NR Portraits

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Valkier
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NR Portraits

Post by Valkier »

To clean up how irritating it is to navigate through my other thread, I'll be moving my NR efforts to this thread. Then later this can be moved to the Art Dev forum once I have completed all of the portraits. I'll gather up all current NR portraits and put them here later in the day.

TILL THEN!

Going for something of a functional battle dress of sorts, and by functional I mean she's wearing a dress but it doesn't fly around when she moves. As far as protection, it's not practical in the slightest. She's a druid however, so I'll find a way to live with myself. I may still add in her other arm holding a staff or something. I haven't decided which way works better yet.
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TheBladeRoden
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by TheBladeRoden »

Valkier wrote:As far as protection, it's not practical in the slightest.
There's always the Female Inverse Armor Law
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by JAP »

I have seen similar cleavages on the catwalk, but i believe they use adhesive tape to actually keep the breasts inside the dress.
Isn’t that much to extreme for something that’s used under normal circumstances?
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by perseo »

TheBladeRoden wrote:There's always the Female Inverse Armor Law
How true! I must say that i loved the armour of Li'sar in the kttys work. Because is always funny that men wear 5 tons armour with lot of steel and iron and women wear swinsuits. Otherwise I always like your works Valkier but this time I disagree with this sexist estereotipe that sadly is very extended in medieval ambiented games.
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by em3 »

As much as I love this portrait, I'm sure it will be shot down by portrait directors for extreme sexiness. 8)

Also there's something wrong with her near shoulder/arm. It looks as if her armpit was very low compared to the shoulder. :hmm:
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by thespaceinvader »

I'm iffy about it personally, mainly because having a dress of that sort of design in a combat situation is basically like wearing a giant target over your vital areas. Which is fine, if you're Batman, and wear kevlar underneath the target, but if you wear skin underneath the target, it's going to get you killed.

I don't object (too much) on grounds of objectification, this is the love interest (IIRC), and I can understand her being good-looking. I do object to her painting a great big target over the centre of her chest.

I also object to the fact that her breasts seem to sit a little low down on her chest. I think they ought to be higher up.

I also object to the fact that the shading of her jawline makes it look like she's got a 5-o'clock shadow...
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Kraus »

Hello.

Good to see more stuff. :)

There's something very, very weird about the proportions. The pose is not bad at all, but I really can't read the upper torso. Hopefully the red lines help. I'm not definitely sure what's wrong there, and my corrections might be just as off, but I hope you'll see what I see is weird: the left shoulder seems way higher than it should be, the arm from the elbow upwards is too long for what I can see, and that makes the whole upper torso and the neck look just... a bit odd. The neck in particular looks horribly long. Elvish or not, I think it's overdone. This, or the breasts are just a tad too low.

Also, there's a glitch on the shadow of the right breast. See the pic. :)

This is an odd one, because I really can't tell if this is sexist or not. It definitely is not that bad, because shoulders for example are covered, and other than the cleavage she's rather decent. The breasts are not huge, so I wouldn't say that's a problem either. This might be something that you should reconsider - it's definitely on the threshold of being inappropriate, even though the general feel to it isn't offending at all.

So confusing! :augh:

The weird thing is, that I actually like the pic a lot! :) After you recheck the proportions, and continue working on her a bit more, I think this will be very good. Something about the mundanity and down-to-earth colours makes her very pleasant to look at - and I don't think it's the boobies!

Her face is very lion like. :) Interesting. The whole head is well done, and the face is alive and characterful, as was Tallin's. Very elven, with the slight arrogance and selfconscious hint.

But do check it there's something off with the proportions. My sight just might be a bit off too, it's late and I'm still hung over. :)
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Valkier
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Valkier »

oooh boy. Where to begin. It took me a few minutes to stop laughing at the various responses (cause MAN are you guys fired up). After that I tried to re-read them and make sense of them. I'll try to address what I can but if your point is not hit upon, then I apologize. Likewise, I'm not trying to outright shoot anyone down here. As some of you know however, and I am extremely self conscious myself of this fact, I always seem to come off as abrasive in text.

First off, I got the name wrong. She's supposed to be Elenia, Eryssas older more... we'll say "active" sister. So my bad there. The Elenia portrait I all ready did looks fine enough to me that I don't feel the need to start a new one.

SECOND, and this is important folks, this is a collaborated effort. I talk to the caretaker at length about what the characters personality is and how he envisions them. If I am going forward with a design, it's because he has been made aware and at the very least, no objection was made. Now if I try something and he decides it's not working, I'll rework it. Basically I'm not allowed to be happy with any of these unless he is. Believe me when I say I don't mean to piss off or offend anyone.
Elenia.png
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Granted I got the names wrong, but even if we're going to do a side by side comparison of portraits here, mine is actually showing LESS skin. Now some of you might hate that picture as well. That's a shame. This character is a sorceress or druid or some sort of caster type, she was described to me in such a way that she is a flirty well endowed red head. I do talk to ESR pretty frequently and show examples of what I'm working on. I am not trying to sneak this or force anything in NR. I literally get an opinion from the caretaker on every single portrait.

