Seeking Ideas -- OpenGameArt.org Art Commissions for Wesnoth

[Lendrick]

Greets!

As some of you may already know, I'm the founder of OpenGameArt.org, a site that exists to support FOSS game projects by creating high quality, Free (as in speech) art.

I was recently contacted by a member of the Wesnoth community (who wishes to remain anonymous) who would like to donate money to be used to pay Wesnoth community members for art contributions. At any rate, the first step of this process is to gather some community input on what projects we might want to commission. To this end, I'd like to open a discussion here in this thread. In one week, we'll consider the discussion concluded and come up with a list of promising suggestions, at which point the donor will choose which one (and possibly more) we'll be going with.

After we've decided on a particular project, interested artists can send me emails or private forum messages with their bids. One week after bidding, an artist will be selected and we'll get started on the project.

Anyway, if you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them. Please post your thoughts here on what you'd like to see done. When you're brainstorming for ideas, think particularly about things that a lot of people would like to see done, but not many people would particularly like to do. Also, for the time being, we would prefer to concentrate on highly visible parts of the mainline campaign(s). Finally, if you think someone else's suggestion was a good idea, this is a good place for a "me too" post, so we can get a feel for how popular a particular suggestion is.

Peace,
Bart K.
http://opengameart.org

P.S. OGA already has a commission in place to do the remaining story artwork for the Heir to the Throne campaign. These art commissions are in addition to that one.

P.P.S. We will gladly accept further donations toward Wesnoth artwork. If you'd like to donate, you have a couple of options:
* Pool your money with this cause
* If your favorite idea (or ideas) don't get chosen, or you'd like to sponsor something in particular, feel free to send me a private message here on the forum and we'll talk about it. I'd like to stress that every penny of the money donated for Wesnoth will go toward paying Wesnoth-related commissions, and I'll pick up any transaction fees personally.

[thespaceinvader]

This seems as good a place as any to try to organise a full and comprehensive list of things that are still to be done in the game art:

Portraits:

* Undead: most units (currently being worked on by Valkier)
* Orcs: most units (currently being worked on by LordBob)
* Drakes: most units (worked on by thespaceinvader, currently postponed due to Real Life)
* Dwarves: complete, aside from a new Gryphon Rider (on thespaceinvader's list)
* Elves: complete
* Goblins: Complete
* Humans: Complete
* Merfolk: Complete
* Monsters: Lots to do here - currently we have portraits only for the Ogre, Scorpion, Gryphon, Bat and Sea Serpent, and that last needs replacing. This is a rich area for single commissions, if people can match the canon style closely enough.
* Nagas: Complete, though these are potential VERY long-term projects in the works which might require new portraits, but not for months if not years.
* Saurians: minimally complete, but could benefit from more.
* Trolls: Missing: Troll Warrior, Hero, Great Troll, Shaman - some of these are being worked on, but the artist (JustinOperable) is MIA.
* Woses: Only one portrait currently - at least one more is needed.

Base frames:

These are mostly complete, and the remainder of the revamps are currently on Jetrel's list, AFAIK. But for completeness, they are:
* Human Outlaws: The Poacher and Footpad line are getting new base frames, the Thug line's are nearly done.
* Cavalry units: all the horse-riding and wolf-riding units are getting new horses/wolves.
* Ancient Lich: This is an old style base frame and has been on the list for replacement for some time.
* Fire Dragon: In progress, being worked on by Eternal, scheduled to be animated by Pixelmind when complete.
* Great Troll: a preliminary base frame is complete, but probably needs some improvement before animation.

Animations:

This is the single largest area which needs improvement. Any animation that doesn't match the standard set by the new Drakes is a candidate for improvement. The specifics of this standard can be set out later. I won't go through this group by group, however, save for a couple of notable areas:
* Merfolk: these are currently completely animation-less. With the potential addition of Dead Water to the next development cycle, getting these done is a high priority
* Ghosts: again, several units are entirely animation-less, although Jetrel has expressed a desire to do these.
* Cavalry units: once a model animation set has been created, there will be room for people who are so inclined to copy and cascade the animations through the rest of the units.

North facings:

This is the next major project, currently VERY much in its infancy. The eventual aim is to have two base-frame directions for all units, facing NE and SE, and sets of animations to fit. People willing to take this on would be very welcome, there are a few units with north frames waiting to be addressed, but for the most part, this is a project which has not started yet.

Campaigns:

Most of the mainline campaigns are sorely lacking, art-wise. Anything with old-style portraits is fair game. Anything without story art, or with low quality story art is fair game. Anything with outdated or low quality unique units is fair game. Again, I'm not goign to go through things in detail - there's just too much to do. Ask, if you're interested in a particular area of campaigns and unsure of its status, and I (or another art bod) will let you know whether that area is one that needs attention.

Attack icons:

A few of these are needed, but again, I couldn't say for sure which, with a few exceptions. Ask if you're unsure.

