thespaceinvader's portraits - Ancient Wose

[TheJM]

I'm actually not sure how it works in reality. I was just wondering about it, cause the color mismatch was bugging me. So no, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

[thespaceinvader]

Kitty: how's this?

[LordBob]

A quick word about the Griffin rider: in your first composition, what see of the griffin will be all feathers and, I'm afraid, not much interest. I feel reframing your composition with a closer shot of the rider, with a crop of the griffin's rear body, would improve things. The dwarf could also be taller compared to its mount, considering how the griffin's lying down.


As to other portraits, the sentinel especially look great but I'll wait some more before I comment the guard's shading.

[CountPenguin]

Comment on the fighter: I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like this, but under the chest in the middle there are some strangely shaped "pieces" of his armor. One is bigger than the rest with a very straight edge, and some others are small. Just a little detail though.

[thespaceinvader]

Meh - there's some irregularity because they're conforming to the shape of his body underneath, not lying on a flat plane.

[kitty]

woho - nice eyes now!


and don't give up on the gryphon rider that easiyly - you've just tried twice afaik

[Thumper]

The bars on the sentinel's helmet don't work. It looks like a half-assed hockey mask. It's neither a practical device in the real world nor cool-looking, as it's going to necessarily disrupt what looks like an appealing facial render.

- Chris

[thespaceinvader]

I entirely disagree - they're inspired by a real-life helmet, the only difference being that they don't go all the way down the face. It doesn't take much to deflect a sword-stroke...

[beetlenaut]

Thumper: I'm going to suggest that you phrase things more politely in the future. TSI is volunteering his time, you know. I agree with him on the helmet issue, too.

[turin]

I entirely disagree - they're inspired by a real-life helmet, the only difference being that they don't go all the way down the face. It doesn't take much to deflect a sword-stroke...

Hm... could you post a reference or something (since it sounds like you're workign from one already)? I must admit the helmet looks really weird to me too, and I'd like to see an actual helmet that uses it / what differences there are between yours and it that make yours look weird...

[TL]

Woah, that shading on the guard's face is nice. Well done!

As far as the sentinel's helmet: I know it was not uncommon to see barred visors of similar width, but I'm more familiar with ones that use a grill-like pattern. Are you saying there's actually a historical basis for that three-bar configuration? It's very splendidly decorative but doesn't seem practical, since it leaves so much of the face uncovered and looks like it wouldn't have the structural strength to take a lot of punishment. The sprites for the guardsman line do have their faces pretty heavily shadowed, so you could probably get away with adding a couple more vertical guards. It's not really a huge issue, though, as I think you could convincingly make a Rule of Cool argument in favor of the current helmet; it looks pretty sweet now that the bars are fixed.

[thespaceinvader]

Ask, and ye shall receive. Alternatively, image search lobster tail pot helmet...

The reason for including such a sparse visor is the dwarvish cultural aversion to hiding the face - it's raised in tHoT, primarily, but it's been developed into a more severe taboo. If not for that, I'd have him in a visored helm.

[turin]

OK, I think I've figured out what bugs me about the lobster helmet or whatever it's called... his cheeks are actually less guarded by it than by the helmets the Guardsman and Fighter are wearing. I think it would help a lot of the cheekguards were brought more towards the middle, or two more vertical bars were added, one on either side, so that it doesn't look like his face is completely unguarded against a blow coming from the side.

But obviously you're the artist and if you don't want to do this I'll drop the subject. It looks cool other than that.

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah, point taken. I'll see about bringing the cheek guards round a little more.

[TL]

This seems to be a difference between the construction of the sentinel's helm and the example lobster tail pots, whose visors it appears do have two more vertical guards to anchor them rather than being connected directly to the cheek guards (mostly anyhow; I see a couple that actually just have a single vertical bar and no actual visor at all, but these appear to have closer cheek guards too). The modifications incorporated into the sentinel's helm are very striking visually but make it somewhat less protective as turin points out.