TSI: I think we can both agree my rendering takes a bit of an evolutionary approach. I appreciate you pointing it out, but take a look at how Tallin changed as I progressed. It would be a decent bet that much the same happens here, resulting in a much more realistic look in the end. Take heart my friend, I am well aware of her blobby colors at the moment. :D A lot of my shading on things is more or less just to give me an immediate visual idea of the same of the object or face, so the colors and such look much more harsh than I intend the final product to be. This is apparently much different than how people here work. For now, I'd like more critiques on the anatomy or costume than rendering.

Kraus: I'll take another look at the anatomy. Thanks for bringing it up.

JAP: I suddenly think you and I need to go drinking sometime.

edited: Came off much more harsh and conceited than intended. My apologies.
Last edited by Valkier on May 23rd, 2011, 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by zookeeper »

Valkier wrote:Granted I got the names wrong, but even if we're going to do a side by side comparison of portraits here, mine is actually showing LESS skin.
The difference is that the clothing in the current portrait is designed to cover skin whereas the clothing in yours is designed to show skin (and to do pretty much nothing else). How much skin is actually shown isn't nearly as important as is the impression that in yours she looks like she's mainly interested in getting everyone to stare at her chest, as opposed to being flirty in a more elegant manner.
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Kraus
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Kraus »

oooh boy. Where to begin. It took me a few minutes to stop laughing at the various responses (cause MAN are you guys fired up).
Or just probably someone here overinterpreted people's responses? :) I don't think they were that fiery at all.

Also, I don't think anyone had the time to even realize you misnamed here in the first place. So no worries there!
Granted I got the names wrong, but even if we're going to do a side by side comparison of portraits here, mine is actually showing LESS skin.
Then again, the style of the portrays has been changing over time, and NR has pretty old portrays. What was once cool, might not be exactly as cool anymore. And this is just an observation on my part, not an opinion as such. :) I remember the discussion way back if one of Kitty's druids should have bare shoulders or not. I think she ended up having them covered. I mean, what the heck, if we CAN achieve something without that much skin, why wouldn't we?

I wrote this piece of B-rated fantasy this semester for the summer's Warhammer campaign, and after my GF read it, she was shocked by these couple of who-cares-npcs getting killed in an ambush. I started thinking: it's a usual convention in WH stuff for people to die, but then again, it would be just as effective if they were beat up a bit and taken prisoners. And a bit more realistic too. I don't know if you get the point, or if it's even relevant, but I think we're talking of the same phenomenon. :)

All I'm saying is that I don't think people were THAT shocked. Less drama, please! :)
em3 wrote:It looks as if her armpit was very low compared to the shoulder.
That might be it! :) Either that, or her shoulder is too high, or slightly both.
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thespaceinvader
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by thespaceinvader »

Regarding costume design: it partly depends on intention. But it's more than possible to be attractive without being blatant. I'd equally prefer something a bit more practical for combat, but I think that's clear already. Her costume is VERY stereotypically 'fantasy-female', and that's to be avoided.
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Valkier
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Valkier »

Rather than write a book in response, I'll condense what I'm going to do:

I'll talk to ESR about her outfit. I have some ideas I wanted to do before but were not allowed. Recently he said he wanted to give me some more freedom however, so maybe I can do that. If not, I'll see about finding a happy medium and address everyone's concerns. As for her anatomy, I think I have her extra collar bones or something, and it elongated the top part of her body. Easy enough fix, I just cut and move the top third of her torso.

Cheers, and stay tuned.
Last edited by Valkier on May 22nd, 2011, 11:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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em3
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by em3 »

thespaceinvader wrote:Her costume is VERY stereotypically 'fantasy-female'
Or 'male fantasy'. Durr.

:lol2:

Anyway - the breasts being low might be attributed to the fact that the clothes she's wearing do not offer any support for the breasts. Even for a perky elven beauty this would cause them to drop a bit. :hmm:
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Dixie »

Leaving alone the "lower body", there's something that bothers me about her face. I'm not entirely too sure, maybe it's the jaw being a bit large, or the nose being a bit large and squarish? In any event, that face doesn't say "sexy" to me, even if you would put her totally naked and in a suggestive pose. Then again, it's still pretty early in the development, but I just thought I'd point it out :)
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Valkier
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Re: NR Portraits

Post by Valkier »

Dixie wrote:Leaving alone the "lower body", there's something that bothers me about her face. I'm not entirely too sure, maybe it's the jaw being a bit large, or the nose being a bit large and squarish? In any event, that face doesn't say "sexy" to me, even if you would put her totally naked and in a suggestive pose. Then again, it's still pretty early in the development, but I just thought I'd point it out :)
Noted and will be addressed.

Talked with ESR a bit, and we both think a nature assassin of sorts will look best for this character. That said, no talk about how it may or may not look close to the sprite here. I'll do my best, but I'm basically being told to do my own thing for this first iteration.
Update will come shortly.

So I fixed the anatomy issues, worked on the nose a bit (won't look attractive no matter what while in line form) and redid the outfit. Most of it is leather. Small plates of metal are present. The little dots floating around are fireflies which will be all glowy and whatnot. Keeping with the assassin feel I turned her staff in to a very short naganita type blade. I'm sure someone will get upset about the floaty orb thing in the blade, but this is primarily supposed to be a magical staff. Function came second to its design.

So have at it.
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Last edited by Valkier on May 23rd, 2011, 8:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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