Valk's Art Dump

[Valkier]

Note that I do NOT want this used, as I don't believe it fits within the universe in which Wesnoth is set in. I mostly just wanted to use it to see if anyone would even be interested in me contributing to the game in an artistic capacity. I've been practicing digital art and character concepts for awhile now. I've been playing your game a lot and thought it may be fun to contribute.

Anyhow, let me know what you think. If it sucks, so be it. It is unfinished at the moment, especially in the feet, but it should give the general idea.



Cheers

[thespaceinvader]

I'd be fairly sure we could find something for you to work on, but I'd need to consult with kitty (portraits director) to work out exactly what.

Do you have a particular preference? We have a large number of campaigns which need their portraits brought up to code. We've comparatively few generic portraits left that someone isn't already planning on doing, now, so that might be more useful for you to do.

Otherwise, I'm sure there are any number of [acronym="User-Made Content]UMC[/acronym] creators who woudl happily snap you up for their campaigns and eras.

In the meantime, I suggest you have a look through the sticky threads and announcements in the art sections to familiarise yourself with the technical requirements etc.

[Lord Ork]

By the way, I find the portrait very cool.

[kitty]

Hello Valkier!

That looks promising! Since I do not know what you are interested in doing, I'll give you a rough overview of what we are in need of(I assume you are not interested in doing pixel art e.g. sprites and animations - right?):


1) Portraits for mainline campaigns. Those portraits need to fit the established wesnoth portrait style: coloured linework, painterly shaded, transparent background, waist-up crop and a generally realistic style.

2) Mainline generic unit portraits (Used in the help and for dialogues if no character specific portrait is available). For most still missing groups/species/races we already have contributors interested in doing them - the only ones that still need an artist are the skeleton lines (Skeleton, Deathblade, Renevant/Draug, Skeleton Archer, Boneshooter/Banebow). The same style/quality requirements as above apply.

3) Story Art. All campaigns apart from HttT and TB need background images displayed between scenarios when the story is told.

4) And like tsi already said there are tons of UMC authors who would love to get artwork done by you - if you are interested in a specific era/whatever simply contact the author. The advantage of doing UMC work is that there are no stylistic requirements - but of course I'd like to see you trying to do something for mainline first!


So let us know what you are up to and post it in the Art Contributions section! I look forward to seeing more from you

[Boucman]

And here comes the usal "you obviously know what you're doing" welcome post

Ok, obviously you know what your doing and your first try is close enough to mainline style to show that you'll be able to use that style with little practice. I'll give you a quick tour of our Art Community so you don't get lost.

Basically our forums are built around forum titles ( written under the people names, as you can see with my own)

* No title (or not art related title) => Did nothing with regard to art
* Art Contributors => Have contributed artwork to the mainline game
* Art Developers => The 'art staff', have the power to add artwork to the mainline game, and can generally be relied upon for good critique
* Portrait Director (kitty) => Gives go/no-go to portrait contributions
* Art Director (jetryl) => Gives the go/no-go to contributions


It is important for you to understand that distinction, because people with no art knowledge may not give comment and critique as well as people with art knowledge. If you disagree with a comment from someone with no title, just don't follow the advice.

You should consider comments from art contributors and art developers as comments coming from knowledgeable people, and worth considering... Of course, your art is yours and you are free to not follow the advice, but you should consider them. One thing to be aware of is that this forum is dedicated to getting artwork ready for the mainline game. We treat your work realistically - we're not going to praise it just because you posted it here. Please don't take offence at suggestions to improve your work - if you're looking for blind praise, you're in the wrong place.

Jetryl, kitty, and the Art Developers usually have very clear comments which tell if a change is needed to get something into mainline or just a suggestion to improve. These people will have the final say on whether something goes into the mainline game or not.

If you try to do a portrait for a specific character (from a campaign for example) you should try to contact the campaign author first and try to post your linework as soon as possible (even if it's just a scanned sheet of paper) That's because the original author might have a particular "vision" on his character and having early feedback will usually be good for everybody

The part about submiting your work "early and often" is a good advice even if your not drawing a campaign character, by the way....

Now the forums...

