LordBob's commissionned work

[AI]

Anvils can vary in size a lot, the one 15 meters away from me is certainly smaller, but googling "big anvil" gives some seriously huge results. It all depends on what you're working on. (and if you're trying to shape a big armor plate without the use of rollers, a big anvil probably wouldn't hurt)

After reading homunculus's post, I also find my vision not being drawn towards his face at first, but that might just be bias from his post.

[Jetrel]

I've committed the young ogre portrait, and as we'd discussed, the "great troll" is going in as a hero alternate. Wiring it in is a matter of going into individual campaigns, and deciding that specific enemy leaders are going to use it rather than than the default one. We loosely have at least 7 or 8 "troll hero" leader characters in campaigns, so he'll get plenty of use.

I'm all for removing the crop, but it implies either:
- fitting the entire body plus hammer inside a 500*500 frame, which will make him look a lot smaller,
- or cutting the right-side shoulder instead,
- or having a 600 pix width. So far, we know that the 500*500 limit can be exceeded without any major side effects, which has already been done for the elder wose in tRoW.

If any I'd go for the third option, but I'll leave that decision to the smart people around who've a long-term vision for what the game should and should not do in manner of display


@Vultraz: that's partly because some of them do rely on photo overlays (the rock, namely). The rest is careful observation of lots of reference.

I suggest that you post an uncropped version, and we'll commit it alongside the cropped version. We'll use the cropped version, but the uncropped one will be available in the event that someone wants to add code support.

This is how you solve catch-22s in collaborative work; you make a point of providing one side of the equation, and it massively greases the gears towards making the other side resolve itself.

[LordBob]

Duly noted. Until I can post said uncropped version, here's a work in progress of the ogre. He doesn't have lines yet, but other than that he's final.

[zookeeper]

Perfect! Again.

[LordBob]

@Jet: Here's my half of the equation, then.

@Zookeeper: Thanks

@Homunculus: I reckon you do have a point regarding the scale of that anvil: it could afford being a tad smaller. Although for indication of scale, one shouldn't pay too much attention to the shields : they're a vague guess on my part, and there are inconsistencies between the different ornaments anyway. However, just this once I'm going to leave it untouched. This is one of those matters on which reaching a widely-shared consensus seems difficult at best, so for now I'd rather move forward than start a round of neverending tweaks. MAybe later, when the rest of the series is concluded.

[Simons Mith]

Peanut gallery comments. Hope you don't mind:

Definitely don't pay attention to the scale of the 'shield', because it's far too small to be a human-scale shield, unless that guy's literally 30 feet tall. A heater shield would normally be about the length of your arm. But if it was just a heraldic badge, it can be shield-shaped and pretty much any size you please. I did do an image search but I haven't found any wooden badges of about the right size with any indicators of scale.

I did find an anvil pic for a 110 pound anvil on top of a log for some scale here:
http://www.spaco.org/Anvil110pound.jpg

But as AI says, anvils come in all sizes, including smaller rather than larger, as this anvil tree and this jeweler's anvil show:
http://www.habairon.org/Interviews/anvil_tree_6.jpg
http://img0.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.275317660.jpg
So, like the 'shields', the anvil can be whatever size the artist decrees it to be. I love the idea that it's a jeweler's anvil and this guy is only a foot and a bit tall.

[homunculus]

[...]Definitely don't pay attention to the scale of the 'shield', because it's far too small to be a human-scale shield, unless that guy's literally 30 feet tall. A heater shield would normally be about the length of your arm. But if it was just a heraldic badge, it can be shield-shaped and pretty much any size you please. I did do an image search but I haven't found any wooden badges of about the right size with any indicators of scale.[...]

...and next to the heraldic shield, drawn to the same scale, is the heraldic buckler used as a belt buckle, I guess you will have even more trouble finding a reference for that : )

Are we making an effort trying to deny the obvious?
I mean, one could certainly make things smaller and larger, and maybe the shield is dwarven size but human style, etc, but that would be intriguing rather than stereotypical.
Not that I would be very much interested in starting a holy war over it, but rather it was all the crits I saw at that moment.

As for the shield attracting most attention, it does have that kind of detail and gradient which I believe might be the cause, but in the smaller scaled picture my attention seems to go to the hands rather, and the contrasting paint on the face, which should be good, I guess.

