New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

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Lord_Kata
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New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Lord_Kata »

Looking at the newer troll portraits (Which I believe were updated in the most recent update or the update before that), and then looking at the old troll portrait and troll whelp portrait, I decided to start updating it. :) (Note: I am using the same troll portrait, just I'm editing it)

Some of the most noticeable changes to the other portraits compared to the old troll portrait, was that everyone was:

1. Not smiling/grinning, which if you look at the old troll portrait, he has this sort of grin...

2. The eyes are sufficiently darker, instead of that 'Glowing' eye color like on the troll portrait.

3. The teeth were not Hollywood white, and they had a curve to them.

4. Their body texture is more bumpy and rocky.

So so far what I've got on this updated version of a troll portrait, is the eye color is darker, changed his teeth, and made him not grinning. So far, it makes the troll portrait seem much more threatening and 'dangerous' I guess... :?
Please note this is a work in progress, and I have yet to change the body texture. Before I started that long and difficult process, I decided to come here and post up what I have to see if we even need a newer portrait.

So all suggestions and critiques welcome.
Attachments
The older troll portrait.
The older troll portrait.
troll.png (275.02 KiB) Viewed 4848 times
Troll Idea
Troll Idea
trollidea.png (296.32 KiB) Viewed 4849 times
Lord Kata

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Wussel
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Wussel »

I think recoloring existing portraits is a great learning opportunity. I sincerely hope that this forum finds a place where this practices could be shared with no negative feedback. It is really easy to replace a picture in the core on your computer with one which you like more. If the picture is shared other could use it too. Aiming at a replacement of the original art looks like a lack of respect for the original artist, which is most likely not the intention. Therefore I would recommend to keep up the practice and post the results in workshop.
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homunculus
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by homunculus »

Wussel wrote:[...]Aiming at a replacement of the original art looks like a lack of respect for the original artist, which is most likely not the intention.[...]
i would rather think the opposite.
the new and old troll portraits clearly do not fit very well together, so if he likes the pose or expression of the old portrait, or just out of nostalgia, the thing to do is to update.
so far the edits are so minor it is very difficult to say what the chances of success would be at making the stone surface look the same as in the new versions.
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Valkier
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Valkier »

homunculus wrote:
Wussel wrote:[...]Aiming at a replacement of the original art looks like a lack of respect for the original artist, which is most likely not the intention.[...]
i would rather think the opposite.
the new and old troll portraits clearly do not fit very well together, so if he likes the pose or expression of the old portrait, or just out of nostalgia, the thing to do is to update.
so far the edits are so minor it is very difficult to say what the chances of success would be at making the stone surface look the same as in the new versions.
Thought I'd give a little input on the matter of "updating" here.

I understand the good intentions, I do. I also doubt anyone here is going to view this as intentionally malicious. At it's base however, you are effectively saying, "I can finish this artists work better than he/she can." Again, I know that's not what you mean, but that's how it can come off. Now, does this portrait match the work of Lord Bob? Of course not. This portrait is on the older side. Lord Bob has been getting exponentially better with every portrait he has done, as well he should. Does it deserve to be reworked before other portraits or before units with no portraits at all get attention? Probably not.

Now in regards to your changes. They are extremely minor right now. If you're looking to improve as an artist, I would discourage you from taking this route to do so. If I were you, I would draw a new portrait entirely and post it in the workshop. If you're looking to contribute, I would pick a unit that currently lacks a portrait (or is not in the same style Kitty set forth) and submit that to be put in to mainline. Both of those things will help build you as an artist and it will contribute towards the project you're obviously passionate about.

Finally as per this specific portrait. If you're looking to replace it within mainline, I have never seen this act accomplished. Reason being that no matter how good you or anyone might be, you will never be as good at drawing like Lord Bob as Lord Bob. This means that even if he is doing better work now, it will still mesh better with his older work moreso than you or anyone will ever accomplish. When the word of the day is cohesion, such as it is in the case of Wesnoth portraits, you absolutely cannot outdo the existing artist working on the line.
Win if you can. Lose if you must. But always cheat.
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Lord_Kata
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Lord_Kata »

Yes, I can see where it sounds like I don't like the artwork of this artist...

