Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

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Kurumim
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Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Kurumim »

Hi, Welcome to my contribuition thread/topic. This is where i'll be posting my portraits for the mainline, hope you guys like it. I also have another topic, on the workshop area, where i post my own user-made content.
Fencer

I've been looking where to start on and gyphe told me about a project he had going on, with the female units on wesnoth, and that he stopped working on it as the devs were right that female portraits would be needed. So i decided to try to work on those.

So the first thing ive done was to take the original concept as a reference, so i could try to take the vibe and style from it and transfer to the one i was going to create. I ran into a problem that was: The Original Portrait was a little outdated, wich means i would have to either try to match my portraits with it or "updgrade" the old ones and try to polish'em a bit.

Image

As gyphe pointed out, the fencer could use some work on his face and clothe's patterns. And i tried to give more life to it by changing the colors just a bit. I also inserted some shadows too, and changed some details on the hair and his clothes.

Female Fencer

I made 3 variants sketchs to the female fancer ( by this time i had forgotten that the female fencer has level up and all those were to the same unit, but rn im considering use the second sketch to the level 1 and the third sketch to level 3 or 2 )

Spoiler:
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Gweddeoran
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Gweddeoran »

Hey, the new fencer looks nice, though I preferred the old, neater moustache. :D
How's it going with the Fire Guardian and Chocobone. The thing is, female Wesnoth is highly unlikely to happen since each unit will need new animations and baseframes, and there are other, more pressing changes at hand. If you want your work to have a shot at mainline, you should probably start with the ones I mentioned, since they lack portraits and devs may be more lenient with them even if your style does not entirely match the mainline portraits.
Good luck! ;)
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ghype
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by ghype »

First of all, thanks for contributing to this.

You nailed the updated in many regards.The clothing now has proper shading. The belt especially looks great. The pattern on the red cape is a great addition and fits the unit. The new patterns on the sleeves too look great. Before that and the missing shadows the fencer looked kind of blant.

A few notes though:
(1) where as the red cape had no upper outline, the bottom one now stands out too much. It's almost pitch black. Same goes for the knots at the end of the cape. In my opinion those were looking good.
(2) as the sleeves at the first glance look much better, you can still see that you used a mask for it (which is not a bad thing). But at some places they overlap which creates a clutter if you zoom in. Maybe paint over the the fractions of the old pattern where is new pattern is layered on top of it. If you happen to still work in CS5 then thats something even I can fix myself.
(3) as you were adding shadows to the missing place, shouldn't there be a slight hint of shadow under the weapon holster?
(4) as you work with relatively thick outlines, some elements on your face feel different. I don't want to say they don't look good as I might just not be used to it yet. The Nose and eyes as well as the moustache and neck/collar are having too thick outlines in my opinion. The eyes look like he is wearing Eye-Liner which I think might have been possible for fencers at that time (lol) but i don't think it should be generalised. The nose form from the original looked also more natural. The new beard doesn't look bad either but i am wondering what was wrong with the original one?

Anyway, I took the liberty to put your changes and see how that looks with the old face and I'd say that it works just as fine. What do you think?
fencer male_2.png
fencer male_2.png (148.23 KiB) Viewed 5378 times
gweddeoran wrote: May 10th, 2019, 6:49 am The thing is, female Wesnoth is highly unlikely to happen since each unit will need new animations and baseframes, and there are other, more pressing changes at hand.
The fact that many lv2 and lv3 units use the same portrait is something I thought was normal and as it planned to be. And I think many (especially new players) do think the same. Gender diversity shouldn't be disregarded that quick and devs always spoke in favour of that. But I don't want to argue which is more urgent. Kurumim is free to decide what he'd like to work on.
As for the sprites, I am the one who would animate them. The most work will be the lv1 and I already have a part of those done. Lv2 and LV3 will be done quick as in spiting.
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by beetlenaut »

ghype wrote: May 10th, 2019, 7:08 am The clothing now has proper shading.
Yeah, it looks much better!
ghype wrote: May 10th, 2019, 7:08 am The Nose and eyes as well as the moustache and neck/collar are having too thick outlines in my opinion.
The mainline portraits don't have outlines on all the facial features, so it's not necessary. I don't think the original face needed to be upgraded at all.
Kurumim wrote: May 10th, 2019, 1:52 am he's literrally just standing still, but i dont know if i should go far from this idea with the female one.
Yes, please do. That would be better.
Kurumim wrote: May 10th, 2019, 1:52 am this is actually my favorite but it might be the hardest one to work on too.
It's my favorite too. I hope you decide to give it a try.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by The_Gnat »

@Kurumim, I am really impressed by what you have done! The updates to the fencer give it much more detail and the sketches you have drawn all look like they can easily turn into impressive drawings. I can already imagine any of those 3 sketches as a fully unit. :)

In regards to the original Fencer I agree with ghype's assessment of the face, I personally prefer the original face purely because of the skin tone and facial expression which looks more natural. Overall, however, I am really looking forward to seeing what you do with all of this! (Especially with ghype's female fencer sprites being developed as well! :D )
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Regarding the female fencer sketches, I actually prefer the first because it's not too different from the male portrait. Or to put it another way, if you're going to make a more dynamic female fencer portrait as in the third sketch, then the male fencer should also have a more dynamic portrait.

I'll note that portraits don't need to be dynamic though, since they generally represent units standing around talking.
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Kurumim
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Kurumim »

Thanks everyone for the feedback <3 i'm really excited about doing these.
gweddeoran wrote: May 10th, 2019, 6:49 am Hey, the new fencer looks nice, though I preferred the old, neater moustache. :D
How's it going with the Fire Guardian and Chocobone.
Thanks, man. :D I dont plan in starting the Fire Guardian and Chocobone yet, 'cause the fencer will probably take some of my time and i dont want to start a bunch of things at the same time cause i know i wouldnt be able to finish neither haha. Im doing one thing at a time ;).
••••
About the things Gyphe and the others pointed out i tried to fix as many as i could, i agree that the pattern on the arms and sleeves looks kinda weird, thats because as i said, i suck at doing patterns. But i tried to solve the problem in another way, as you can see below.

I added shadows under the weapon holster and reworked the "jacket" thing he is wearing, i wasnt really happy with the old texture. I also tried to fix the nose shape and the thick borders u guys mentioned. About that beard, i just changed it cause i thought it wasnt fitting the "new face" i gave him :lol: :lol:

Image

I'll be honest, i'm not really a fan of his original face, i can't quite figure out why, but i think it might be 'cause i dont feel the anatomy below it or something like that ( also i feel like its melting, lol ), so i decided to give another shot at reworking it. If you guys still think that the old one is better thats okay too, we can use the old face in the new body, as gyphe showed with no problems ♥.


Image

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ghype
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by ghype »

good job. you exceeded my expectations. You fixed the face and he looks normal and more handsome then before and they new clothing is spot on without getting too complicated (as the old one wanted to be).

The shading on the face is more natural and the beard looks much leaner. The new glove is fine work too.

Some anti-aliasing and cleaning needed but other than this, this one good to for me.
fencer-comparison.png


Lets remind that the reason Kurumim is doing this, is not that the fencer generally needed an update, but so that the female portrait he might do is in the same art style as male.

