A rough life - portraits

[Valkier]

Everyone reading this thread, take note: This is what happens with lots of dedicated practice. You're coming along really well Bera. Keep it up!

[bera]

Hello,

Was really busy with another project that I could no longer postpone, sorry about that.

Valkier: many thanks for your kindness

Jacques_Foi: I beefed the handle of the sword a tad, the blade part would take some work though so I left it as it is and well... Seems ok to
me honestly so, I'm attaching the final version for the determined Jacques

I also started some work for the trapper Jacques, flats attached.

edit: further tweaked the 1st image. Broadened the blade, shrank the bow.

[bera]

Hello,

I wanted to finish shading it, and couldn't wait hearing back from you. Oh well, looks ok to me I guess and I hope you'll like it as well.

As I'm still in wesnoth portrait mode and considering I have some time, I can give Kyoko a go. Feel free to give me some further character description of hers or stuff you'd like her to be equipped/endowed with.

note to community: I can take 1 or 2 jobs (or maybe more, we'll see about that) for UMC portraits, feel free to send me a pm and I'll open a new thread. cheers

[francophone]

I would suggest removing a little height to light on the nose. Between the eyes. And also expand the shadow at eye level, around the nose. To do less straight nose and that do not start from the front.

[thespaceinvader]

The lighting direction on the most recent one is really unclear. Otherwise, it looks reasonable. nice work.

[Frogger5]

I' a little bit confused about the angle of the way the bow is hanging. Unless there was an unseen weight at the bottom of the bow, or i was made of very heavy wood, or the bow is very weak, it shouldn't be hanging straight down while the string is curling around his body. What i was thinking (this is my theory anyway) that the bow should be on a slight angle in order to align itself with the string. It's a little hard to explain.

The picture right now.

jacques34.png (148.63 KiB) Viewed 5097 times

The bow is seemingly being held by an unseen force, and as a result, the bowstring curls around him unnaturally.

A wild guess at how the bow and string would naturally hang, abiding by the picture.

jacques345.png (149.72 KiB) Viewed 5097 times

I assumed that the bow wasn't strapped to him back or anything by the fact that he was holding the string. Of course, my assumptions may be wrong.

[thespaceinvader]

Unless the bow isn't strung, the string shouldn't be that loose anyway...

[Issyl]

It's reasonable to carry a bow like that - when you have to string the bow, all he has to do is tighten it. It makes sense to carry a bow with just the bowstring loosened.

[artisticdude]

Archers would normally unstring their bows when not in combat so as to preserve the flexibility of their bows. I don't know if you want it that way or not, but it looks to me as though he's got the string of an unstrung bow over his shoulder, which is perfectly believable, judging from the fact he's not in a combat stance.

[thespaceinvader]

Issyl: how exactly do you tighten a bowstring now? To the best of my knowledge, they tend to be of fixed length.

[Issyl]

They are of a fixed length, but that length is often quite longer than the actual span of the bow when strung.

[artisticdude]

This might help a bit, though the pictures are kinda blurry.
http://www.merlinarcherycentre.co.uk/re ... semble.htm

[Daxion]

There are several ways to string a bow.
Most often people use the stepping through method, for longbows. This gets harder when you increase the bow draw weight., though is well documented.
When using a recurve bow, this might lead to a permanent twist in the limps, which is not desirable. So we use an additional piece of string to do that (see provided web page). Though even for recurves (or better horsebows) the stepping through method is documented on some paintings. The string of the bow (the thing we put the arrows one, and draw to shoot) cannot change length. Even when you have bowbuilders-knot on it, you don't really want to shoot with that (meaning: putting alot of dynamic forces on the bow and string), unless of course you intend to break your bow.
Carrying a bow as seen in the portraits is quite uncomfortable in my experience. Normally you want to have a strung bow in your hands. After all you have it strung because you expect to use it quite soon (why else put stress on the wood?). The normal way to carry around a bow is unstrung, and only put the string on when shooting.
Sometimes there is a small thread of material forming an additional (somewhat wider) loop to keet the string under some (small) tension (so it stays on the bow).

[Frogger5]

Unless the bow isn't strung, the string shouldn't be that loose anyway...

That's part of my reasoning. If the bow is strapped to his back then it would be rather uncomfortable to be in that position. It wouldn't if it was unstrung, but from the way it curls around, it doesn't look unstrung.