NR Portraits

[Dixie]

I think Tallin's head and neck is jsut fine, personnally. Generally, the neck should be as large as the head, and the head should be about half of the shoulder lenght (depending on musculature): this looks about right, imho. Maybe he jsut looks small when put next to Raksha, but I don,t think that's a big issue?

[artisticdude]

Great to see you around again. The rendering job on these is beautiful!


Now for some potential useless comments:

I'm no expert in anatomy, but looking at my own hand in the mirror, it seems that the middle finger of Rakshas's left hand (the one holding the weapon) should be at at angle in between that of the ring and pointer finger, rather than parallel to the ring finger and pinky. Rakshas's waist also seems a bit small for such a buff guy, especially one with plate armor on.

Tallin's head does look small, but I don't think it's necessarily unrealistic. I feel like the perspective on the hand is somewhat overdone, which makes the hand appear giant and aggravates the 'small head' look. Also, I'm not sure if Tallin would realistically be able to hold his weapon without using his thumb, especially since it's a double-handed hilt (which to me suggests that the weapon must have some weight to it).

All of the above is subjective, of course; you'd know far more about this stuff than I do. But I'll throw it out there all the same, just in case.

[Valkier]

Graduating soon. I know I have been... absent. I feel pretty awful about that. I started this the other night because I had a good idea for a necromancer/lich portrait for the main badguy of NR. It's obviously still a WIP, but here is the thought so far.

[Dorimen]

It's fantastic!

Maybe you can make the left hand metallic? Or with an iron/steel gauntlet?

The idea of the chains is great because he can trap the souls

[Groggy_Dice]

Like most everyone here, I really like your Elenia. And we still have her sister to look forward to...

As for Rakshas, he looks good in and of himself, but he doesn't seem to resemble the other Wesnoth-style orcs. I also wonder if maybe his portrait could bust the 400px standard, as he is the main boss.

As for Tallinn, though, I'm not as enthusiastic. First, I like our current portrait, so I wouldn't mind something like that, translated to the house style (minus the jutting shoulder pads). Second, with the drawn sword, not much space is left for Tallinn himself, so he looks small. Someone else already commented that he looks small compared to Rakshas, but also compare to Elenia. This is odd when he is the story's hero, and the portrait we'll be seeing most of. Again, busting the 400px limit horizontally would allow Tallinn to grow.

Lastly, when you explained all the contradictory features Tallinn was supposed to embody, I was really looking forward to a standout portrait that would capture this enigmatic personality. But my first reaction to his portrait was that it was ordinary, good but not remarkable by your standards. Looking more closely, however, he does have piercing, smoldering eyes - perhaps blowing him up, as I talked about above, would be all that it takes to make him the hero I pictured.

[StandYourGround]

[Valkier]

Like most everyone here, I really like your Elenia. And we still have her sister to look forward to...

As for Rakshas, he looks good in and of himself, but he doesn't seem to resemble the other Wesnoth-style orcs. I also wonder if maybe his portrait could bust the 400px standard, as he is the main boss.

As for Tallinn, though, I'm not as enthusiastic. First, I like our current portrait, so I wouldn't mind something like that, translated to the house style (minus the jutting shoulder pads). Second, with the drawn sword, not much space is left for Tallinn himself, so he looks small. Someone else already commented that he looks small compared to Rakshas, but also compare to Elenia. This is odd when he is the story's hero, and the portrait we'll be seeing most of. Again, busting the 400px limit horizontally would allow Tallinn to grow.

Lastly, when you explained all the contradictory features Tallinn was supposed to embody, I was really looking forward to a standout portrait that would capture this enigmatic personality. But my first reaction to his portrait was that it was ordinary, good but not remarkable by your standards. Looking more closely, however, he does have piercing, smoldering eyes - perhaps blowing him up, as I talked about above, would be all that it takes to make him the hero I pictured.

Pointing out that the fellow above me is absolutely right and you are beating a dead horse, let's go ahead and talk about the NR portraits.

First off, this work is from about 2+ years ago. I had a piss poor attitude about everything said to me. On top of that because I was such an unpleasant individual, critiques leveled at me were frequently worded harshly, sometimes asking if it were the same artist making these portraits as work I had done in the past with skeletons. The end result was an extremely toxic environment wherein I rushed myself to crank out subpar work even by my own standards two years ago, nobody liked me or what I did, and the project as a whole suffered for it. I am not proud of my attitude from that point in time, nor some of the work I created. While some of it did end up looking pretty decent, largely I failed. I have apologized to some in PMs and such, but I still feel extremely guilty about how all of this transpired.

That's why when you look through this monument to my suckiness you'll find some portraits that don't accomplish what I set out to do, some finished, then restarted, then left to rot. Others called finished only because everyone was so frustrated they didn't want to argue with me and I was too pissed off to make the alterations they desperately require. I am by far better at what I do these days, but even back then I should have displayed a better eye and efficiency, in more ways than one.

Now, on to your "critiques" as we'll call them.

Rakshas was one of the few portraits everyone seemed to agree did well within the context of Wesnoth, my ability, and for the campaign. As to your critique of portrait size, one of the things that I grew to love about Wesnoth was pretty much every portrait is the same size, so it gives everyone a more seemingly level playing field. Yes, he was the main bad guy, but was he special among orcs? Not that I can recall. He was maybe more ruthless and stronger than the others, but he was an orc.

Same with Tallin really. Even if you want to do the size comparison by portrait, do you really want to see him the same size and bulk as ol' Raky? Even at the height of my ability to argue people in to frustration that would be a tough sell. As for how he stacks up to his girlfriend and everyone else I have no defense. His body does take up less room than the majority of other portraits I made, and I can see how that would bother some. I don't recall the precise intent I had at the time, but it looks like I was aiming towards cocky country boy with great hair. Blowing him up might work. It might cause more problems. I was never familiar enough with how the game was put together to confirm or deny your idea.

All the same, I do think it's flattering that someone cares enough to point this out, even after all this time. I made this debacle and perpetuated it and feel terrible, the campaign itself is usually referred to as problematic in and of itself, but I did and still do sometimes forget that some people have real attachment to this game and the characters they meet in it. So thank you for caring and thank you for bringing it up.

[LordBob]

Since the necromancy has already been performed, might as well ask.
Valk, do you intend to resume work on these portraits, eventually ?

[Valkier]

Since the necromancy has already been performed, might as well ask.
Valk, do you intend to resme work on these portraits, eventually ?

That's the plan while I try to keep my head above water financially.

I think the cleanest way to go about it is for me to make a new thread and repost all the NR portraits again. Then we can take inventory of what is considered acceptable and what isn't at this point, make changes to a few, etc. That way I'll have a much better idea of what is and isn't left, nobody will have to crawl through page after page of my nonsense looking for what's there, and probably get all of this finished up as quickly as possible.

If someone wants to delete this thread to avoid future confusion, that would be nice. I don't really know the policy here on that matter, so I'll just run with whatever suits everyone best.

[Iris]

If someone wants to delete this thread to avoid future confusion, that would be nice. I don't really know the policy here on that matter, so I'll just run with whatever suits everyone best.

We can’t delete working topics, but we can lock them.

If you want this unlocked at some later point, feel free to message me or (preferably, in case I’m absent for a period of time) the Forum Moderators group.