Shadow updates:

Older, soft-edged and/or black shadows need updating to the new shadow scheme. Most of these are now done, and I'm not sure what is still outstanding. But if the shadow doesn't match Creating_Shadows_Under_Units, it needs to. However, I doubt that this is really commission fodder.

If I've missed anything or got anythign wrong, and you have the capability, feel free to edit, or suggest it if you do not.

[mnewton1]

Another thing is all the soft edged unit shadows that need to become hard edged.

[melinath]

Also, for the time being, we would prefer to concentrate on highly visible parts of the mainline campaign(s).

Take your pick! Here's a quick go-through of various campaigns. Not official opinions of course. Just my personal analysis.

An Orcish Incursion:

Story Art:
Doesn't have story images. Uses map. Doesn't look terrible, but could be improved.

Portraits:
There are no campaign-specific units.

Delfador's Memoirs:

Portraits:

• methor.png - really old-style
• old_delfador.png - looks decent, but doesn't match with young_delfador very well. Also, small. (Note: This is also used in Heir To The Throne.)
• tomb_guardian.png - I think this is a little old-styled, but I'm not entirely sure.

Story Art:
There isn't much. This could be a place to expand.

Descent Into Darkness:

Portraits:
All 5 portraits (darken_volk,dela,malinlich,malold,malyoung) are old-style and could be redone.

Story Art:
Doesn't look terrible to me...just a little small maybe? I'm not sure what the mainline style for story art is or whether this fits that.

Sprites:
The ghast seems to be of lower quality than the other sprites.
The giant rat could be reworked to actually be a giant rat. And/or attack animations would probably add a lot.

Eastern Invasion:

Campaign image is old-style. Stems from a portrait.
Portraits:
All 5 portraits (dacyn, gweddry, konrad_II, mal-ravanal, and owaec) are old-style and could be redone.

Sprites:
The owaec sprites are already being redone.

Story Art:
None, currently. Could be added.

Heir To The Throne:

Portraits:All portraits are scheduled to be redone at some point. Jetrel has said that he will do this.

Story Art:
There's quite a bit compared to other campaigns. There are three images (story6,story7,story9) that don't seem as high-quality, but I'm not sure they're actually used.

Legend of Wesmere:

Portraits:
All seem mainline style to me. Though of course I'm not the final word in that.

Story Art:
Seems to be big versions of the portraits. So looks decent, but is not very specific. Room for expansion.

Liberty:

Portraits:
All 6 portraits (p_baldras,p_gwydion,p_harper,p_helicrom,p_maddock,p_relnan) are in really old style and could definitely use a redo.

Story Art:
Doesn't look terrible to me, though again - I'm not entirely sure what mainline style is on these.

Sprites:
Shadow mage is already being redone. I suppose the skeletal units seem a bit old, but there are other campaign-specific sprites that seem worse to me.

Northern Rebirth:

Portraits:
All 15 portraits seem not to be mainline style. Some are better-quality than others/closer to mainline standards. However, all of them are the wrong size - not 400*400. I feel like someone is working on some of these...

Story Art:
None. Room for expansion!

Sceptre of Fire:

Items:
Coal and gold piles could be more defined, I guess. Not sure it's worth the trouble.

Portraits:
All seven portraits are clearly old style.

Sprites:
Haldric II seems a bit unpolished (to me).

Story Art:
None. Room for expansion!

Son of the Black Eye:

Flags:
The flag doesn't look very flaggy. Or very orcish...

Portraits:
The portraits seem more or less new-style to me. They're not as polished as recent things like Kitty's bandit portraits, but there are other campaigns with much more obvious failings.

Story Art:
None. Room for expansion!

The Hammer Of Thursagan:

Portraits:
There are seven old-style portraits in the portrait directory. However, someone was working on these already.

Story Art:
None. Room for expansion!

The Rise Of Wesnoth:

Campaign art uses old-style images.

Portraits:
All 17 portraits are very old-style.

Story Art:
The story art is old-style, definitely. There are four images. There could be more expansion, I suppose.

The South Guard:

Portraits:
All 13 portraits are old-style.

Story Art:
The story art seems less polished than HttT. I believe someone's already working on the map.

Two Brothers:

Story Art:
Seems decent.

I don't know what the art devs priorities are... personally, I'd like to see TRoW redone.

[thespaceinvader]

I made a couple of fixes to your post, but for the moment, it seems mostly accurate.

[Turuk]

The real question here being, are any of the current Wesnoth artists interested in taking on one of these projects, large or small? It would be nice to see this offer being used.

[thespaceinvader]

Had I time, I would be. Call me back in a few months

[Valkier]

I'd be willing to do the portraits for one of the campaigns, and will even have time to do so in a few days. I'll look at some of them and see what appeals to me.

[Lendrick]

I've been asked to post a quick clarification: The Wesnoth development team is in no way involved in the selection of an artist to work on these commissions. In this case, it's entirely up to the anonymous donor. I apologize for any confusion over this.

Peace,
Bart