Portrait Attempts

Vraven · Post by **Vraven** » September 19th, 2006, 3:54 am

Some pictures I drew in the past 24 hours... Ogre was yesterday. He seems far too sophisticated. Then I drew the bat in an hour this afternoon, and the bloodbat in about 90 minutes after eating dinner (Taco Bell). It's probably too demonic, but I like it. All of them would benefit a more careful final revision. I'm willing to continue doing these, but they probably don't cohere with the style of the game.

Sorry if I'm being boring, heh, I just got tired all of a sudden.

Comments/critiques!

borisblue · Post by **borisblue** » September 19th, 2006, 3:57 am

personally I think they're amazing

but Jetryl's going to have problems with your style

Website · Post by **Sapient** » September 19th, 2006, 4:01 am

Allow me to be the first (edit: second) to say: wow! These are really nice. Your style is different than most portraits in wesnoth, but I'll let the art devs decide on that question. Even if not, the style looks well suited for storyboards.

Post by **Sangel** » September 19th, 2006, 4:23 am

These are very high quality - you clearly have considerable artistic talent. Unfortunately, I do believe that we are using a cell-shaded style for our campaign portraits, as it is easier and simpler for artists of different styles to make their work "fit", and it also lends a certain feel to the game.

I'm not sure if a tutorial has been created on this issue, but if there is one, it could likely be found here: http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Create_Art

At any rate, welcome to the forums! Even if these images don't make it into the game as they currently are, I'm sure you'll be making different contributions to the game in no time.

Oreb · Post by **Oreb** » September 19th, 2006, 5:46 am

Yes these are very nice. But of course, like everyone has said. You might have trouble with the Art Devs. Because they are not wesnoth-ish.

Vraven · Post by **Vraven** » September 19th, 2006, 6:46 am

Thanks for the compliments. I have to admit that there are a lot of errors in anatomy, and the color is perhaps somewhat schizophrenic.

Regarding stylistic incongruity, this is what I expected, so it's not really a disappointment in any way. The three creatures were fun to do. It'll be healthy to practice something new.. my sketches are usually flat colors, but they're really scratchy, so a polished, cel-shaded style will be a challenge... I'll try to post some if I do.

Post by **Jetrel** » September 19th, 2006, 9:02 am

We had been having a discussion over in Art Development, regarding the eventual target style for portraits. We didn't come to a decision, and I've come to realize that coming to a decision, now (or then), would have been premature. And a big mistake because of it.

There are two target styles we're shooting for a full set of portraits in - style #1 is the look that Jason Lutes established. Style #2 is a "fantasy painting" style, similar to the look used in Warcraft's art, or in Ragnarok Online's high-end anime-styled art. We are collecting as many portraits of BOTH styles as we can - our first goal is to get one unique portrait for each unit, regardless of style, our second goal is to get unique portraits in one consistent style.

Why? Because the alternative is as many artists cannot be asked to produce something in a style they don't like. And our contributors are working for free.

Regarding your images: Almost everything about them is great - the one thing that is a little goofy is the shading - this is least pronounced on the regular bat, and is a close tie between the other two (possibly with the blood bat leaning towards being the worst).

The chief thing that makes it goofy is that it's inconsistent in terms of lighting direction; which is a heady accusation for me to make. To justify it - look at the ogre's head. (Note - all right/left things are going to be given in stage directions - e.g. his left, his right, not ours) If we look at the top of his head, we have specular lighting on the right of his crown, not all the way to the edge, but near it. Given angles of reflection, and the presumed angle of his head, this suggests a light source directly to his right, and above. However, then we look at his left; at the left side of his mouth. That's illuminated, and it's illuminated as though the light is coming from ... about 60Ã‚Â° above horizontal, and from a point somewhere about halfways between his left and forward. And one could make justifications about a two-point lighting system, except that the shoulder right next to that cheekbone is not lit - even cloth gets some diffuse highlighting.

Please understand, I am NOT making these incisive remarks to discredit your work - you're pretty darn good. Rather - I want to make you better. Because you're in spitting distance of making portraits in style #2, which is the style I want this game to have a full set of portraits for. Make what you will - if you want to make cell-shaded drawings, please do (although you'll need to do a good job of matching the style set forth by Jason Lutes, which isn't too hard) otherwise, please do keep trying at the painted style.

Of what you've made so far, the regular bat looks good enough to go in. It could use some slight tweaks to the shading, and if you don't mind my taking a swing at those, I'll do so. Besides the shading issues, the ogre and blood bat (especially the latter) are too human. Still, these are great work, and I heartily encourage you to keep on swinging, because these are *so* close to being perfect.

Post by **Jetrel** » September 19th, 2006, 9:15 am

Vraven wrote:my sketches are usually flat colors, but they're really scratchy, so a polished, cel-shaded style will be a challenge... I'll try to post some if I do.

