New Mage graphics, and fixing of the female mage's hair.

[sanna]

Only for the flashy - "power mages". A lot of people complained to me about the old female great mage closing her dress and looking like an old woman.

Well, the point was that the male ones do look like old men, why should the female ones differ?

[Naeddyr]

About the Beard-Thigh thing; in some cultures, hair is seen as a symbol of power, allure, magic, which is why women cover their hair as to not strike down men with their witchcraft. ö_ö *doesn't get into the stuff about the väki of the genitalia of a woman who has birthed*
So maybe the stronger and more experienced female mages could have longer hair? And the men also. Ponytails, huge flowing hair, stuff like that.


EDIT:

Also in contrast with shorter, martial hair - showing contempt for mere mortals who have to crop their manes so that it doesn't snag on assorted stuff, like swords or spears.

[Jetrel]

Sanna: Because a lot of people complained to me about how the previous female mages looked old. I do understand your sentiment - in fact I share it to some degree, which is why I made the previous great mage to look the way she did. Wesnoth can afford to break a lot of the rules, but just because we don't have to sell this thing doesn't make the "old lady" mage any prettier. As much as I don't like caving in to such things, having her look young is simply easier on the eyes. I can make her look old, but no one can make that look attractive.

That said, one nice way to rationalize it is to think of their youthful appearance as being the result of magic, not unlike the ageless "Aes Sedai" in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series of books. Actually, now that I mention it, I think you might find those books a fun read regardless, but I mention them as a means of justifying having young-looking female mages.


Naeddyr: For the female mages, longer hair might not be a bad idea. The one concern is to make it properly mesh with the rest of the unit, which I was having trouble with. We'll see.


Elvish Pillager: awesome. There is one thing - make the animation as you would, but I will make one additional frame, to be used as the in-motion frame (basically a nicely gradated ball-o-blue-light). The reason for this is that the old animations used to show a very inappropriate frame on the map as the unit was teleporting - this now will allow them to show a very cool ball of blue light. The alternative, of course, is *nothing*, but I don't think there's anything wrong with our mages "translating" themselves rather than telelporting, and it has the potential to look really cool.

[Invisible Philosopher]

Elvish Pillager: awesome. There is one thing - make the animation as you would, but I will make one additional frame, to be used as the in-motion frame (basically a nicely gradated ball-o-blue-light). The reason for this is that the old animations used to show a very inappropriate frame on the map as the unit was teleporting - this now will allow them to show a very cool ball of blue light. The alternative, of course, is *nothing*, but I don't think there's anything wrong with our mages "translating" themselves rather than telelporting, and it has the potential to look really cool.

Teleporting animations no longer zoom across the screen - the mage disappears in one village and appears in the other. That bug was fixed. If the old behavior is desirable, it will have to be implemented as a feature.

[scott]

I also think the maroon looks very similar to the red mage. Yellow/gold could look nice, but I'm not too sure about that. Alternatively, you could push purple down to the arch mage and use the new color for the great mage, unless you're using color symbolism.

[Elvish_Pillager]

[Elvish_Pillager]

All of the images, alphaed and named and everything.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I also think the maroon looks very similar to the red mage. Yellow/gold could look nice, but I'm not too sure about that. Alternatively, you could push purple down to the arch mage and use the new color for the great mage, unless you're using color symbolism.

Black > Purple, after all.

Black carries other connotations, though...

[quartex]

Blacxk doesn't have to be evil. But Wesnoth is a game of cliches and stereotypes.

[miq]

I do not like that the whole red-mage line has the same poses and changes only dress colour and a bit bigger wand. IMHO they should differ a bit more like most other units in wesnoth that change the pose when leveling....

And the male ones look smaller than the female ones because of the relatively small hood compared to the full hair of the females....

my 2¢

bxe Miq

[Elvish_Pillager]

Jetryl: These new graphics will make the Elder Mage look very out-of-place among other mages. What do you propose to do about that?

[Jetrel]

Jetryl: These new graphics will make the Elder Mage look very out-of-place among other mages. What do you propose to do about that?

Uhm - ACTUALLY, I'm not sure that's true. Delfador used to look like a Great Mage with a different head, but now, he looks like a slightly short great mage with a different head. For one thing he will actually look a lot better next to the rest of the mages, because their coloring will look a lot more like his.

The one thing I would dare do to Delfador (one of francisco's crowning works) would be to give him a different head to his staff.

Miq: that problem existed in the previous set of mages as well. Perhaps I should be the one to fix it.

I think I am going to change the wand/sceptre of the great mages into a full-out staff, held differently. That should solve some problems.

[Elvish_Pillager]

Uhm - ACTUALLY, I'm not sure that's true.

It's true for me, at least.

[Sangel]

Hmmmm. I like the redesign, they now look both "natural" and "magey". However, am I the only one who feels that these new mages look a little large, particularly the women? (It's the hair, I suspect). I have a sneaking suspicion that they're a lot bigger than, say, the spearman, which is a little worrisome given that mages are supposed to be small and fragile.

On the other hand, the white/light branch doesn't seem to suffer so much from this problem, probably because of their taller, slimmer figure.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I have a sneaking suspicion that they're a lot bigger than, say, the spearman,

Well, the spearman is rather small, but still...