But actually, I like it, and the only reason I started working on this one is because I wanted to update the textures. I only have the interest in improving Wesnoth. Thank you all for your comments.
Attachments
sea-serpent.png
sea-serpent.png (38.93 KiB) Viewed 4739 times
Last edited by Lord_Kata on October 12th, 2012, 12:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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zookeeper
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by zookeeper »

Lord_Kata wrote:Now, I have a question.
I am currently sketching out my plan to completely redo the Sea Serpent portrait. Do you think that would be OK?
Not really...
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Lord_Kata
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Lord_Kata »

Wait, never mind.
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Dixie
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Dixie »

Well, if you really have trouble finding a portrait that hasn't been done (they are rarer by the week), just pick one that has. Improbable scenario: it replaces the existing one; Best case scenario: it becomes an alternate; Worst case scenario: it is not put into mainline Wesnoth, but you have a lot of fun and learn a lot doing it and maybe some UMC guys will want to use it.
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pyrophorus
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by pyrophorus »

Hi !
BTW, many add-ons authors regularly ask for portraits. If you don't mind to work for these instead of mainline, you'll be very welcomed.
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homunculus
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by homunculus »

Really, I do think that the results on changing textures of this troll could be better than starting from scratch.

At least, if I myself was to draw a portrait from scratch (say, for UMC) it would be junk, but there is a possibility that I could get much better results by changing texture on that troll.
I am not interested in doing a troll portrait, but for the sake of experiment I think I will try to change the texture on some small part of the old portrait in the weekend, and see what the results would look like ('possibility' that I could do better than from scratch I wrote, btw, not sure).
And I am thinking of completely not noble tactics that purists will certainly frown upon.

I guess I should also mention that deciding whether this thread belongs to contribs or workshop is none of my concern (just to cool down the flames a little bit).
Threads appearing in contribs and being moved to workshop is nothing surprising as far as I have seen lately.

Edit:
Here's what I did, used 'Clone' from GIMP toolbox.
I must say copying textures from one picture to another is a skill, and when I finally started to make some progress I noticed that 2 hours had passed already and I wanted to waste no more time on this.
There are too many cyan shades that I am not happy with (depending on monitor, it seems), and otherwise I am not satisfied with some of the shading, but it does look like making the old trolls fit in with the new style could be done (with enough dedication, that is).
And also, what Valkier said, for many people this may appear as blasphemy, so they better see the old trolls in trash (as I doubt LordBob is going to update the textures on old trolls, he would just draw more new ones instead if needed).
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textureforgery.png
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campaign ruthless in your nearest 1.11 add-on server
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LordBob
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by LordBob »

Just to make this clear, Kitty created the old troll portrait and I wouldn't replace it with a revision by someone else unless she specifically agreed to it. Valkier tells it better than I would. I'll just add that it's at the very least courtesy to the artist to not use their modified work without their consent, and in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work.

With that said, I wouldn't encourage re-texturing anyway (the final result isn't a given winner), and I would definitely discourage recycling textures from other troll portraits, because using them in a different picture is just as hazardous as pissing in the wind. They were already modified so that they blend into a given picture's lighting conditions, so you lose control on your picture's light, and there's a high chance that you'll end up with a muddy mess that uses the same square inch over and over again.
If you must, search the internet for a neutral rock texture (there are some good free textures sites out there), then overlay it on your picture and tweak it to your liking. It'll always be better than frankensteining.
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Loci
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Loci »

LordBob wrote:Just to make this clear, Kitty created the old troll portrait and I wouldn't replace it with a revision by someone else unless she specifically agreed to it. Valkier tells it better than I would. I'll just add that it's at the very least courtesy to the artist to not use their modified work without their consent, and in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work.
So allow me to clarify: Battle for Wesnoth is a GPL project which benefits greatly from the ability of its many contributors to edit and modify everything at will--everything, that is, except for the portraits, which are sacrosanct. Have you even read the GPL license you released your work under? You may feel that editing a Wesnoth portrait is rude, but I highly doubt it violates the original artist's rights in this, or any other, jurisdiction.

I am tired of the elitist attitudes in this forum. Do you think all the other contributors to Wesnoth particularly enjoy seeing their own hard work modified without their approval? You might find the following thread informative:

GPL Policy

In particular, I like these quotes:
Dave wrote:I could say the same thing about my code. Why for music, and not for code?

We have consistently had this policy for ALL kinds of contents from the very beginning of Wesnoth.

David
kitty wrote:i just wanted to express my sympathy for the musician's problems and attitude.

the last couple of posts are really ungrateful! you are talking to people who invested a lot of work and improved the game a lot! it would be a pitty if we couldn't find a solution with which everybody could be happy.

i'm no fan of the gpl at all - i'm all for giving my work for free but having to allow to modify it is a shame. i see what people do to my work all the time and it is butchery. if there was any way to release my stuff without having to allow that i would be the first to do so - unfortunately there is no and i decided to live with it (and believe me sometimes i wish i didn't). but that is my decision and i honour everybody who can't take it.
(and if anybody comes up with artists' having to release the layered files or anything like that, i'm out)
Jetrel wrote:For what it's worth, I stand by the choice to make all of our art GPL, and I refuse to relicense it under another license. We did this for a reason. I (and others before me) want people to have the right to reuse and modify our art. I want that culture of freedom. I want that world of possibilities. A caged bird cannot fly.


