LordBob's commissionned work

[Wesbane]

An easy way to show that this is a high level of lich would be to give him a taller hat/crown. It's a simple visual cue, but effective.

This was already proposed in concepts on figures A – C. Each of them superior to current one. Among other things showing an intriguing explanation of ancient lich ability to cast spells at accelerated rate. Two right hands! All of this was rejected in favor of model G for following reasons:

G is our winner; to be served with added bling, hold the impalement.
- The pose of B is also appreciated, but IMHO the creature itself resembles too much my recent lich portraits, and G might loose it's appeal if I simply changed its pose to that of B.
- I will recycle parts of H and I in the final portrait, because I would indeed like the ancient lich to feel from an entirely different age – an effect which portraits A to C fail to achieve.

When you have some expectations to final result, but you are not doing it yourself, you get both more and less than you would like to get.

It looks ancient and lich. But it doesn't look that powerful.

I know nothing about it, but surely it is portrait of some ancient lady. Check out those headgears.

[Telchin]

LordBob is a great artist (while I'm not) and I like how the ancient lich portrait uses the triangular symbol visible on the Dark Adept's portrait. On the other hand I'm not sure I like those masks (?) on the lich's belly and crotch. The staff (and perhaps those masks) remind me of pre-columbian America (compare the staff's head with this Inca knife or Manco Capac's staff on this picture). Is it just a coincidence or an intent? (nothing against American natives, but it might be slightly out of place in Wesnoth's mostly pseudo-european setting).

I know nothing about it, but surely it is portrait of some ancient lady.

Technically, female Dark Sorcerers can advance to a lich too, so lady ancient liches can be presumed to exist On the other hand most (if not all) named (ancient) liches in mainline campaigns are refered as male (Jevyan, Mal-Ravanal, etc.)

[vultraz]

I like it Nice female lich.

[Wesbane]

Technically, female Dark Sorcerers can advance to a lich too, so lady ancient liches can be presumed to exist. On the other hand most (if not all) named (ancient) liches in mainline campaigns are referred as male (Jevyan, Mal-Ravanal, etc.)

Not in terms of game mechanic. Game don't knows any female lich. Gender is not specified in their units definition file. What is treated by default as male. This parameter can be only inherited or set on a fly just as for any other unit type. Because of that reason campaigns don't feature any female liches in mainline or UMC that wouldn't advanced from Dark Sorceress and they aren't characters.

Summing this up it is a portrait of generic ancient lich, unit with unspecified gender. As such figure presented on it shouldn't wear any clothing elements that could be interpreted as women ones since that would look really weird.
Also it is very hard to determine gender of a skeleton without examining it carefully. And all in all taking into account most of ancient lich images in campaigns there are presented in them as bone demons, with not much original parts of their bodies left. More over, it seemed that for liches their own corpses have only practical meaning as power vessels for souls. So female lich portraits are definitely useful only for special characters, which currently don't exist.

[LordBob]

I know nothing about it, but surely it is portrait of some ancient lady. Check out those headgears.

You're a little quick in assuming that only women wear headgear and cloth at the same time.
Wether it used to be male or female will be up to the player. Right now, all I need to show is that it's a dead thing, period.

I'll work on its outfit some more so that it looks powerful enough, though do not expect me to go all-out Warcraft-like: as Gruese said, I want to avoid the high fantasy cliché.

Is it just a coincidence or an intent? (nothing against American natives, but it might be slightly out of place in Wesnoth's mostly pseudo-european setting).

It's no coincidence. The culture of the wesnoth folk came from beyond the sea, and I want the ancient lich to feel different; a remnant of a dark power that was there before, a civilization now extinct that might have been as old as the elves.

Though that's a wish born purely from my imagination; fitting that wish into the Wesnoth continuity might require some further work. Anyway, if the difference is too much (after all, it'd be an isolated unit with no cultural sibling anywhere in the game), then I'll cut the crap and go back to models A-C.

[zookeeper]

Is it just a coincidence or an intent? (nothing against American natives, but it might be slightly out of place in Wesnoth's mostly pseudo-european setting).

It's no coincidence. The culture of the wesnoth folk came from beyond the sea, and I want the ancient lich to feel different; a remnant of a dark power that was there before, a civilization now extinct that might have been as old as the elves.

Though that's a wish born purely from my imagination; fitting that wish into the Wesnoth continuity might require some further work. Anyway, if the difference is too much (after all, it'd be an isolated unit with no cultural sibling anywhere in the game), then I'll cut the crap and go back to models A-C.

I think it's fine as it is. Considering how they'd mess with all sorts of otherworldly things and old spirits and who knows what, it doesn't seem very out of place if your average ancient lich sported a style very different from that of everyone else. It's not like there's much social pressure for them to conform to contemporary fashion, either.

[homunculus]

I know nothing about it, but surely it is portrait of some ancient lady. Check out those headgears.

You're a little quick in assuming that only women wear headgear and cloth at the same time.

That reference is not very convincing, as Frank Zappa might easily wear anything.

If Zappa is the main reference, you could also make sure the lich looks male...

Spoiler:

...by attaching the snake skeleton between the legs (I can imagine it might even fit the composition: a nice S-shaped snake might continue the right hand line, and the snake head could repeat the viewing direction of the human head).
And then you could also have chosen F for the generic wose and called it "a memorable experience for an advanced tree-shagger".

I don't mind the decorative headgear at all, but more concerned about the headgear wearing out the cloth of the hood, or any hood becoming dust at the skull below it turning this way and that a zillion times.
And right now it is very hard to guess how you can make it look powerful enough to distinguish from the lower level, therefore I can't really have an opinion.

