Another elvish lineage

[kaiserschwarcz]

I am working in a new elvish lineage. I think there could be a diferent elvish etiny at south (Aethenwood), diferent from the Lintanir elves. I don't know about the Wesmere elves (if they should be part of the Lintanir lineage or the Aethenwood). It's something to think about.

Well, I am initially working on the portraits os this "south lineage", changing the Kitty's original portrayts. After that I will work on the units graphics. Futhermore I would like to discuss the history of these elves and their relationship with other elves and humans. I think that new lineage would bring some new material for tales about elves and make everithing more fun.

As an example, at the Heir to the Trone campaing, the elves that take care of Konrad fron childhood to the beggining of the history should be os this new lineage.

Well, no more talking. Here are the portraits:


PS: I hope Kitty dont mind about that.
PS2: I belive the tree symbol in the flag coul be changed. Maibe another tree or a leave.

[kaiserschwarcz]

One more.

Here I put the leather Armor in a dark blue color.
Below are the version with the usual brown armor to compare.

[thespaceinvader]

First point: why are you changing the background colours? The standard colours are either black or transparent.

Second point: these are relatively decent quality recolours (except the hair. That needs a lot of work). But you ought to be working from the highest possible resolution available, which is in the resources branch of the SVN. This will avoid problems with colour smoothness etc. They will also have transparent backgrounds, which avoids the jaggies around the edges.

Overall, though, I'm not sure of the purpose of this exercise. The elvish portraits are intended to be generic. They could be any elf, anywhere. These recolours look worse than the originals, and are very obvious palette swaps. You should either use the originals, or make completely new portraits, IMHO.

[kaiserschwarcz]

1.Well I changed the background from black to grey to avoid the black hairs to be missed.

2. Indeed, the hair needs much work to be OK.
The purpose of these recolours is exactly to made a non generic elvish lineage. As I said, my target is to differentiate northern elves form the southern ones. In fact, I start to work on these recolour as an art development of a campaign I am working on. I hope I can put that on the forum in a few months of work.
About the original artwork, I cannot do that now cause my scanner are out of order.

[thespaceinvader]

I'll clarify: backgrounds for portraits must be either black (205x205px) or transparent (400x400px). You'll have to work out some way of making sure the black hair is distinguishable.

[Skizzaltix]

I think that thespaceinvader is right about it being better just to make new ones form scratch. If you use these, people will think "generic elf with some different colors", which really isn't all that different--It won't make them feel like it's really a different kind of elf.
Besides which, different clans wouldn't have the same clothes, just in different colors--They'd be wearing stuff with different designs and motifs. I really think you'd be better off doing your own from scratch :/
That said, this is good recoloring. For the hair, have you tried making them very dark blue or brown? It will still look "black", but it will be visible against the dark background. Highlights around the edges will help, too.

[kaiserschwarcz]

OK, I got it, Skizzaltix.

I found a scanner that I can use and I'm now starting to work with my original skatches. I belive I'll can put the first ones here in a few days.

Thank you all.

[Skizzaltix]

I look forward to seeing them!

[kaiserschwarcz]

Well, here is my first "dark elf". Its a work in progress. I didn't made the clothes yet. That's why it is in lower definition than the body. I'm still thinking about how it will be.
Thinking of what Skizzaltix said about the hair, I decided to mede it whit grey tones, so I finally could put it visible against the black background.

I'll keep work in this one and the others.

I hope you enjoy it. And give some opinion.

[Skizzaltix]

Good work! This is coming along nicely.
Though, there's something a little strange about the chin area--I think the problem lies in the angle of the head in relation to the neck.
Also, his left arm is a little too long.
Other than that, though, nice job! I'm looking forward to seeing this colored.

[kaiserschwarcz]

This one are with highlights.

[doofus-01]

kaiserschwarcz,

Good start. A couple of things I noticed:

- The cropping of the bow in the bottom right corner may be a problem. I think the new 400X400 style is supposed to be border-less, so cropping things like that will look very strange.

- The body looks a lot like a young man in an undershirt. If you're using a photograph as a base, I'd recommend against it. If you're not, then never mind.

Hope that helps.

[kaiserschwarcz]

I was working in a linux OS and now that I look it in a WIndows the image seens much less defined, and the hair is again missed in the background. This is happenig to you or is just this computer I'm using?

The clothes are not ready yet. These ones ara just something I put temporarily.

[AI]

I was working in a linux OS and now that I look it in a WIndows the image seens much less defined, and the hair is again missed in the background. This is happenig to you or is just this computer I'm using?

I see JPEG artifacts on the first image with a black background.

[kaiserschwarcz]

Indeed I used a photograph as inspiration for the positioning, proportions and etc. Shouldn't I do that? But I do made the draw by myself.
I mean, it is not a modification of a photo if is that what you thinking.