I agree with celtic on this matter, the female and male stance should be the same for all lv ups (even if the current stances are not very interesting. It also will be much less work for you.
Last edited by ghype on May 11th, 2019, 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by beetlenaut »

ghype wrote: May 11th, 2019, 9:13 am good job. you exceeded my expectations.
Yes, this is great! There is one thing I think that could be improved still: The eyes are a little muddy and dark. They could have more contrast and sharpness.
ghype wrote: May 11th, 2019, 9:13 am the female and male stance should be the same for all lv ups
This is a confusing statement to me: Most of the units that already have different genders have different stances too. (Look at the necromancers for example.) It's fine if they are the same, but apparently there is no reason they should be. There is also a precedent for more dynamic gestures. (The drake enforcer and soulless are examples of that.)
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by ghype »

I am sorry. Upon checking i realised that they are totally not the exact same stance. But some case they aren't very different either.
You can ignore that sentence anyway. Celtic spoke about the dynamic of the stance, not the stance itself - thats where my mistake was.

The artist should do the stance he enjoys to do the most.
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by The_Gnat »

Great work Kurumim! I like what you have done with the new face, it looks more natural and very well done! Also I absolutely love the new clothing color that is soooooo much better!
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by beetlenaut »

ghype wrote: May 10th, 2019, 7:08 am I took the liberty to put your changes and see how that looks with the old face and I'd say that it works just as fine. What do you think?
This isn't as good as Kurumim's current version, but it's not bad either. I think it is different enough to make a good alternate.
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

beetlenaut wrote: May 11th, 2019, 7:55 pm
ghype wrote: May 11th, 2019, 9:13 am the female and male stance should be the same for all lv ups
This is a confusing statement to me: Most of the units that already have different genders have different stances too. (Look at the necromancers for example.) It's fine if they are the same, but apparently there is no reason they should be. There is also a precedent for more dynamic gestures. (The drake enforcer and soulless are examples of that.)
I think they don't need to be exactly the same stance, indeed. However, you shouldn't have a situation where one gender has a simple, relaxed stance and the other has a dynamic pose.

Doubly so if the gender with the dynamic pose is the female and it trends towards the kind of back-breaking poses you see on comic books. (Which I think wasn't the case with this sketch, fortunately, though I'm not quite sure.)
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by Kurumim »

The_Gnat wrote: May 11th, 2019, 10:58 pm Great work Kurumim! I like what you have done with the new face, it looks more natural and very well done! Also I absolutely love the new clothing color that is soooooo much better!
Thanks, man <3
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 12th, 2019, 1:03 am Doubly so if the gender with the dynamic pose is the female and it trends towards the kind of back-breaking poses you see on comic books. (Which I think wasn't the case with this sketch, fortunately, though I'm not quite sure.)
Thanks for the feedback <3 :lol: dont worry, that sure wasn't the case. I haven't decided yet wich stance i'll be working with ( 'cause you all have pointed out really good thoughts/arguments ) but the second sketch is just meant to give more flow to the drawing, and the third one was inspired by that concept. Wich is a fencer character from league of legends. I'm also not a fan of arts that do not respect the basic anatomy.
beetlenaut wrote: May 11th, 2019, 7:55 pmYes, this is great! There is one thing I think that could be improved still: The eyes are a little muddy and dark. They could have more contrast and sharpness.
Thanks for the compliment <3 i'll try to work on that and see how it goes.

Nway, about the other lvls ( Duelist and Master at Arms ) Should i try to polish them too? Also, are we going to use the same portrait of the female fencer for all the lvls or will she have one for each? To me either is fine, the only thing is that it may take a bit more time to finish all of these, since more portraits require more time.
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Re: Kurumim Portraits / Art Contribuition ( Fencer Units )

Post by beetlenaut »

Kurumim wrote: May 12th, 2019, 3:19 am about the other lvls ( Duelist and Master at Arms ) Should i try to polish them too?
I'd like to see a female fencer first if it's all the same to you. I like what you did with the male, but improving portraits that are already of a usable quality is a lower priority I think.
Kurumim wrote: May 12th, 2019, 3:19 am are we going to use the same portrait of the female fencer for all the lvls or will she have one for each?
At least two would be nice, but this is always left up to the artist. We will use as many portraits as you make. If you don't make three, we will just reuse one of them for multiple levels.
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