. His face and hair look quite good in general.
  • It's weird that one eye is white and one is black, I guess I am to understand that he lost one eye, and the other is rotted? This is something that draws my attention when I look at it.
  • The scar on his forehead is quite well executed I think.
Edit: For instance I would say any problems with this portrait are much less noticeable than the problems with this portrait: https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... wraith.png
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pe_em
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by pe_em »

IMO his right arm should be darker.
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doofus-01
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by doofus-01 »

Thanks, iceiceice.
iceiceice wrote: I don't really understand the folds / flaps of skin on the right arm either. The part below the nail looks like it might even be a vein? I guess the idea is that the skin is sliced or torn? These are not features that my eye rejects, I just don't understand what exactly has happened to his body.
Yeah, some of the damage may be a bit too random. There are some details that could be improved, I could change them if needed, but I'd like to know if it would make any difference. If I haven't shocked everyone into stunned & disappointed silence this time maybe there will be some life to this art department. Time will tell.
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iceiceice
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by iceiceice »

Well anyways I have committed a card using your image to Argentum Age :P

http://imgur.com/5ywbc0E

I hope that you don't mind, if you do I will remove it.
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aquileia
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by aquileia »

Just so you know, IMHO
  • your current version would be good to go,
  • I don't see an issue with the fingernail color, and
  • as iceiceice posted, the empty eyehole might be worth shading a little less pitch black.
If the other devs don't disagree, I think your next iteration (or the current one, if you decide to leave it as is) will be in Wesnoth 1.12.3.

BTW, it looks really well on that card, as if it had been designed with that frame in mind.
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doofus-01
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by doofus-01 »

I think this version is a little bit better.
Zombie-c.png
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iceiceice wrote:I hope that you don't mind, if you do I will remove it.
That's fine, I don't mind. :)
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aquileia
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by aquileia »

Final remarks by me:
  • It might be only me, but that horizontal line on his new eyelid looks off.
  • The purple skirt looks a lot better (although it was good to begin with).
  • The loose threads from the tan colored shirt are a little overdone IMHO.
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doofus-01
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by doofus-01 »

aquileia wrote:Final remarks by me:

It might be only me, but that horizontal line on his new eyelid looks off.
The purple skirt looks a lot better (although it was good to begin with).
The loose threads from the tan colored shirt are a little overdone IMHO.
Not sure if this is an improvement, but I've made some adjustments for those points. Either one could be the final, as far as I'm concerned.
EDIT: Image removed, see later posts.
Last edited by doofus-01 on April 18th, 2015, 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jetrel
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by Jetrel »

I think this is probably good enough to include, and I'd greenlight someone committing this. :)


----


:hmm: So the "gorilla in the room" here is that this obviously can't match the quality of Lordbob's most recent offerings; Lordbob is of course a moving target that's rapidly accelerating; he's gotten better and better over time. The fear is that that would be "disjoint" enough as to be jarring to players. It is slightly, but I think we shouldn't worry about it - that's the only knock to it.

It's good enough. Once things are over a certain threshold of quality (say, up to par with lordbob/kitty's earliest efforts here) we ought to be willing to accept them on that merit, regardless of whether they're up to par with their later masterpieces - because the latter is just asking the statistically impossible; it narrows the field of contributors from the semi-rare hobbyist to the absurdly rare "professional who happens to shower us with their patronage".



If you are interested in improving techniques further; my few critiques would be:
- this has a look of being "overworked" in places, like certain textures/lines have been drawn, redrawn, and drawn again, but rather than being in a hatched pattern following the 3d shape of (and thus suggesting) a contoured surface, all of the drawing-over-and-over really just causes noise and graininess.

A lot of this lies in the linework, which could benefit from being smoothed out and simplified; speaking from experience, you probably can't fix that about this piece; this sort of thing takes a lot of practice on lots of additional new pieces.

- the linework is really thick and dark, and contrasts with a fairly odd "gamma curve" against the underlying piece. The lines - especially interior-lines are much bolder than on the core portraits.

Nice hands.
Fairly good head->neck interface (lots of folks completely screw up the view under the chin).
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zookeeper
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Re: Zombies (Merry Christmas!)

Post by zookeeper »

There's some stray pixels around 220,64 and 70,399 which no one seems to have mentioned so far.
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