We have three art related forums:
* "Art contributions" is for pieces of art intended for mainline
* "Art workshop" is for pieces for user made content, and for users who are posting for critique to help to develop their skills.
* "Art development" is limited to people with an art title. Some artists don't like having their work openly criticised, and post there instead of the open forums.



One last point...

All wesnoth contributions are made under the GPL. I am not good at explaining legalese, but you should read it since your work have high chances of being mainlined at some point...

Great portrait BTW, we hope to see more of your work soon

[Valkier]

Well thank you all for the warm welcome to your forums. I'm certainly happy to hear you like what I have to show at the moment. I have other concepts I've drawn, but I figured this one veared off from the Wesnoth world enough on its own.

As far as what I'm interested in doing for the game, I'm emberassed, but I honestly hadn't thought that far. I figured someone would just kind of toss me towards something instead of giving me a choice if I was even considered in the first place. I suppose that if you guys would like, I could take a crack at a portrait that needs done for a unit or somesuch. I took a look at the list and it seemed humans and mermen/mermaids were most in need of portraits. If I get the go ahead from someone, I may try to work out something once I finish my above WIP.

I'm not opposed to helping with a user made scenario if someone wants me to take a look at theirs. Again, I have no idea how much interest anyone is even going to show, but if it turns out to be a lot or even a little, please tolerate slow responses. I don't want to tell anyone I'm going to do something and then not do it, so I'll probably respond only when I know I can make something I think all involved will enjoy.

So as a question about the style for the mainline portraits. I noticed right now it has a bit of a cartoonish look to it with the black lines blocking out objects and whatnot. Would you want that style continued or is my current method all right?

Again, thank you for the kind remarks and welcoming. I hope to contribute something in the near future.

[kitty]

I took a look at the list and it seemed humans and mermen/mermaids were most in need of portraits. If I get the go ahead from someone, I may try to work out something once I finish my above WIP.

As I already tried to explain in my last post, we already have artists interested in doing those portraits (you can still do humans or mermen if you absolutely want to and if they are up to par they will get included in the game - but there will be other people working on them too, soon.). The only group of units still missing an artist are the skeletons (Skeleton and Skeleton Archer line). If you don't want to do skeletons simply pick a campain and do portraits for the heroes and villians.
So if you want to be tossed towards something: take a stab at the skeleton portraits!.

So as a question about the style for the mainline portraits. I noticed right now it has a bit of a cartoonish look to it with the black lines blocking out objects and whatnot. Would you want that style continued or is my current method all right?

You're right - the non-pixel art style has cartoony aspects due to the outlines, when I say realistic I'm mainly talking about proportions and exaggeration.

The style we use for the portraits is set. We will only accept portrait artwork using that (or a very similar) style. In the past wesnoth accepted a lot of different artwork styles and looked pretty motley due to that - the whole current portrait art initiative is about unifying the style. Thus no, your current method won't be alright for mainline artwork (but is really nice on its own).

[zookeeper]

Also there's all sorts of monster units without a portrait, too, so you could do some of those if you don't yet want to commit to doing a larger series like the skeletons or a campaign. Bats, Giant Spider, Cuttle Fish, Fire Dragon, Mudcrawlers, Skeletal Dragon, Tentacle of the Deep, Wolf, Yeti...even all of those should eventually have portraits since even they get all kinds of "Graaarrr!" type dialogue.

[Valkier]

As I already tried to explain in my last post, we already have artists interested in doing those portraits (you can still do humans or mermen if you absolutely want to and if they are up to par they will get included in the game - but there will be other people working on them too, soon.). The only group of units still missing an artist are the skeletons (Skeleton and Skeleton Archer line). If you don't want to do skeletons simply pick a campain and do portraits for the heroes and villians.
So if you want to be tossed towards something: take a stab at the skeleton portraits!.

The style we use for the portraits is set. We will only accept portrait artwork using that (or a very similar) style. In the past wesnoth accepted a lot of different artwork styles and looked pretty motley due to that - the whole current portrait art initiative is about unifying the style. Thus no, your current method won't be alright for mainline artwork (but is really nice on its own).