[LordBob]

Tonight's lesson : how poor design and botched research can -and will- ruin any efforts you put in draftsmanship

See, this is all a matter of relative scale : you simply don't realize how large this troll is meant to be because I did't properly define the tools that should help you do so. They're all individually a good indication of how I perceive his size, but no two of them are coherent in their relative scale :
- First, the belt buckle thing ought to be a kettle hat (but isn't recognizable as such due to poor shading)
- Then there's no such thing as a kite shield on him, merely various heater shields. But they're small compared to the anvil.
- Then there are the blades, which while not necessarily swords are very much reminiscent of them, and so are too large compared to the shields and hat
- And then the bones, which more or less fit together but are yet on a different scale compared to all of the above.
- And then the anvil, which has to reach a proper balance with all the rest while remaining bad ass enough for the taste of the average player.

All in all I'd rather avoid the human skull for scale because it's a terrible cliché, but I'll throw one in if I have to.

I really should have thought this over before shading, because it's going to be hell to fix. But like I said : later...

For now, here comes the lined ogre.

[zookeeper]

As for the troll, I seriously doubt whether it's worth "fixing". If as an artist you yourself want to fix it, then by all means do so, but it's not really any sort of a problem if it's possible to find (if you really look for it) a few somewhat inconsistently sized items in a portrait of a creature which is wearing all sorts of random junk you can imagine.

[Sapient]

For what it's worth, I recognized the belt buckle as a helmet right away. The intended scale seems pretty obvious to me. The only element that stands out in my mind is the anvil, but considering how it will be partially cut off (making its scale fairly irrelevant) I can't see any reason to edit this troll. On the other hand if you were to shrink the anvil, I think it would probably be the simplest way to make all these scale issues go away for the full version.

The detail on your ogre is very nice, BTW!

[LordBob]

Thanks

You've nailed it: this is me being perfectionist. It very likely beats the quality standards of half my old portraits, but from a designer's point of view if it requires explaination, then it's not good enough - real good art speaks for itself . In other words, while definitely usable in Wesnoth, it still lacks the polish that makes the difference between decent art and portfolio material. And building up a portfolio is important to me

[rmj]

This troll [edit: oops, I mean ogre] is a great improvement over the earlier version. He now looks both dumb and dangerous.

I find his teeth strange. First I can't figure out how his jaws could get two teeth to point down and one to point up. Perhaps eliminate the tooth on the right. I also think these teeth are too long and too narrow, but that's just an opinion.

I think he would look better if his large ear was somewhat smaller. I think elf when I see that ear.

[homunculus]

"ruin" LOL.
The troll is a rather complicated piece, most people will certainly die before they will be able to draw such thing without getting more than three crits from me, some of which seem to have been invalid.
Was it da Vinci who never completed any of his paintings?
And who knows, maybe avoiding unnecessary perfection can also be good for your portfolio.
Therefore I will better not comment on the arm lengths of the ogre

Makes me think that your attention might be too much focused, but I can be wrong, and furthermore such statement without the longer story is somewhat useless anyway.

[LordBob]

Yes, "ruin". I really mean it. No matter how detailed and polished a drawing/painting will be, if it's not supported by good design and solid composition, then albeit beautiful, it's little more than an empty vessel. (admittedly, I wouldn' call the troll a "ruin", but still. Those are some severe mistakes...)
Besides, I would say that becoming -and, more importatly, remaining- a good illustrator is also about how much you ask of yourself in the long run. Constant dissatisfaction is a good fuel for progress.

And who knows, maybe avoiding unnecessary perfection can also be good for your portfolio.

Now there's an interesting discussion. The way I understand it it, portfolio material should be either outstanding or not included in portfolio. Once you enter the game business -which I am trying to do- there are many people who can pull off pieces of such quality, and I'm under the impression that art directors are accordingly demanding. But maybe this is a biased view ?


As for the ogre, yes, he does have an arm shorter than the other. And uneven shoulders and almost no neck ; this is yet another not-so-fortunate design choice.
Since ogres are meant to be grotesque, deformed creatures, I willingly kept him out of proportion. However, I didn't manage to make it look like an anomaly of nature (maybe atrophied muscles, swollen joints or deformed bones would have been a better choice). There's a thin line between deformity and imprecise anatomy, and I'd say I'm still looking for it.

But enough self-bashing: here's a study of the generic lich/brown lich. I'm setting the crazy stuff aside for ancient liches, so it retains its human shape and I focused instead on robes that would befit the sorcerer he once was.

[Crow_T]

It's a cool design. but atm has child, or really short person, proportions, only about 5-5.5 heads high.