I think the generic ancient lich should remain mostly humanoid to provide more contrast for the bizarre bodies of the campaign-specific ones.

Yeah, I agree with this. One or two light modifications (like a pair of extra arms) are fine, but going too crazy (like having skeletal horse legs or whatnot) is probably out.

Makes me wonder what this meant exactly, did it categorize, say, the 19 among the initial sketches as too extreme or not?

[Telchin]

@LordBob and zookeeper - Yes, that makes sense (I could respond that not all ancient liches in mainline campaigns are from beyond the sea, but those campaign relevant usually have custom portraits anyway). Thanks for response.

@Wesbane

Not in terms of game mechanic. Game don't knows any female lich. Gender is not specified in their units definition file. What is treated by default as male. This parameter can be only inherited or set on a fly just as for any other unit type. Because of that reason campaigns don't feature any female liches in mainline or UMC that wouldn't advanced from Dark Sorceress and they aren't characters.

Yes, I'm aware of that. In English it doesn't matter much as English is mostly gender-neutral, but I play in Czech translation (where all nouns and adjectives have genders) and liches always use masculine forms. Maybe the unit could have two forms using same sprite like the Nagas do now? But that's beyond the topic of this thread and I don't want to delve into sexuality of the Undead. My response to your previous post was meant to be more of a joke than serious (hence the use of ), so if it looked as a jab at you I apologize.

[Wesbane]

You're a little quick in assuming that only women wear headgear and cloth at the same time.

No. I'm not assuming this. I just pointed out that on your sketch headgear looks more like veil wrapped around head of some highly positioned lady than sort of male headwear.

Whether it used to be male or female will be up to the player. Right now, all I need to show is that it's a dead thing, period.

As I stated before I'm not drawing it so you take decisions on what you want it look like, but currently it seemed to be much better to make portrait which is at least open for viewer interpretation about figure gender as it is with lich portraits. Not that having clearly female ancient lich portrait as alternative is bad.

If Zappa is the main reference, you could also make sure the lich looks male...

Sorry for misunderstanding. The point is not that it is not look like a male, but that it looks more like remnants of a female. If it comes to undead it is impossible to determine their gender, since they have no visible distinctive parts of body or clothing that would allow to make such conclusions. Exactly as when you are looking at fully armored person.

I don't mind the decorative headgear at all, but more concerned about the headgear wearing out the cloth of the hood, or any hood becoming dust at the skull below it turning this way and that a zillion times.

Urge for realism is ridiculous. Everything in any game is fictional even in those realistic ones. Beside that liches as beings connected to other planes of existence are not bound by rules of ordinary world.

About language and genders:

In English it doesn't matter much as English is mostly gender-neutral, but I play in Czech translation (where all nouns and adjectives have genders) and liches always use masculine forms.

Actually gender issue in languages that support such feature as czech one is much wider. Campaigns are not design to support it, so it is common that dialog translations are done completely ignoring gender assuming that speaker is always male. In cases when given sentence can be spoken by both genders the only solution is to translate: I have acquired an item, like it would be: We have acquired an item. But as you pointed out such discussion doesn't belong here.

[...] so if it looked as a jab at you I apologize.

No it didn't. So no need for that.

[gruese]

Urge for realism is ridiculous. Everything in any game is fictional even in those realistic ones.

So just because something is fictional it cannot strive to look realistic? Doesn't make sense to me - I think a certain amount of realism improves most fictional material in that it makes it more believable (even though we know it to be fiction) and thus more immersive.

But I do agree that the common viewer would probably not be concerned with the cloth being worn out by the headgear. I wouldn't have noticed it if homunculus hadn't pointed it out. I also wouldn't have identified the clothing as being female, but maybe that's just me.

[LordBob]

So, revised lich. It's gotten real sketchy and messy, but hopefully you'll still get the general idea: broader shoulders, less ambiguous coif, extra arm, added staff bling.

[vultraz]

Personally I dislike the extra arm. Maybe have some kind of bat or something holding it for him and get rid of the back arm? And also, TBH, I kinda liked it better when it looked female-ish.

EDIT: OH I have an idea. Why don't you complete both versions of the portrait (but without the 3rd arm), so then users will have the appropriate one for UMC use?

[pyrophorus]

Hi !
At first, I felt uneasy with these three arms (why not four ?). Then I think my feeling come much more from the idleness of the second left hand: for now, it does nothing clear (holding a cigarette ? ), and so, looks superfluous. I could imagine it holding an object the lich looks at, carrying a weapon, a bag, or anything...
Just my two cents...

[Telchin]

I agree with pyrophorus that the third arm looks idle right now, though the picture suggest that it might hold something (some sort of a spellbook? a magic amulet? a crystal ball? a ritual dagger?). Alternatively it could have some "magic firework" effect as the current Lich and Dark Adept portraits have (but that might look tacky or make it too similar to the Lich portrait). Maybe it could also remain empty but change gesture (would pointing at the viewer be too corny?) or position on the body. Such change might break the picture's composition or obscure the decorations on the body though, so it might not be worth the effort.

[LordBob]

EDIT: OH I have an idea. Why don't you complete both versions of the portrait (but without the 3rd arm), so then users will have the appropriate one for UMC use?

Because it's twice the work ?

* sigh * This isn't getting anywhere. I'll do with that arm what I deem fit, most likely ditch it. Yes, I had some kind of magic effect in mind, but apparently there's just no way it's going to satisfy everyone at once, and myself I'm not too keen on the stuff anyway.