Imperial Era Art Project (Workin' on Orcin')

[freeforestify]

So here is some color work. But I see what you are looking for. I'll try to figure it out a bit more next time. I think this wasn't my last bestiarius^^ Thanks for your comments

[Amorphous]

Even if it doesn't fit the needs of IE, it looks great, and I'm sure some UMC author will find a use for it. Can't wait to see what you draw next!

On the spriting front, I haven't been as productive in the past week or so as I would've hoped, but I still got some things done.

I made a variant of the Pugnator without the facemask, though, I must say, I'm not very satisfied with it. It would probably look better if I tweaked the palette, but I'm not sure it'd be worth the work. Still, I'd be willing to do it if you you preferred, as well as implementing it to the Bestiarius and Feral. Also, since I was editing them anyway, I did minor tweaks to the original Pugnator baseframe, as well as to the Bestiarius's. And, lastly, some updating to the animation. I think it's basically good to go for shading etc.

Btw, thanks for the info about the units, I'll have to keep that in mind when updating the sprites.

[UnwiseOwl]

Amorphous. Yeah, you're right, he's better with the mask, let's go with that. This looks great. It's probably worth mentioning here that game-play wise this unit is actually more likely to use its whip that it's spear, so the spear animation is great, but you may wish to think about a whip one too

Freeforestify: Beautiful. I can't believe I let this sit here since Christmas without expressing my delight in the orcishness of it. It would be great if he could have a whip, even coiled at his belt or something, but apart from that I am very, very happy with it, and would love to use it.

Of course, we'd better wait for Temuchin's ok, since these are his units, but I have the feeling that we're not far away from having our first IE portrait (and a brand new sprite to go with it).

[Amorphous]

Oh, heh, I haven't forgotten about the whip attack, I've actually been deliberately putting it off. It's just that getting the kinematics right on the whip is going to be pretty tough. But yeah, I'll get down to it eventually.

[freeforestify]

I'll revise the portrait and add the whip. Here's another sketch - for pugnator maybe

[UnwiseOwl]

If your doing portraits for the Pugnator (or its upgraded Paegenarius form), then your may want to keep a similar body and facial type to your Bestiarius, since they both some from the same base unit, the Pugnator. I also imagine that it will also have a face-mask, ala the most recent sprite.
Apart from that, remind me not to get into a fight with that guy. I think he could probably take me.

[freeforestify]

I want to satisfy all your requirements, what you want them to look like. Maybe i'm in need of some more descriptions what they really should look like.

[UnwiseOwl]

I'm keen to hear what Temuchin thinks, I'm sure he be back sometime soon. But to my mind if you consider the Bestarius as an experienced Pugnator, so make the Pugnator much the same body/armour type but younger/less scarred, armed with the club and spear (based more or less on Amorphous' sprite above then you'll be on the right track. It's still a big, brutish gladiator, but it's not a veteran yet.
For the grown up Paegenarius, we don't have a sprite yet, but I imagine a bigger, more brutish version of the Pugnator, probably heading more towards your sprite above, although that's a little bit too trollish/orgeish. I hope that Amorphous is keen to redo the sprites for that line too (pretty please), but if you use the current sprite as the basic idea it should be good.
Not being artistic, I find it hard to give artists the kind of information that they need to have something to build from, so feel free to ask anything and I'll do my best to provide information. Just let me say your art style is...really really good. As a non-artist I couldn't presume to even start giving you advice on it, except to say keep it up!

[tr0ll]

that guy may look brutish but notice how he holds the club in his fingers like a fine instrument, and almost seems ready to punch with it. he has to be rather strong and well trained to use it that way.

[Amorphous]

Okay, I'm back with more stuff. A revised Piscator, and a sketch for the Paegenarius that will hopefully give freeforestify some ideas. The way I envisioned the Paeg was basically just a bigger, meaner version of the Pugnator with a few more bits of armor. The armor on his arm was inspired by lorica manicas (I don't know the plural form, please don't kill me); I don't know why, but I've become really fond of the idea of the Paeg using them.
Thoughts?

I hope that Amorphous is keen to redo the sprites for that line too

Yeah, I should probably start being more methodological in the order that I redo the sprites.

[freeforestify]

So, I'll try to resume it a bit. They should look like strong brutish and somehow branded orc-gladiators with modified roman armour... ? Do they have special signs or symbols on their armor? Do they have small heads like more elvish kind of thing or have they bigger heads like trolls?
To the pgconcept by amorphus: Should the portrait orc also has just one arm armored?

I'll draw some sketches and hopefully we can find something that fits in your imaginations^^ I'll try the best

[freeforestify]

Here's some kind of Orcgladiator. Please describe, what kind of information to add and what should be different and stuff.

[UnwiseOwl]

Amorphous: Loving the manicae. That definitely works for the Paeg. It also gives him a bit of armour so that we can stay with the general theme of silver metal colours for the level twos and golds for the level threes. This is going to look great when it comes together.
The piscator looks good to my mind, but it's pretty busy, hard to know whart's really going on. I'm no artist, but it isn't obvious to me what's going on with his arms and weapons in that one.

Freeforestify:

They should look like strong brutish and somehow branded orc-gladiators with modified roman armour... ?

Confusing, isn't it? Sorry about that. I guess the core idea is that the magni (Pugnator and Gallus lines) are like the mainline orcs (mostly the grunt) except wearing various pieces of Roman/Gladiator armour. If you imagine mainline orcs wearing the kind of armour portrayed in the sprites you'll be right.

Do they have special signs or symbols on their armor?

I don't think there's faction-wide symbols or anything like that, they're basically a rag-tag group gathered from all over, so there's no unifying government or symbol.
However, the originals of each line of units were captured members of original primitive tribes, so the samnis/hoplomachus/thraex/secutor line could all have a shared symbol, as could the gallus/dimacherius/murmillo/provocator and pugnator/paeginarius/bestiarius, and that would work really well. As to what those symbols might be...I guess it's up to you. You may be able to find inspiration from the Italian tribes like the Samnites and Marsi, though I can't say anyhting in particular springs to mind.

Do they have small heads like more elvish kind of thing or have they bigger heads like trolls?

Like the mainline orcs. So definitely not small, but not outrageously large like trolls, either.

To the pgconcept by amorphus: Should the portrait orc also has just one arm armored?

Yeah. That's pretty much a meme of the gladiators. There were some that fought with nets and tridents (like our Retiarii), but I agree that it looks good on the Paeginarius, so let's run with it for now.

As to the picture, the mask and general stance make me think of the Secutor. He's armed differently, but I think something like this could work well for him. You can find all the current sprites for these guys at: http://units.wesnoth.org/1.10/Imperial_ ... imper.html

[Temuchin Khan]

I'm back. As for my opinion of the new Orcei art, so far I think the sprites are coming along nicely, and I'd be happy to see them replace the old Orcei sprites. As for the portraits, they're on the right track. Sorry I can't be more specific just yet.

[UnwiseOwl]

Temuchin Khan's back! Huzzah! Now I can stop pretending that I know anything about the Orcs.
Temuchin, would you mind going over the data in my last couple of posts and make sure that I'm not pointing anyone in the wrong direction? When you have time, of course.