Believe it or not, the guy who makes this comic:
http://www.fantasyrealmsonline.com/

Has some REALLY scratchy sketchwork:
http://www.nikogeyer.com/mechapenguin/c06coverA.jpg

He then does one pass of preliminary cleanup:
http://www.nikogeyer.com/mechapenguin/c06coverB.jpg

And then does another pass of final inking, over that. I'm beginning to realize that I need to do two-pass inking (whether on computer or not) to get that same kind of polish. In case you're wondering, the other WIPs of those I just posted are the folllowing - it turned to a painted coloring method after he drew the lines in this one instance,
http://www.nikogeyer.com/mechapenguin/c06coverC.jpg
http://www.nikogeyer.com/mechapenguin/c06coverD.jpg

but it *usually* ends up like the following:
http://www.fantasyrealmsonline.com/manga/05/06.jpg

Vraven · Post by **Vraven** » September 20th, 2006, 4:53 am

Jetryl wrote:Rather - I want to make you better.

That's good, because everywhere I've posted my art I have been denied, for some unknown reason, useful critique. I was beginning to lose hope, being basically left in the dark. Which leads into my primary downfall: yes, accurate lighting. I remember realizing at one point that I needed to keep it in mind, but to be honest, my brain is pretty lazy when it comes to calculating dynamics. I'll be working on it. And that's also exactly what I thought about the ogre/bloodbat - "too human." It's your decision what to do regarding the bat - but better can be done, in my opinion.

These comics that you link? I particularly enjoyed Alpha Shade, and Fantasy Realms has some wonderful art as well. When I said scratchy, though, I meant something like http://alessonislearned.com/. Which isn't exactly suitable. But all in time, yeah?

Here's something I did tonight, kind of a hybrid style. Took a little more time, but whatever. As a side note, the monitor I'm using is quite old and it's hard to do art on without making it too light, or too dark; I have to constantly adjust the brightness dial to make sure.. but they still seem too dark; I don't know; I'll probably be getting a replacement for my broken 17" soon enough, but still.

I could probably still paint over it to make the image more of either style.
Edit: and I just realized the chin is rather slim, I'll have to fix that.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » September 20th, 2006, 5:08 am

I see a couple of problems with the skelly portrait. 1) The metal on the axe doesn't look right with the blue painted look. The two stripes of light blue are creating a ridged impression. 2) The neck region of the armor seems to span the entire width from shoulder to shoulder, while the chest part doesn't share this curve but is flatter / more normal.

Post by **Jetrel** » September 20th, 2006, 5:50 am

The skeleton is ... pretty sweet. *some* issues with lighting, but it's better this time around.

I'll try and do an edit in the next day or so.

These comics that you link? I particularly enjoyed Alpha Shade, and Fantasy Realms has some wonderful art as well. When I said scratchy, though, I meant something like http://alessonislearned.com/. Which isn't exactly suitable. But all in time, yeah?

Ah - that's interesting. That's actually a really cool comic.

In fact, as I read more ... wow. That writer is a genius.

Thanks.

Post by **Kestenvarn** » September 20th, 2006, 9:43 am

The bat is terrific. The skeleton's armor/weapon could use some work, but the skull itself is damned good.

Jetryl wrote:There are two target styles we're shooting for a full set of portraits in - Style #2 is a "fantasy painting" style, similar to the look used in Warcraft's art, or in Ragnarok Online's high-end anime-styled art.

YES. Oh gods yes. In my opinion, this sort of style is a vast improvement over Lute's stuff (and closer to those painted storyboards) ...the only downside being the sheer number of portraits done in the former simplistic style.

Oreb · Post by **Oreb** » September 20th, 2006, 9:49 am

Sweet Skeleton, it has the same style as before, with some minor changes. But it still looks sweet, it's good that Jetryl is making a edit of it and most likely planning on implementing it.

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » September 20th, 2006, 9:53 am

Kestenvarn wrote:The bat is terrific. The skeleton's armor/weapon could use some work, but the skull itself is damned good.

Jetryl wrote:There are two target styles we're shooting for a full set of portraits in - Style #2 is a "fantasy painting" style, similar to the look used in Warcraft's art, or in Ragnarok Online's high-end anime-styled art.
YES. Oh gods yes. In my opinion, this sort of style is a vast improvement over Lute's stuff (and closer to those painted storyboards) ...the only downside being the sheer number of portraits done in the former simplistic style.

Yeah, I am very happy about this decision, means that some of the IoA portraits might go mainline (means that I don't have to bloat the download, and that I have portraits in the mainline, so doubley good for me).

Of course Lutes Stuff is good (I still can't make cell shading or line art as good as his), but I prefer doing it the other way

Post by **Kestenvarn** » September 20th, 2006, 9:59 am

By the way, your filenaming scheme is reminiscent of the one used in Neverwinter Nights. Did you do anything for that game?