Captain Swings portrait work ... Undead

[Captain Swing]

Hi, after heckling Spaceinvader about his dwarves for a day I started to feel bad and wanted to offer my own space for receiving commentary. I'm attaching a preliminary anatomy/posing sketch for the Draug.



He obviously needs some work, armor, clothes most notably - no one likes a naked dead guy.

I have some other questions as well
- head may be too large, I focused on it as I think it makes a good focal point, but it still may be too big (though I think some bulky armor may be necessary for this guy and I don't want to get his lovely mug lost in it).
- Thinking sort of Celtic armor and bits for him, such equipment looks exotic and ancient I feel, any thoughts?
- Does he look a bit too EC comics Cryptkeeper? Should he be bonier?
- Back hand too small

I promise to give him clothes shortly...

-Swing

[Thanatos]

Hmm, I like your general style, but:
The Draug is actually an advanced skeleton warrior, so maybe the skin is not really right at all.

[thespaceinvader]

I hate to raise a basic conceptual issue, but the draug is a skeleton... A big one, but a skeleton nonetheless. No skin, no hair. I don't know how much we'd be able to bend on that, but I'd be inclined to say, not a vast amount.

Other than that, looks like a good start. But the shield could stand to be bigger - i know it's roughly that size on the sprite, but sprite proportions are by necessity well off normal ones.

It could make a nice walking corpse, if it were not for that fact that walking corpse portraits is a can of worms i really don't want to open at this point...

Your lines are clean and very expressive, though, and I really like the posing. I'm sure it would be a pleasure to ink at some point =D

And it's thespaceinvader =P all one word, no caps.

[Cernunnos]

Hi,

Well, first i'd like to say that i like your style a lot!
Then, since i'm quite sure someone will beat me on this while i'm writing... , i'll make a point about something not raised by your questions :

His/her/its right arm seems odd to me, maybe this has to do with the placement of the elbow, but i'm not sure about it.
[edit2: you raised the point about the size of the hand, maybe you're right, i'm quite not sure about what is wrong but something is]

For the rest i think other people are more qualified than me to answer your questions and have certainly already done by the moment i'm posting.

Very nice start, which was predictable with the skecth i saw already,

Good luck!

edit: woohoo!!! Nostradamus, fear my divination power!!

[Captain Swing]

I hate to raise a basic conceptual issue, but the draug is a skeleton... A big one, but a skeleton nonetheless. No skin, no hair. I don't know how much we'd be able to bend on that, but I'd be inclined to say, not a vast amount.

Hmm. Yes I rather feared there might be something like that here, it's just that skeletons as skeletons, all bright bone and emptiness are darn boring and in my mind relatively unthreatening. They are hard to dress as well, one is either left with bones covered in scraps or something like Skeletor - i.e. armor or whatnot fit to impressive human body + skull head.

I'm trying to split the difference here, retain some mass and hence threat while making it clearly dead and dessicated. Not that this is an issue which really has a 'real' answer - one is dealing with the walking dead, the axe swinging walking dead. I'm still envisoning this one as a dusty mummified kind of guy who got dragged out of his barrow to wail on people for some reason.

I've made this iteration a bit more skeletal - as much as I can without a complete redrawn - I can still skullify him a bit, but there's the Skeletor problem I mentioned...



Also, glad folks like him, I am encouraged, and may even try my non-tablet owning, gimp illiterate hand at inking him though if someone of more talent wants to try that'd be awesome. Give him glowy eyes though - I like glowy eyes...

-Swing

[kitty]

nope. he is a skeleton.



(but nice design elements )

[thespaceinvader]

I might give it a shot at some point, but I've got a plate full of dwarves at present. Some minor issues. Particularly with the addition of the helm, the head looks a touch large at present.

As regards costuming, whilst working on the Death Knight, we came up with some interesting ideas - most notable, using screws and bolts to hold various parts of the armour on.

[Captain Swing]

nope. he is a skeleton.

You're the one with 'portrait editor' after your name - you call the shots.

Again, I'm not sure I'm how to make a skeleton look impressive enough, but here's a quick armored skeleton to show my willingness to take direction and give it a try.



I'm not so happy with it, there's something off in the drawing, but I'm trying to follow the Lvl. 1 skeleton sprite as best I can. Plus he's messy with smudges. Neutral pose here because, I figure there's not much going on inside his skull.


-Swing

[thespaceinvader]

My only suggestion would be to take a look at some reference on the bones of the forearm - the stage right radius looks like it's connected to the wrong side of the ulna, which makes it very spirally.

In actualy fact, skeletons are far less forgiving than most things in our mainline style - we strive for a high level of realism, and skeletons are quite exacting things. In this one, the hips look great, but the ribs are a touch gappy, and the skull's perhaps a little large. But i do like the armour - you've got a good line there in mouldering and archaic.

[Captain Swing]

My only suggestion would be to take a look at some reference on the bones of the forearm - the stage right radius looks like it's connected to the wrong side of the ulna, which makes it very spirally.