I guess I misunderstood your first post, sorry about that. Skeletons are fine for me. I'll try to get something sketched up in the next week or so. I guess from there I just need you guys to help me tailor it to your games style, as I'm positive I won't get it 100% the first time without some crits.

- Cheers

[thespaceinvader]

Happy to help. Feel free to post into Art Contributions when you've got something ready.

[Jacques_Fol]

And here's a welcome from one of UMC developers, Valkier. As intimated below, UMC content would indeed also appreciate your help. Not that I would either wish or be able to keep you from contributing to mainline - that would, of course, be great.

However, if working for a particular campaign character - with a particular identity and background story - would interest you, I offer my campaign for consideration (it's called A Rough Life and available via the addons server). There are two reasons why your help would be most welcome. First, it is a campaign that is very much based on the story and thus both needs and makes use of portraits quite a lot. Second, while I already found portraits for some of the minor characters, I'm still looking for portraits for the two main protagonists that so far rely on generic portraits. Should you wish so, I could provide you with more of the story up front so you see whether you might want to check it out further.

In any event, though, welcome and I look forward to your art!

[Valkier]

And here's a welcome from one of UMC developers, Valkier. As intimated below, UMC content would indeed also appreciate your help. Not that I would either wish or be able to keep you from contributing to mainline - that would, of course, be great.

However, if working for a particular campaign character - with a particular identity and background story - would interest you, I offer my campaign for consideration (it's called A Rough Life and available via the addons server). There are two reasons why your help would be most welcome. First, it is a campaign that is very much based on the story and thus both needs and makes use of portraits quite a lot. Second, while I already found portraits for some of the minor characters, I'm still looking for portraits for the two main protagonists that so far rely on generic portraits. Should you wish so, I could provide you with more of the story up front so you see whether you might want to check it out further.

In any event, though, welcome and I look forward to your art!

Hello, Jacques

PM me the details of the characters for me to look over. I think what I'm going to do as far as a schedule is try to get a skeleton and a skeletal archer portrait made first for the mainline. I think after that I will have had enough of doing skeletons that a break from them for a day or two would be nice, so I think I could fit in at least one portrait for you. Let me know if you want it to maintain any kind of specific style in your PM and I'll see what I can do.

Again however, I can't really provide an ETA for the above. I'm hoping, HOPING, to get at least one skeleton portrait done today and posted later tonight. I'd say in an ideal world, I'd get to one of yours in about a week.

Edit:

Finished it up last night and decided I should probably post the final results. If anyone wants to critique it, that's fine. I'm going to start on the skeletons next.

[Jacques_Fol]

Greetings again - didn't see this update before, so just wanted to pass on a quick word of encouragement. While this particular portrait is not Wesnoth style or what I had in mind for the ARL campaign, it is very well done and shows that you can do very good art. Even more proof is offered by the emerging skeleton portrait, which is shaping up very nicely indeed.

With your credentials fully established, I will be more than happy if you ever feel like tackling the main characters' portraits for ARL, and would be happy to give you plenty of artistic freedom within the Wesnoth universe as to how to depict them. Even if you don't, however, I hope you manage to contribute a number of portraits to the game and enjoy your time here.

[Valkier]

Thank you for the kind words, Jacques. Right now I have a tenuous situation wherein I can currently only work on portraits (or any art for that matter) While I'm at my "wonderful" job of selling cell phones. I break out my laptop when we're not busy, but it's not always a certainty. Some days I have hours to dedicate towards it, others I don't have time to even sit down. Once August hits however, I will have a great deal more time to work. I'd expect portraits to come out fairly quickly then.

For fun I dug around in some files and found a character concept I made for a contest called Dominance War. I didn't win anything in the contest mind you, as the people who enter that are some rather spectacular artists and I'm still relatively new to digital painting and character concepts. Working on this really helped me learn some things about the process and just overall building a design. Despite the loss, I really never would have been able to make something like my post above without going through this one.

Crits if you want, but it's a done deal for the time being, if not forever. I'll add the colored version as well, but I'm really not happy with how that came out at all.

[Valkier]

Found this one as well. It was the first thing I sketched for the contest, but never really designed a body I thought would work well with it. I'm hoping to get back to it some day here, as I really loved the design.