Kitty's random stuff: The South Guard

[Golden_Soldier]

what we are all trying to say is that Gwabbo needs more defined core muscles (right? )

[LordBob]

Congrats on these latest portraits. I'm especially fond of the hair definition for Celadon and Arne's armour design.

Gwabbo's chest is perfectly fine by me : muscle power doesn't necessarily translate into volume or absence of fat. On the contrary, I think his current state gives him the semi-realistic look that has slowly become the trademark of wesnoth portraits.

As for the scale comment...Mermen's scales have had this design ever since Kitty did their generic portraits, which was over a year ago and frankly, it works well enough.

[Thrawn]

I think celedon is my absolute favorite portrait right now O_o

[Sgt. Groovy]

Gwabbo: His weapon is apparently pointing at the viewer, but I find it hard to read it that way, being uniformly very dark it melts into the background. To stand out better, the shadow-light gradient on the underside should be steeper and highlights on the shark teeth brighter.

Celadon: His rear hand looks atrophied and malformed to me. If this is not supposed to be the case, the fist would need better definition of shape and look thicker than the wrist.

[beetlenaut]

Those are great! Their expressions tell you a lot about their characters. Just one thing: Celedon has a lot of history, so it would be nice if he looked older. Just a few wrinkles should be enough.

You really want to redo all the elves? Tell me you just mean "touch them up" a little.

[kitty]

Tiny updates on Gwabbo and Celadon, they're finished now. Plus a rough for a portrait of Haldric II of LoW. Fabi asked for a young, insecure king. I'd like feedback from LordBob on the costume design - I tried to orient on byzantine armour design like you did for his father's generation, but I'm not very well versed in armour things...


Many comments again, I'll try to address most of them...

johndh: hmm, general merfolk lore and equipment... I tried to use a mixture of stuff found in the ocean - lots of algae, shells, coral and driftwood - and traded goods - especially the armour - for my merfolk portraits. E.g. the citizen doesn't "wear" anything, clothing is whether a sign of status or necessary for military purposes. Stylistically it is oriented after graeco-roman and polynesian influences, shell structures are re-occuring motifs. Females might use naturally grown structures of shells, starfish, pearls and snail shells for decorative purposes while for males barnacles are a sign of age. That'S what I can think of out of the top of my head - ask if you have more specific questions

Golden_Soldier: "what we all are trying to say" ?! "we all" consisting of you and perhaps johndh? Be careful to construct majorities... And I'm sorry you're overruled by LordBob and me

LordBob: Phew, I'm glad you approve of Arne's amour! I rarely did any up to now and had quite a few looks on what you did...

Groovy: I did some brightening of the club, but I didn't want to get it too light and meshing with the background... Plus some defining of Celadon's hand.

beetlenaut: I'm glad to hear from the author! And I aged Celadon some years on your behalf.
For the elves - I want to redo all of them. I probably will reuse the poses, but new costume designs plus new painting will probably effort-wise equal a complety redo.

[Golden_Soldier]

sorry about the majority I was probably drifting between here and dreamland when I wrote it so I wasnt thinking

anyway the first thing I immeditaly seem to notice about haldric is his crown... it it looks a little odd. I can tell you didnt just forget about 2 of the spikes (because Im pretty sure that that is hard to do... I think) was he just sloppy on putting his crown on in the morning
anyway in my opinion you should add two spikes to make the crown more equal

[beetlenaut]

I committed the portraits. Thanks kitty!

(I only changed Dead Water in 1.9. The Dead Water version on the 1.8 add-on server still has the Valkier's Caladon picture that was never quite finished. I'll update that too, but I have some more changes I want to make first.)

[kitty]

Golden_Soldier: Yeah, there is something off about the crown's perspective - but I'll wait before I hear back from LB about the crown's type before redrawing it. I don't get what you mean about two spikes more to make it more balanced - how could 6 be more symmetrical than 4?

beetlenaut: Valkier's Celadon?! I didn't see a Celadon portrait at all when I played through DW in 1.9. When did he do one? I missed that, I didn't plan to step on his toes...

[Golden_Soldier]

not to butt into a conversation...
but this is what beetlenaut was talking about
Im sure Valkier won't mind (at least I hope )

about the crown... in my opinion (emphasis in my opinion) this

circle 6.PNG (1.61 KiB) Viewed 3594 times

looks better than this

circle 4.PNG (1.65 KiB) Viewed 3594 times

because not only would it be symmetrical it would be an equal space between the spikes, making it immensly easier to put on (no adjusting it so it looks right with the sides on each side) probably making it more realistic (wow I just had a geeky-ish feeling in writing that )

[LordBob]

The crown is fine, save for the perspective problem : the crown and head are drawn with different angles.

The armour is quite good, not much to say except maybe :
- The pauldron feels out of place. Alternately, you could use roman legion type pauldrons, or make the breastplate a short-sleeved scale shirt. Or use any simpler design that doesn't scream "advanced blacksmithing"
- The added thickness of clothing + chainmail + scale would likely make his chest bigger.

When in need of armour inspiration, I find these sites most inspiring.

[johndh]

Thanks, Kitty! I don't know how often you check Writer's, but I'm putting together a race description for the merfolk (since they don't have one in the in-game help) and I've incorporated most of what you just told me.

[fabi]

Hi Kitty,
Haldric II looks fine.
He somehow remembers me to Keanu Reeves

[beetlenaut]

I thought it was good enough to put in, but you had reservations about it in this thread that never got addressed. That's probably why it never got committed to 1.9. (I didn't have the ability to do that until yesterday.)

[Sgt. Groovy]

The problem with the crown is that the spikes are not placed evenly, and the crown doesn't sit on his head symmetrically. Viewed from directly ahead, this is how it would look like: