Loyalist Portrait Series

[thespaceinvader]

No indeed - his overall body shape and size look fine to me. But his arm does look really kinda skinny... It's about a quarter as thick as his chest, and it ought, i think, to be more like 1/3 or 1/2 as thick.

[LordBob]

TSI : dunno. The arm might be 1/2 of his bare chest, but what about the added volume from the breastplate & stuff ? Anyway, this should be an easy enough fix.

Turuk : should've said 45 pounds is as low as it gets, armour of common quality was probably not such a lightweight. Still I'm not surprised to hear modern gear is heavier.
The sword position you suggest sounds reasonable, but changing that is a lot of work so I'll likely pass

[Turuk]

The sword position you suggest sounds reasonable, but changing that is a lot of work so I'll likely pass

Fair enough, I figured as much. Just at least wanted to bring it to your attention in case you found it pertinent enough to do so.

I actually recently saw the armor in the museum you are using for reference, and there was a display where you could hold pieces (replicated) to get a feel for the weights. The variation, and often lightness as you noticed, was interesting.

[thespaceinvader]

TSI : dunno. The arm might be 1/2 of his bare chest, but what about the added volume from the breastplate & stuff ? Anyway, this should be an easy enough fix.

His arm also gains some thickness from the size of the armour and padding beneath it - almost exactly the same amount, in fact =P

And yeah, you really don't notice the weight of the things you wear nearly as much as you think. We wander around every days wearing several pounds of clothes and shoes and don't even notice them. Heck, we swing around nearly half our body weight in our legs and don't notice them. You need a bit more stamina and strength to deal with armour, but contrary to many popular expectations, you don't need to look like a body builder...

[LordBob]

Will do the corretions on the knight when I shade him.
Work in progress of the paladin lineart

[Sgt. Groovy]

Christian symbolism should be avoided, especially with a unit with "holy" connotations. Maybe you can replace the cross on his chest with the ankh-like symbol of the white mages:

[Turuk]

Until I got down to your post and you bothered to mention it, I didn't take the cross on the chest as Christian symbolism, just as an armor design... but ok. If LB is willing to change it into an ankh or just do something else entirely, then that can solve your issue.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I should also point out that the cross is NOT an inherently religious symbol. It's a simple shape that was in use for decorative purposes centuries before it had any religious symbol whatsoever. The way it's done on the knight, it does not appear as a symbol at all, but merely a shape made up of decorative lines. I see no problem with that and nothing religious about it whatsoever.

[SouthernOracle]

I didn't notice any such connotations either. Unless LordBob painted those lines red and called him a crusader, then maybe it wouldn't be appropriate. I believe circle emblem on the chest diverts these thoughts well enough.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The funny thing about it is, the ankh IS an overtly religious symbol, even if it is from an ancient religion no longer practiced.

[thespaceinvader]

No, the funny thing is that it's not specifically an ankh, it just looks kinda like it.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The christian knights often used cross-shaped structural elements that were also made to stand out as decorative (like in this helmet), so it would be safer just to avoid it (it certainly struck to my eye). Also, since the paladin stands out from its sibling unit by its spiritual/arcane nature, it would be nice if there was something to explicitly indicate this. Since it stands to reason that their spiritual strength derives from the same source as that of the white mages/mages of light (they are both practicioners of "white magic" and they are of the same faction), the same symbol would be an obvious choice.

[thespaceinvader]

Remember, however, that the symbol used in the White Mage/MoL portraits is significantly different from that seen on the sprites, and more resembles a symbolised sun rising.

[LordBob]

The cross will remain cross-shaped.

What the lineart doesn't include yet is cuneiform engraving (I'll be using that font TSI proposed) on the cross that should dissipate any association with christianism. Said engraving is planned to have an unnatural gleam that will clearly claim magic's at work. Other than that I'm not aware of a definite arcane symbolism in Wesnoth. Besides, if anything the paladin is a templar from the Crusades more than a mage (at least according to his unit profile).

[Sgt. Groovy]

The paladins are do-gooders who heal and fight undead. The Templars were greedy and powerhungry bankers.