thespaceinvader's portraits - Ancient Wose

[thespaceinvader]

D'oy, forgot about that - i thought it was only the bottom that could be cropped. My apologies. Still, it wastes a lot of the portrait to use that crop - the saurians don't really fit well into a square, especially with a side view. If i hadn't already finished the pic, I'd consider starting again with a different pose, but...

Arg, i'm probably getting too attached to it. Still, we'll wait for the final word from the man himself. If i see him on IRC, i'll give him a poke.

[Jetrel]

These are both looking really nice, and they'll be commit-worthy once you get the shading done on the skirmisher-line one (the augur already is commit-worthy).

Your designs for these are generally great, although I'm a little iffy on the skirmisher standing that tall, but it's fine.

The only thing that still not quite "great" is the shading - the colors are great, but the shading is slightly in the wrong places. It's a subtle thing, and I apologize for not being able to help with it besides that kind of vague statement.

The other thing that'll help with the shading is that right now, you're using too many brush strokes, and too much blending. It'll look better with fewer, larger brushstrokes, and more constant luminosity in the high-lit regions.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut. ... d_simplify

Actually, one thing that might work well as practice for the shading placement would be to drop down to cell-shading during the task of placing the shading. Just having two "tones" of luminosity - one for the bright stuff, one for the normal, and absolutely no blending. If you're getting the shading in the right places when doing this, it'll just *pop* into feeling volumetrically correct - it'll suddenly visually look correct as a 3d object, and it's only after you've got them in the right place, that you'd want to move to blending any of the shadow edges. This might be a good thing to do a bunch of exercises/studies with.

God knows I really need to do that myself.

[thespaceinvader]

Major linework fiddles on the skirmisher. Shorter, completely different shield and arm, changes to chest armour. Moving on to shading sometime this evening or tomorrow.

[Sapient]

I don't like the loincloth... looks too similar to the drake costuming. Your first sketch for him was my favorite personally.

[thespaceinvader]

... you mean the initial sketch without any costuming at all...? The robe thingy (it's actually similar to the Augur's, except sleeveless) is from the sprite - the level one and two both wear something like it. The level 3 has a hanging armour plate which I did try to include, but i prefer this. I don't want TOO much armour (which i presume is what you interpreted that as on the sketch) since the saurians are more evasive than armoured.

EDIT: shading preliminarily complete. Enjoy.

Cropped, but i've not gone too far, simply because these guys are meant to be small - the amount of human you'd get in the same frame would be less, obviously.

[Skizzaltix]

Nice job--I love those spearheads.
Though, I sort of feel like the angle of the shield and the angle of the leather straps don't quite match up
Also, his tail is shaped a little strangely--It appears to get thicker and then thinner again instead of being a fairly smooth transition.
Anyway, great work!

[Sapient]

I really imagane saurian armor as being more decorational / ceremonial status symbols and basically ineffective. Like you should find some ornate trinkets that are "pretty" and vaguealy armor shaped and gets strapped to their torso. I seriously doubt they have any manual dexterity, much less skill with metal working tools, and this is why they have only mastered one simple martial weapon: the spear.

[Neoskel]

I really imagane saurian armor as being more decorational / ceremonial status symbols and basically ineffective. Like you should find some ornate trinkets that are "pretty" and vaguealy armor shaped and gets strapped to their torso. I seriously doubt they have any manual dexterity, much less skill with metal working tools, and this is why they have only mastered one simple martial weapon: the spear.

In the campaign 'The Rise of Wesnoth', the saurians are trading metal to the naga. At least, last time i checked.

[zookeeper]

I think that helmet-like thing looks pretty bad, actually, and my suggestion would be to in fact remove it entirely. Only the flanker has anything resembling it on the sprite, anyway. Or maybe the shape could just be changed a bit since I think the thing bothering me is that it looks kinda like a big thick bracelet he stuck his head through, but I don't have any specific suggestions really.

[Sapient]

In the campaign 'The Rise of Wesnoth', the saurians are trading metal to the naga. At least, last time i checked.

The saurians are "hard at work" providing "metal" which is needed by the nagas. Since they are well adapted to caves I guess that's not too surprising to have them providing iron ore then to an ally? It's hard to say what the campaign is really describing here, but I don't see how this changes anything I said. In any case, gold which they appear to be wearing in the higher level sprites is a soft metal and it is easily worked (think of the pre-Columbian Americas).

[thespaceinvader]

It's only made of bronze, that's not exactly hard metal. Or metal which takes a massive amount of heat to create. Maybe not quite to the extent of gold, but gold is not something you can make remotely practical armour out of. If it's thin enough to be light enough to actually wear, it's not going to stop ...well, anything. Gold plated or gold leaf is certainly viable, but that's more difficult than bronze.

I'd imagined them, personally, as somewhere between stone and bronze age in terms of technology - when they need armour, they look to bronze, but when they need weapons, they look to knapped flint or obsidian, and thus are limited to spears, axes and knives, all of which you can make very effectively out of little more than stone, wood and string. Such weapons are a heck of a lot sharper than bronze, and (probably, i'm not certain) harder, too.

I'm happy to lose the helm thing, or possibly simply do another portrait for the lower levels without nearly so much armour.

[Neoskel]

I think just losing the helm thingy should work. Without it he won't look as 'armored' i think.

[doofus-01]

I agree with those who say lose the helmet. If you gave him a non-metal headgear, you might not need to draw a separate portrait for the lower levels?

Maybe the thigh pads should be smaller, or made of skins. I think big metal plates would be restricting for a skirmisher. Just my opinion.

Lastly: You may be using too much mid-tones in the metal, it doesn't look very metallic. If you're trying to avoid making it too shiny, maybe try using something like green or blue for the metal oxides.

[kitty]

hmm, i feel that the shading on this guy is considerably worse than on the shaman - what did you do different this time? especially the metal doesnt look metal-y at all....
an exercise that would do you good would be to render this guy completely in greyscale - you will see what works and what not. you will see if your shading/texturizing is metallic or plastic-like without being able to use colour as an excuse. (and it wouldn't even be for vain - you could colourize him later with colour-overlay layers.)

[Corvvs]

IMHO the metal looks a bit pillow shaded but I don't know how to shade metal, so don't take that too seriously. BTW, congrats on your new title, Kitty.