LordBob's commissionned work

[Kenpachi]

It's a cool design. but atm has child, or really short person, proportions, only about 5-5.5 heads high.

If you were malnourished due to an over obsession with study/magic/etc, you could feasibly end up with stunted growth, or you could just hand wave it as a side affect from the dark magics

[Sapient]

A malnourished skeleton... ? But I think you are right that the legs (which will be cut off in the final version I assume) do appear a bit short.

The staff doesn't look particularly wicked to me ATM... but maybe that's just because we are seeing it without any magical aura effects.

[LordBob]

5 heads ? I counted 6 just now. Anyway, I want it to look short: not everyone in society stands 7 ft tall, and it doesn't take malformation to reach only 5'5. Maybe it was a woman in its fleshy life ? (now, how to give clues on that ? )
I'll reduce the skull ever so slightly so that it can't be mistaken for a child, but altogether I'll keep it short.

On proportion matters, here's an overview of the underlying anatomy. I don't always do these, but in the particular case of skeletons (which I'm much less used to draw -coming by a good live model is hard :p ), it helps a lot in the later phase, when designing the folds and hang of clothes

[Jetrel]

I'm with zookeeper and sapient in thinking there really aren't any issues with the troll. What has been pointed out as "issues" is highly questionable, IMO.

Also, that ogre is simply amazing.

[LordBob]

I still think the relative scale problem between the blades, shields, and bones is real, but thanks all the same
In the end, the lesson is that I shouldn't focus so much on one part at a time and more often take a step back to look at the whole picture.

Back to the thick of things. In parallel to the lich, I 'm beginning studies for the EI cast. For a start, various studies of Dacyn. The top left figure is the defintive pose, the other figures are clothing research. The upper half are more fitted to a court advisor, i.e. rich and complicate, while the lower half are simpler, meant for travel. I'm not sure which fits him better, the wandering mage or the court advisor. Depends on the part he plays ingame...

[zookeeper]

Back to the thick of things. In parallel to the lich, I 'm beginning studies for the EI cast. For a start, various studies of Dacyn. The top left figure is the defintive pose, the other figures are clothing research. The upper half are more fitted to a court advisor, i.e. rich and complicate, while the lower half are simpler, meant for travel. I'm not sure which fits him better, the wandering mage or the court advisor. Depends on the part he plays ingame...

I'd go for... a bit of both, I guess. While he's more of a scholar than a wandering banisher of evil, he's also more like a monk than a court wizard. I think his garb would be simple but refined, as opposed to complicated and flashy. In terms of complexity (but not necessarily otherwise), something similar to what the core white mage and mage of light portrait wear. Also I think a simple colour scheme is important (probably more important than complexity); you don't want to have a lot of different rich colours to give off a flamboyant vibe. Rather the colour scheme could be very uniform (plain white being the obvious pick, but other light shades could work as well) and feature different materials and some choice embroidery to make it seem more than just a generic white mage robe.

So, in terms of clothing, bottom left looks most fitting to me.

[vultraz]

Regarding color, in practical terms, why would someone who's traveling/wandering wear pure white clothes? If they did, they would be very dirty from mud, etc. I'd vote for some kind of brown or beige.

And I agree with zookeeper, bottom left looks best.

[alluton]

Regarding color, in practical terms, why would someone who's traveling/wandering wear pure white clothes? If they did, they would be very dirty from mud, etc. I'd vote for some kind of brown or beige.

And I agree with zookeeper, bottom left looks best.

He is a white mage. He uses white magic to keep his clothes white.( It might be related whit the ability to enlighten the area around them?)

[Crow_T]

5 heads ? I counted 6 just now. Anyway, I want it to look short: not everyone in society stands 7 ft tall, and it doesn't take malformation to reach only 5'5. Maybe it was a woman in its fleshy life ? (now, how to give clues on that ? )

my fat fingers admittedly counted wrong, but 6 heads is still child/pre-teen height. A short (5'0"-5'6") adult woman will be around 7, an "average" adult 7.5, renaissance proportions are 8. I'm guessing someone 7' tall would be in the 9 area, but I've never had the opportunity to draw them. Comparing the troll warrior to this lich, you'd think the troll would laugh and smash the lich to bits, it's not very menacing. But I digress, it may not matter in the cropped portrait, although the ribcage will be small.