It doesn't hurt me if someone 'misuses' my art. And that's all this is about - being 'hurt' as an artist if someone 'misuses' our work. We choose not to be hurt, as a kindness to the world at large. We choose to make this a gift, with no strings attached. We choose to love the mistakes, and love the people making them. We're big, tough leathernecks, and our feelings can't be hurt.
In summary, if you are contributing to a project like Wesnoth under the GPL, your work, whether it be code, story, sprite, music, sound, portrait, etc., is available for modification and reuse by others. While I would like to think that a significantly and clearly improved portrait would be acceptable, you have made it clear that derivative portraits will not be included "mainline". Still, anyone is free to use a "refinished" troll in UMC or in other GPL projects.
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Boucman »

okay, Locl a couple of points to answer here....

1) Lord Bob has been around long enough he knows what the GPL is.

2) This is about including the portrait in wesnoth, not about the right to modify the art or publish your changes, you are legally allowed to do that and LB didn't complain about that. He only said that retexturing is never as good as redoing (though it's a good training) This has nothing to do with the rights provided to you by the GPL, so please read what you are complaining about before replying... Seriously,did you read LB's reply to the end ? he even advise how to retexture in a better way. I don't see how you can say he doesn't agree to retexturing. He doesn''t like it, it's his right, but the jumping on the GPL gun is totally ridiculous. The GPL and the right to modify have nothing to do here.

3) The decision to include stuff in wesnoth is delegated to people with proven artistics taste and an overall vision of what our art should be. These are our portrait directors, i.e Jetrel, Lord Bob and... kitty. So not only is lord bob perfectly in his authority when he accepts/refuses a portrait, he is perfectly legitimate in asking kitty for her opinion, even if it wasn't her portrait

4) Lord bob did say he would ask kitty "if only out of politeness" I don't see anything wrong about that, but apparently you do so please explain.

5) to sum up half a dozen threads you probably ignore (I assume you read them, you've been around for four years) Modified art isn't banned from wesnoth. It has been done quite a lot of time (less commonly for portraits than terrain or prites), the point is that modified art is VERY RARELY BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL. So you really have to have it be an improvement. And that's a decision for our art director to make. They have the authority to do that, just like you have the right to discuss (calmly) their decision. But the decision is theirs in the end.

Now please calm down and read a bit more before replying. This has nothing to do with the GPL.
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Loci
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Loci »

Boucman wrote: 2) This is about including the portrait in wesnoth, not about the right to modify the art or publish your changes, you are legally allowed to do that and LB didn't complain about that. [...]The GPL and the right to modify have nothing to do here.
Oh really?
LordBob wrote:I'll just add that it's at the very least courtesy to the artist to not use their modified work without their consent, and in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work.
(emphasis added)

Perhaps I misunderstood. "Jurisdictions", "Violates" and "Right" are legal terms; I would suggest avoiding them if not intending to construct a legal argument. If you replace them with "Situations", "Hurts" and "Feelings" then I whole-heartedly agree that the GPL is not involved.

For the record, I'm fine with art being rejected on its own merits (plenty has been, and plenty more will be), but I see little discussion of "merit" in this thread. Is it really so offensive for an artist to hear that someone believes their work can be improved upon? Imagine if everyone who has ever contributed to this project behaved the same way: there would be no "Battle for Wesnoth".
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Sapient
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Re: New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

Post by Sapient »

Loci wrote: Is it really so offensive for an artist to hear that someone believes their work can be improved upon?
I think you show a complete misunderstanding of the artists by calling them "elitists."
On this forum we collaborate with people of many different mindsets and personality types.
Artists tend to be a lot more sensitive about how their work is criticized... and even how it is presented (the glorious virtues of the GPL notwithstanding).

So rather than rushing to judgement (and possibly scaring people away), maybe you try to understand them and walk in their shoes. Then you can present your disagreements without name-calling and in a way that they are more likely to accept.

On a side note, it looks like this thread did produce a fine "troll" afterall. ( see I can do the name calling thing too :P )
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Sapient... "Looks like your skills saved us again. Uh, well at least, they saved Soarin's apple pie."
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