Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

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thespaceinvader
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by thespaceinvader »

I'd agree - something akin to ceremonial uniforms for military officers - lots of gold and braids and a scabbarded sword, but not a lot else. Or the equivalent for elves. But i'd also suggest a range - some militaristic, some very civilian.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by zookeeper »

LordBob wrote:Thanks everyone, your input is very much appreciated and will be of use :)
zookeeper wrote:All the elves you talk to are big leaders who apparently haven't seen major conflict for a long time, so I'd imagine they'd look more like civilians than warriors (except Logalmier), although still not like detached bureaucrats.
:hmm: I read those two scenarios and if I'm not mistaken, the elves' part is pure dialog. Yet, do we go as far as displaying them with no weapons ? (save for Logalmier, who looks like the local warlord from what I've read) ; or do we show them armed but wearing little to no armour ?
Yes, they're talk only. I think it's ok to display them with neither weapons or armour, but light armour and/or sheathed weapons sound perfectly fine too, but perhaps neither should be very prominent. It's pretty much your call.

P.S. I wrote this before I saw TSI's and Valkier's replies, and I guess ceremonial-looking armour is another potential choice. Personally I'd still fancy something more minimalistic and discreet, but it's not that important, so you can do it whichever way you want as long as they don't look primarily like epic sword-wielding heroes (except, again, Logalmier).
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by LordBob »

Elven sketches are underway, but nothing final yet.
Work in progress for king Eldaric. He still has a long way to go, but the lineart is pretty much final (I might want to change his expression, though - he started looking severe and ends somewhere near "depressed". :hmm:
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Trilby »

LordBob wrote:(I might want to change his expression, though - he started looking severe and ends somewhere near "depressed". :hmm:
I wonder whether this might be due to the facial proportions, the features seem to be a much too far a part, the gap between mouth and nose for example. He has rather a longish face, not that he shouldn't to some degree.

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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Blarumyrran »

(Generally speaking) I do wish you'd use shiny plate mail more; it's what you're really good at, no need to shy away from it. Eg of your loyalists, units with lots of plate mail, like Royal Guard/Grand Knight/Halberdier, look a lot better than the ones without it, like Bowman/Spearman.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by LordBob »

Thanks for noticing the face problem, I had completely missed it :shock:
Blarumyrran wrote:(Generally speaking) I do wish you'd use shiny plate mail more; it's what you're really good at, no need to shy away from it. Eg of your loyalists, units with lots of plate mail, like Royal Guard/Grand Knight/Halberdier, look a lot better than the ones without it, like Bowman/Spearman.
Plate mail is hardly an option here : it's been debated just before that loyalist characters in tRoW should look older than their generic portraits, considering the timeline of the campaign. Nothing says "advanced armory" like plate mail... :|
If it's the "shiny" bit you're missing, I'll repeat this is only a work in progress and no part of the picture is to be considered final yet, especially not his armour.
If it's something in his outfit that doesn't fit the character or could be improved or some parts of his armour that could be switched for something different, please say so. At the moment, there's hardly anything I can do with such a comment :hmm:
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Valkier »

Looking good so far. I can't say much about any of them till they are a bit more rendered, but so far so good.

As for our King friend above, he's getting a very long and abnormally shaped face going. I think that may be what's causing him to look depressed.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by artisticdude »

Very nice work LordBob, as always. :) It might just be me, but at first glance it looks like the angle of Eldaric's mace doesn't match the angle of the shaft. :hmm:

On the note of his long face:
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by boru »

His hands seem small, and his helm seems like an odd choice for the king - rather plain. His costume looks great though.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by thespaceinvader »

I don't think the head of the mace is parallel with the handle...
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Telaron »

In my opinion his hands seem a bit on the small side. Though I know nothing about portraits.:roll:
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by LordBob »

New version that should fix most mistakes :
- moved the left (our) eye so that both eyes were positionned normally
- moved down the eyes and nose so that normal face proportions are restored
- shrinked his head by 3% - oversized head might have been responsible for the feeling of small hands.
- rotated the handle of the mace by a few degrees

A side note on the choice of his helm (and armour design at large) : Eldaric is the king of a small backwater kingdom and introduced as a sovereign who'll rather be in the thick of melee than parading behind his soldiers. Therefore, my take is that regalia and embellishment should be toned down as much as possible in favor of a more practical gear. I might even get as far as denting it here and there.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Jetrel »

LordBob wrote:Plate mail is hardly an option here : it's been debated just before that loyalist characters in tRoW should look older than their generic portraits, considering the timeline of the campaign. Nothing says "advanced armory" like plate mail... :|
Yes... and no. It depends on the type of plate. Since the days of early metalworking, it's been fairly trivial to bang out large, flat "plates" of armor, and many of the greeks would go into battle wearing large metal cuirasses. They could hammer out a few large plates, punch holes in certain spots, and string leather thongs through them. It was enough to make things like very simple breastplates, and greaves - and with some careful bending and such, round helms with cut-out eye holes in the front (the classic corinthian helm). I believe most of their cuirasses were pretty much 2 parts, one front, one back, with leather ties around the shoulders.

The thing that made medieval armor "advanced", which was much harder to do, was all of those joints, rivets, and hinges - the stuff that allowed actual "full body plate" with all the joints covered, rather than having random isolated plates covering a few parts of the body.


To make armor look more primitive, I'd probably go with ring mail, any of a jillion varieties of scale mail (such as the stuff seen on the english in "braveheart", or many earlier, much less advanced varieties used during the dark ages), or very simple primitive plate, like the greeks used.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Drakefriend »

:eng: Well, Eldaric's helmet seems to come from the false time: His armour could be from the High Middle Ages (12th to 14th Century, when the crusades ), before the knights made themselves more and more immobile by using more and more platemail, but his helmet fits quite bad to him as he was invented in 14th century, where the normal Wesnothian amories obviously are taken from, I think he should rather use Great Helm like the crusaders. :eng:
I think the usage of High Middle Ages/Crusades armory is a very good choice for the Islandfolk.
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Re: Campaign art - The Rise of Wesnoth

Post by LordBob »

Complete shading for king Eldaric. Unless I missed anything major, he's good to go.
Should I also post a small, black-background version ?

Jet: thanks for the reference ; it'll help designing the other loy portraits for this campaign. :)
Drakefriend wrote::eng: Well, Eldaric's helmet seems to come from the false time: His armour could be from the High Middle Ages (12th to 14th Century, when the crusades ), before the knights made themselves more and more immobile by using more and more platemail, but his helmet fits quite bad to him as he was invented in 14th century, where the normal Wesnothian amories obviously are taken from, I think he should rather use Great Helm like the crusaders. :eng:
An interesting comment, but one that comes too late in the process. His helm is still an older design than some of the existing loys and it's a lot of work for an inconsistency that will likely be noticed by only a few.
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