Musing on character portraits

[telex4]

One artistic comment: the pictures jetryl is doing look like they are pencil drawings, not at all bright. it might be a good idea to saturate each color more. I know usually people tell me to saturate it less, but this looks like an exception.

No! Desaturated is good! This is probably best left to the artist to decide though

One funny related point... have a search around the web for online reproductions of famous works of art, and you'll find lots of people retouch the colours to their liking, usually making them more saturated and colourful, and in doing so destroying the composition of the peice. Gaugin is a good example for this

[turin]

for a computer game i think that a bit more saturation is good. compared to the background, it looks desaturated, because the background is very saturated. i am basing this off of the image showing how the li'sar picture would look in-game.

[Jetrel]

it's odd, I actually hadn't intended to make her look glum - he eyes have a dreamy, downward tilt, though.

Her tiny mouth is smiling, though, even though it's hard to see in the game graphic.

Most of the other characters will have a healthy smile on their face (the elven fighter/archer, for example). Kalenz seemed a bit more cold/disinterested. Delfador seems serious and determined. Li'sar and Konrad both seem like they should have youthful, cocky grins on their faces.

I had a rough time putting that through on the drawings I made of Li'sar. I'll probably end up redoing them. I'm going to be gone on spring break for the next week, but I can still sketch - I just can't color for a while.


FyI, these are all pencil sketches, which I then scan in, and color on the computer. The line art sometimes need a bit of work when I scan it in, but I do the coloring on the computer.

I'm still working on the process, and in my own opinion, the best example is that druid. I am quite unfamiliar with coloring like this. This is really a learning exercise for me.

I like the way the druid looks in the game, and am going to try and stabilize that appearance.

[fmunoz]

Your coloring is very good but IMHO you should clear your drawings a bit after inking them. Necks also make your images like a old starving people.
Most of my images are done a bit fast so I dont claim they are perfect (some are awful) only a bit more suited to this kind of game.
Maybe we could make some kind of collab.. Me doing the line art (I promise that I'll try to do a good work) and you doing the colour ...

[hook]

hmmm ...maybe it's just me being my own theme-loving self, but what about different theme packs for the GUI, sprites, character pictures?

if there's going to be just one theme, then i'd really like to see a Jetryl-Fmunoz colaboration...

p.s. yes, i'm still alive! just busy -_-

[telex4]

hmmm ...maybe it's just me being my own theme-loving self, but what about different theme packs for the GUI, sprites, character pictures?

I brought this idea up a while ago, and Dave said, quite reasonably, that he'd prefer Wesnoth to only have one theme, since with a game like this the look and feel is as much a part of its identity as the gameplay.

But then there'd be nothing stopping enthusiasts from creating their own themes if they wanted to.

[Jetryl's evil twin]

updated sketch for the elven warrior. Much more appropriate weaponry, etc. He even has a quiver of arrows, as all elven footmen I've see in the game have some use of arrows.


and yeah (fmunoz, or anyone, really), collaboration would be awesome.

btw, do you still have the line art for the main chars? The process I have goes like this, right now:
A] sketch.
B] clean sketch - darken main lines that would otherwise get inked (I don't use inking, nor do I have the pens to do it. My roommate has some, but if Fred Gallagher can get away with not inking, dangitall so can I. Besides, drawing is the final step in most of my usual work, which is why I've never done much inking in the past. A long time ago (back when I really sucked), I used to do all my work in straight penwork, but, obviously, it was full of mistakes, and almost always looked like [censored]. I then switched to doing exclusively pencil work,which is quite easier to correct and refine. This whole time, my skill were thankfully improving (practice does not automatically make people better, sadly).

C] then, for this stuff, I scan it in.
D] in photoshop, which I loathe but is the best tool for the job right now, I make one layer for each main color. Paint it on 100% opacity
E] For some layers, I made secondary permutations of the color and applied those. For example, in the Druid picture, I had about five different greens, each in its own layer.
F] then, I take one layer of solid white and paint it on for highlights. The layer's opacity (not the paintbrush's) is set to ~30%
G] likewise, with black for lowlights
H] another layer, airbrushing with black and white to smoooth everything out.

Now, this whole time, I've had a duplicate of the base line art layer overlaying the whole business, set to "multiply". This allows me to effectivly color-in areas; it makes the blacks of the line art opaque, and the whites completely transparent.

I then duplicate this layer again, apply the poster edges filter to the duplicate, which enhances the main lines, and then I clean up this layer a bit. I have, by now, deleted the base line art layer, although my actions really aren't any different from moving it to the top of the hierarchy; I now have only two layers of line art - one with all the shading that was in the line art, and one that has been darkened and has had the main lines enhanced.

I then play with the opacity of these two layers, and save.

Alphaing, and cropping, follow.

[Jetryl's evil twin]

and in that last one, I was drawing it, and noticing how much the legs were off.

And then I realised "What the hell do I care? They're not going to be in the cropped region."

Knowing me, though, I'll probably still fix them, but...

Ignore the legs in my sketches, because I reasonably don't care about their appearance. Not gonna piss away time on something that _truly_ won't get used

[turin]

my critiques of the elvish warrior:

the neck is very long and distorted. OK if this is your interpretation of elves, but it looks strange.
The hand holding the sword is too small, make it about twice as big.
The shield is probably in the wrong position. i say probably because i do not know how you actually hold shield.
Why is there a tree on his surcoat? i do not think it looks good. maybe some leafy designs, but not a tree. it looks more like the white tree of gondor, which is for humans, than an elvish tree. at least it does now, when it is not colored in.

[fmunoz]

A] sketch.

Same

B] clean sketch - darken main lines that would otherwise get inked (I don't use inking, nor do I have the pens to do it. My roommate has some, but if Fred Gallagher can get away with not inking, dangitall so can I. Besides, drawing is the final step in most of my usual work, which is why I've never done much inking in the past. A long time ago (back when I really sucked), I used to do all my work in straight penwork, but, obviously, it was full of mistakes, and almost always looked like [censored]. I then switched to doing exclusively pencil work,which is quite easier to correct and refine. This whole time, my skill were thankfully improving (practice does not automatically make people better, sadly).

Ink and clean pencil lines. I can use a normal "gel" pen to ink, even a blue one (some lines get drawed twice to make them wider).

.
C] then, for this stuff, I scan it in.

Same

D] in photoshop, which I loathe but is the best tool for the job right now, I make one layer for each main color. Paint it on 100% opacity

I use the gimp, but I use linux so it's the best tool here .
I use a layer for each colour but I use put the draw in the background an the colour layers in multiply. Paint in 100% opacity

E] For some layers, I made secondary permutations of the color and applied those. For example, in the Druid picture, I had about five different greens, each in its own layer.

I fix the transparency of the latyer and add details there I use 3-4 shades of the same colour and blur the end until I get smooth (where i want it smooth) colour blend.

F] then, I take one layer of solid white and paint it on for highlights. The layer's opacity (not the paintbrush's) is set to ~30%

Same but only sometimes.

G] likewise, with black for lowlights

idem, not usually

H] another layer, airbrushing with black and white to smoooth everything out.

Not used

Now, this whole time, I've had a duplicate of the base line art layer overlaying the whole business, set to "multiply". This allows me to effectivly color-in areas; it makes the blacks of the line art opaque, and the whites completely transparent.

Added a copy of the base layer on top with multiply too.

I then duplicate this layer again, apply the poster edges filter to the duplicate, which enhances the main lines, and then I clean up this layer a bit. I have, by now, deleted the base line art layer, although my actions really aren't any different from moving it to the top of the hierarchy; I now have only two layers of line art - one with all the shading that was in the line art, and one that has been darkened and has had the main lines enhanced.
I then play with the opacity of these two layers, and save.

Alphaing, and cropping, follow.

Not very different steps. I got a new tablet (cheper wacom, not too good) this Xmas but I only used it for the starting screen.
As turin pinted the neck and hand need some work (but I usually have the same problem with hands, Konrad image got a "20% digital size increase") A n open hand should be as big as the face.
Elf, your elf look too childish for a warrior but the details are good. I really like the hair. You could use a less cartoonish style in the portraits, making items more realistic (sword).
Minor: Elven shields in the sprites are not round.
IMHO only special characters should get portrait... (there aret too many units and most could talk at some time) but if you help us with them is ok
I can send you some of the images... but I use gimp xcf files for layered images...I have an uncolored dwarf king file that I can send you .. (IIRC as soon at your holidays end) (Warning large multy Mb files)

[Christophe33]

.I have an uncolored dwarf king file that I can send you .. (IIRC as soon at your holidays end) (Warning large multy Mb files)

I was going to ask if any of you had a dwarf (or more) pictures I could use. I'm looking for a dwarf king/clanlord, an eldery dwarf sage/runemaster and a younger dwarf with distinctive redhair which would be the main protagonist of my campaign...if I ever manage to get past the unit drawing. So, any contribution is welcome.

[Jetryl's Evil Twin]

I can read pretty much any kind of graphics file, thanks to a program called "GraphicConverter." It rules.

Anyhow, even in a worst case scenario, I could pop a copy of Gimp on my computer. OS X being unix itself is so ... damn ... nice.

And yeah, I need to work on that whole neck thing. Always been a problem with all of my drawings. Ironically (or perhaps not so), I myself have a very long neck. Such proportion is not out of the scope of realistic possiblility, but I should really correct it.

I'll throw fmunoz my contact (email) info in about a week, soon as I get back to school (and my normal computer).

[Jetryl's Evil Twin]

Cleaned up image of the elven fighter. Thanks to whoever made the comment about the weird neck. I'm blind, and I suck at drawing.

Issues about the shield... hmm.
I could still hack the round shield into a flat-topped one, but I'll leave as is for now (personally, I've tried tracing the shape of the round one, and I don't think it meshes nicely.

[Jetryl's Evil Twin]

Cleaned up image of Kalenz. No major changes.

BTW, I should have compressed a lot of the other images I've been posting a lot better. I'll be more considerate to those on dialup from now on. (like me, right now)

[Jetryl's Evil Twin]

New portrait - Human Lieutenant/General/Shocktrooper/whatever is appropriate.

Note that his sword-arm will be handily cropped off; hence the lack of definition.