Portraits for Northern Rebirth

Gus · Post by **Gus** » December 20th, 2006, 12:06 am

So, hoping this stays on topic: i _believe_ (only my opinion) that the way he's holding the axe is too close to the blade. Others seem to think it's perfectly right, though.

In any case, i find this a great portrait =)

battlesquid · Post by **battlesquid** » December 20th, 2006, 11:25 am

So, any comments about the colors?

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » December 20th, 2006, 1:56 pm

The axe color looks a little bluish to me (I'm also colorblind.), and the color down the haft looks a little too uniform. Are you going to leave the entire haft metal, or will it be made wood?

Everything else looks fine to my untrained eye.

battlesquid · Post by **battlesquid** » December 20th, 2006, 3:13 pm

Glad you like it. The axe is supposed to be all metal, haft and blade, though I haven't thought about it much. Yes the axe has a bluish tone (shading will make it look much better) in order to make it look like metal (as opposed to, say, stone)

battlesquid · Post by **battlesquid** » January 1st, 2007, 8:07 pm

Phew, that was a lot of work - here's Hamel finally shaded!

Note: The image is 2.1 MB and not sized down from my working size ... Therefore I have only posted a few snippets here. Go to my site to view the full picture.
Some details could probably be omitted when downscaling the image, and the gold plate on the axe doesn't look shiny enough, except from that I'm happy with the resulting image.

Let me know what you think

http://xenon.dnsdojo.net:81/artwork/hamel_v1.png

battlestar · Post by **battlestar** » January 1st, 2007, 10:26 pm

Nice shading, squid, looking forward to seeing how the whole thing would look like in the end.

Post by **Taurus** » January 2nd, 2007, 6:37 am

Here is a smaller resoloution version of battlesquid's final version. I took the liberty of changing the background to black if you don't mind Battlesquid.

Overall, I think it is a pretty good image, and I am sure everyone will aggree that Battlesquid has inproved alot since his first posts. I'll include this image in my next release wich will come out as soon as my high speed is back online

If I could reccomend any improvements however, I think that the shading/coloring could use some work. I can't quite put it in words, but the coloring doesen't quite compare to the other Northern Rebirth Portraits. For refrence, I am uploading the Anita portrait. Can any of you pro artists explain it in words because I certanly can't...

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » January 2nd, 2007, 9:15 am

It's a difference in style, squid's is cell shaded, and Jetryl's one (Anita) is painted.

There are probably other things, but they are harder to make out when two different styles are used. One thing that you can notice about battlesquid's is that it is very flat, there should be more shadows in order to add depth to it. It probably wouldn't hurt to make the shadows darker too.

battlesquid · Post by **battlesquid** » January 2nd, 2007, 11:48 am

Taurus, please use this instead.

Pretty much the same cropping, size and compression ratio, but the background is added properly. Which is important because if you just fill the area with black you get those ugly edges...

Post by **Redeth** » January 2nd, 2007, 11:40 pm

Taurus wrote:If I could reccomend any improvements however, I think that the shading/coloring could use some work. I can't quite put it in words, but the coloring doesen't quite compare to the other Northern Rebirth Portraits. For refrence, I am uploading the Anita portrait. Can any of you pro artists explain it in words because I certanly can't...

I'm afraid I'm no pro, and I can't explain squat in words, but in case Jet or the other guys are busy or not particularly inclined to do the job, here's an edit of mine.

Please refrain from any comments on the line of "you should fix this" or "you missed that", because this is as far as I'm willing to go, I won't hijack the thread, take the edit as reference or leave it (or hack it, or whatever, it's yours, I'm just not touching it anymore).

By the way, adding painting-like shadows and textures over a picture that has already been colored and given shadows in a completely different style is, in general, a *terrible idea*. I just went at it for fun and practice because Battlesquid's dwarf looked darn good and appropriate, but don't try this at home kids.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » January 3rd, 2007, 12:13 am

I'm not an artist, so don't expect technical feedback.

Redeth's edit is fricking awesome. Maybe a tad bit too dark, but it might be because of the background.

Post by **Taurus** » January 3rd, 2007, 1:27 am

Nice! Thanks Redeth. It definatly suits the style of the other Northern Rebirth Portraits better. I have already released 1.17 with Battlesquid's portrait so I'll use that for now. However, if Battlesquid doesen't mind, I would rather use Redeth's portrait in the next release.

I have a request for you Redeth, back on page 8, Xandar had done some really good portraits that just need some color. If you could paint them in as you have done Hamel it would be great! If you don't feel like clicking back, here is the link:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... &start=105

Jetryl originally said he would do them, but I haven't heard back from him. Perhaps he is all bogged up in the mainline stuff.[/url]

battlesquid · Post by **battlesquid** » January 3rd, 2007, 1:28 pm

I partially like the edit, the style is as mentioned more fitting to the campaign. However it is a bit crude. The shadows look spotty and his face looks dirty. The shadow on his right horn base is sloppy and same goes with the highlights on the helmet itself. The shirt looks good. The braids look very good, as does his arms. Around the cone of his axe there are sloppy things; the cone has been partially cut off, the highlight bleeds into the background, but not in a manner that a shine would.

I generally like the idea that this be done to the portrait and it be added to the campaign in a later version, but the above should be fixed first as it has serious mistakes in my opinion. I have no experience with this kind of shading, so I'm unable to make the changes myself.

Post by **Taurus** » February 10th, 2007, 11:07 pm

Here is a modest attempt to add some more cloths to Sisal. Now that I look at it the next day, I don't think it is too bad. Anyhow I think it's good enough for me to use. Any comments?

Post by **irrevenant** » February 11th, 2007, 5:06 am

It looks a bit bumpy around the right breast (where the clothing has been edited in) to me.

[EDIT]
I've edited it a bit. I also added a couple of lines to suggest the undercurve of her breasts. I wasn't entirely sure what breast shape was being aimed for - I can easily make her fuller if that's what you're aiming for.