LordBob's commissionned work

[Blarumyrran]

Very nice!

[Sapient]

That is a mighty impressive lich! And the coloring looks great.
It's very exciting to have such great art not only for Wesnoth but also widely usable under the GPL.

If I had one critique for this, it would be that the design of the hourglass was a little bit hard for me to read at first glance, almost like I was seeing jaggies. I'm not sure if that is because of the background or just a product of the design itself combined with the small size.

[vultraz]

That.lich.is.amazing

[homunculus]

well, looking at mal-ravanal for 15 minutes, i couldn't find anything even slightly disturbing or out of place or drawing too much attention, etc.
must have been a good effort.

[LordBob]

I'm glad to see this is appreciated, even by you silent types who do not write publicly.
This commission is slowly but surely drawing to its conclusion, as I'm beginning the next-to-last portrait : the generic wose.
For starters, a silouhette study : among these, the most appropriate pick in regard to the unit sprite would be either B,E, or F (though my personal favourite is actually C)

[TheScribe]

G would be my favorite, but for realisim I'd reccomend E. Not that my opinion means anything...

[Blarumyrran]

E looks too much like a scrawny cartoon character, I think eyes should be further down the trunk since that looks more "solid"!

Also I think the hand/finger branches should be thicker than on E & F, since wose's attack is a powerful "slam" impact.

Are you actually going to draw them without leaves? I think you should have leaves, esp since they make woses look more like "tree-monsters" instead of "root-monsters".

I like B & G.

[vultraz]

B or G.

[LordBob]

Aye, I should have mentionned leaves. I was going to add them later in the process and focus first on the trunk and main branches, which I think will are the key defining features of the wose.

Anyway, some more thumbnails revised according to comments. I think H nails down what we're looking for.

I'm also posting silhouette studies for the last portrait : the generic sea serpent. In order to avoid the widely used cliché of the sea dragon,I want to make him look more fish than snake, akin to some monster of the abyss.

[thespaceinvader]

II for the sea serpent. Probably I for the Wose, but I would like to see it with something more closely resembling arms.

It's a proper swine to get right with the portrait restrictions though.

[zookeeper]

I'd go with H for the wose, and I, II or IV for the serpent (can't really decide between them, any of them would work well).

[Flameslash]

H for the Wose and IV for the Serpent.

[vultraz]

H for Wose, IV for Serpent.

[nuorc]

My humble opinion:
H for Wose.

II looks like an angler-fish,
III looks like a moray,
IV looks like the cliche dragon,
so I'd vote for I for the serpent.

[Sapient]

About the sea serpent: while I understand your argument about not wanting a "cliché" sea dragon, I still think IV looks the best out of those four.

The II and III look ungainly to me... I think you are trying to evoke the look of a deep sea creature, but it looks a bit comical. Maybe if you make it completely outrageous: giant spines and/or lures, impractical teeth longer than its own head? I'm not sure. Maybe the final version would still convince me.

About the wose: I love all your wose designs, honestly... it's hard to pick the best one.