[LordBob]

Interesting. I did have that "7 heads" information stored somewhere, but my bias was believing that it was for someone tall when it's actually your average small person.
Either way, liches shouldn't be intimidating because of their sheer size. That's what trolls are for, and in terms of game mechanics their warriors can indeed one-shot a lich. :p

More Eastern Invasion : studies for Gweddry. Based on zookeeper's descriptions, the top right figure is my selected pose. The top left one is more suited for a confident, if not arrogant, character.
Bottom left figure : a very advanced plate armour, fully articulated. This is the kind of equipement he could receive once he comes back to Weldyn and is offcially promoted as a general. Or the kind of armour the king would wear.
In contrast, the bottom right armour is much more simple : a mix of unarticulated plates, mail, and leather. Still a very good protection, but it should better reflect his starting status as a provincial town lieutenant.

Either way, I'm going to add some kind of tabard to properly show his rank.

[zookeeper]

More Eastern Invasion : studies for Gweddry. Based on zookeeper's descriptions, the top right figure is my selected pose. The top left one is more suited for a confident, if not arrogant, character.
Bottom left figure : a very advanced plate armour, fully articulated. This is the kind of equipement he could receive once he comes back to Weldyn and is offcially promoted as a general. Or the kind of armour the king would wear.
In contrast, the bottom right armour is much more simple : a mix of unarticulated plates, mail, and leather. Still a very good protection, but it should better reflect his starting status as a provincial town lieutenant.

Either way, I'm going to add some kind of tabard to properly show his rank.

Looks good to me, although his our-right hand looks pretty idle, and could perhaps be carrying a crossbow, resting on the hilt of a sword on his belt, or something. I'm not sure if it's needed though, I guess it depends on how focused his face will be; if his facial appearance is focused and determined, then it probably doesn't matter if his hand is a bit idle, but if he looks like he's zoning out then it's probably too much.

[LordBob]

I'll take care of that hand, then. Not sure what I'll make of it, though. It's difficult to convey the character you've described if he's clutching a weapon at the same time.

Next, a study for Owaec. I focused on armour design and finding a pose that differs from our other riders, still looks interesting and is fit for dialog. I think this one isn't bad...

[LordBob]

Me again, with a colour study of the lich. Since it was originally named "brown lich" and is an alt anyway, I figured I might venture outside the usual dark grey & purple scheme. What do you think?

Edit: for more clarity, I've put together a quick comparison of the tentative colour scheme against the classical one.

[vultraz]

WOW I can't wait to see the lich completed. TBH, it's the portait I'm most looking forward too Anyway, they both look great, but 'd say the left version is better, robe wise, but something seems off about the teal in streamers (for lack of a better word). Maybe a gray?

[zookeeper]

I'll take care of that hand, then. Not sure what I'll make of it, though. It's difficult to convey the character you've described if he's clutching a weapon at the same time.

I don't think it'd be a problem if he's just carrying a weapon (crossbow, sheathed sword), or simply resting his palm on a sword's pommel.

Next, a study for Owaec. I focused on armour design and finding a pose that differs from our other riders, still looks interesting and is fit for dialog. I think this one isn't bad...

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good pose. If you wanted it to be even more fit for dialog, you could have the morningstar somewhere on his back (I'm not sure how you'd carry one of those...) with both hands on the reigns and make it look more like he's wheeling the horse around to face the viewer. But consider that more like an idea rather than a suggestion; I don't know if it'd really work any better, and I have nothing whatsoever against what you have there now.

Me again, with a colour study of the lich. Since it was originally named "brown lich" and is an alt anyway, I figured I might venture outside the usual dark grey & purple scheme. What do you think?

Looks good to me. The only detail which looks odd is how the necklace (the one which untextured looks like a bar of soap ) rests on the hipbone. It looks weird on the first look and takes some figuring out (which isn't a bad thing), but on the other hand I probably figured it out mostly because I had seen the skeletal linework sketch. Giving more hints about where the hipbone is relative to the chest might be a good idea?