In actualy fact, skeletons are far less forgiving than most things in our mainline style - we strive for a high level of realism, and skeletons are quite exacting things. In this one, the hips look great, but the ribs are a touch gappy, and the skull's perhaps a little large. But i do like the armour - you've got a good line there in mouldering and archaic.

Yeah I knew there was something(s) off about the fellow - need to think about the skeletons a bit, in the meantime, per your suggestion regarding the overly muscled dwarves, I'm gonna play around a bit with Wesnoth's orcs.



Now, I'm not sure what the current status on the orc look is I worry bout making them too human, especially with the danger over them becoming a nod to ethnic stereotyping. Also I fully applaud the game not having green pointy eared orcs.

I am very open to a change on the body type above, it feels a bit to close to that of some other popular fantasy properties, but then what makes someone look beastly -- perhaps I will think about more bearlike builds.

-Swing

[thespaceinvader]

We're not aiming for them to be quite as exaggeratedly beast-like as you see there. And one thing that will definitely go is any teeth protruding over lips. We're currently thinking more 'human with slightly dog or ape-like features' rather than anthro. Not even as close to beast-like as planet of the apes.

The physical proportions will probably be slightly abhuman, too - heavier set, more hunched, less neck, more shoulders, slightly longer arms. But not by much. If you have a look at some of the portraits from Son of the Black Eye, particularly Al'Brock's, he's getting close to what I'm looking at as final, but not quite there.

On another note, the eyes of your orcs are all very large.

You may want to cross post this to the generic orcs thread, just so that your input is there with everyone else's - we're still finalising the look, so input is helpful.

[Captain Swing]

Here we go again, I just can't stop with these things today:

Draug anatomy - that is to say draft without the massive suit of glyphed plate armor I indeed to hang off his bones. Skull might be about what I want, but anyway let me know what ya'll think.



Note: Yes I didn't finish the ribcage - they are no fun to draw and it will likely be covered anyway. Drawing this guy sort of made be feel like listening to Slayer...

-Swing

[Kestenvarn]

He's in a weak pose, bow-legged and hunched over using the axe as support like an old man on a cane. The Draug should have a powerful one.

[kitty]

lots of stuff going on here! quite nice and detailed

generally watch out that your proposals don't come out too exaggerated - we are going for realism (as far as this is possible for fantasy creatures)...

the latest skeleton needs a more energized pose, as kestenvarn already noted, and more detail in the hands, collarbones. similarly the skull isn't realistic enough. the ancient designs of the axe and shield are quite nice.
as referenence how we picture skeletons in wesnoth up to now have a look at those two skeletons/liches i did (the first one together with girgistian): link link

keep up the nice sketches!

[Captain Swing]

lots of stuff going on here! quite nice and detailed

generally watch out that your proposals don't come out too exaggerated - we are going for realism (as far as this is possible for fantasy creatures)...

the latest skeleton needs a more energized pose, as kestenvarn already noted, and more detail in the hands, collarbones. similarly the skull isn't realistic enough. the ancient designs of the axe and shield are quite nice.
as referenence how we picture skeletons in wesnoth up to now have a look at those two skeletons/liches i did (the first one together with girgistian): link link

keep up the nice sketches!

Yeah, I'm still getting the feel of the 'Wesnoth style' and perhaps it grates a bit on me - my impulse with fantasy creatures is to go all out differentiating them, Wesnoth's sprites have a bit of this feel very different designs and unique feels for the various species, but it's reflected to a lesser degree in the portraiture I guess. Not that I don't understand this executive decision, I can even appreciate the desire to make realistic elves, dwarves, deadmen etc -- it keeps Wesnoth from falling into a trap, and looking like the art of a certain overly popular MMORPG whose name I shall not utter, or a certain British company that has been selling bits of pewter for astounding prices for the past 30 years... So please folks, hold my hand and give more kindly pointers should I stray, at least until I get adjusted to Wesnoth's look.

I liked the Druag's pose, but I can understand where he might seem sluggish and unimpressive slouching about like that. The back arm was so off I ultimately couldn't even do much with him so it's best we put him back in his moldy tomb. Here's where I was sort of going with the armor though:



and now a new pose - let my know if the skull is better, I think I got the orbits fixed, and if he's good I can start playing dress up with him. Again there are parts of him (as the chest and collarbones were on the first one that are simply anatomical place holders so I can tell where to hang his outfit from. I makes it easy as I can print out a few copies and rework the lines.



Thing is I really would like to get a sketch that is up to par, or at least provisionally so, that way I can start trying to follow these neat portrait tutorials and perhaps begin to fill that gap in my art skills named GIMP/Photoshop...

Also thanks for the encouragement, and nice skeletons - I see they have a fair amount of realism in the shape of the lines while simplifying to a degree and retaining a smoother 'cartoony' coloring and shading, it's a nice compromise.

...Swing