Skeletal dragon portrait

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doofus-01
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by doofus-01 »

Sure, no problem. You did choose a challenging task, but we can see how it goes. :)
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Here is an update of the portrait, I haven't had the much time to do this but there have been a few changes.
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Here's an update of the portrait.
Skeleton Dragon10Pea.png
I haven't posted anything for a while so I'm sure I've missed a lot. I still wanted to make a portrait for the skeletal dragon that could be used in game. I'm happy with what I've done so far, but it doesn't exactly fit in with the art style other Wesnoth portraits follow, and that could either be a good or a bad thing depending on perspective. This isn't a finished project since I still need to do the feet and a couple other details. If anyone suggests it, I could go into a more indepth texture process which could make it match other portraits better and add some boney detail to everything. This would include cracks and scratches in the bone among other methods.
Suggestions would be heavily appreciated, such as how I should frame the portrait, lighting, etc.
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Dragon1.PNG
Dragon2.PNG
Dragon3.PNG
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Amorphous
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Amorphous »

Wow, it's looking pretty good! I agree with your idea about adding more detail and texture further down the line to get closer to the rest of the Wesnoth portraits.

Two other notes I have. Maybe spend some more time thinking about the proportions; I notice that you're not far off from the sprite in terms of relative sizes of head/neck/wings etc., but remember that the sprites always have very exaggerated proportions in order to be readable at their small resolutions. I'm sure you could get some good ideas from looking at T. Rex, Allosaurus, Pterosaur, Spinosaurus et al. skeletons. Second note, I think something that could add a lot for the portrait would be a lower viewing angle to give a sense of how massive it is. Your current 3/4ths profile isn't bad as is, but this could provide some more oomph.

Great stuff overall, keep it up when you have the time!
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Thanks for the feedback. I do think the proportions are fine the way they are now in my opinion. I didn't use dinosaur skeletons as my main reference, but rather decent sized lizards, such as bearded dragons, but I'll keep this in mind in case I want to make any changes to the model directly.

I retextured it completely and changed how the render is framed. This version is inline with the portrait requirements for mainline. I might try to make it less shiny, but compared to previous renders I haven't shown here, this amount of shininess seems to be about right. Really the only issue with it right now for me is that it might stand out a little too much still among some of the other portraits.
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Skeleton Dragon21.png
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Amorphous »

Fair enough about proportions! This newest version looks really fantastic in my opinion, and doesn't strike me as too shiny. If you wanted to go for bonus points, a secondary light source hitting some of the plain black shadows (like a blue, green, or red similar to what some of the other undead portraits have) could add something (not sure how hard that would be for you to do in the render). In either case, way to go on this, great job👏
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Thanks again. I tried messing around with a few of the colour levels and nothing really seemed to work, outside of the shadow colours though, which I've changed slightly so it's less dull. I also added a few more scratches.
Skeleton Dragon23.png
Skeleton Dragon23.png (309.22 KiB) Viewed 2426 times
This portrait here is 500x500 pixels and I can always change the angle of the shot as well as the lighting. Just know that due to the way I decided to texture the model, I cannot change the colour of the light easily.

I don't know what else to do with this portrait, I think I've spent minimum 20 hours on this so far. I might post it in Art Contributions tomorrow or something as well so I can post more of my portraits instead of making a new thing every time I make one.

If this does get accepted for mainline, I'd be happy to do more monsters, like wyverns which could follow a similar artstyle to what I've just made.
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doofus-01
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by doofus-01 »

Nice use of a 3D model! The shoulder blades look a bit odd, but they aren't really visible in the portrait, so probably doesn't matter much. If this gets included in mainline, it would be nice to have the 3D model files as well, but it wouldn't be required.

The portrait image is a bit synthetic and sterile as is, but I think you could easily change that with some manual paint-over. Add some muck, color variation, highlights, some details that hint at how this thing is held together.
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Here's an update on the portrait so far.
Skeleton Dragon31.png
Skeleton Dragon31.png (313.08 KiB) Viewed 2342 times
Skeleton Dragon32.png
Skeleton Dragon32.png (311.21 KiB) Viewed 2342 times
I added a few more long scratches to the horns and added a few pieces of green here and there, some more subtle than other. I also positioned the spine a little better so it's turning with the head in a more natural way. I adjusted a bit of the colour overall as well, including the roughness, which is why there are two portraits here. One portrait has more of a shiny highlight in some areas, whereas one does not. I don't remember there being any blood on any of the portraits so far, but a little red could help if I manage to get it right.

For clarity sake, I did model and texture this. If I do send the 3D model eventually, it will be without the textures unless I bake them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember there being any 3D modeled portraits in the mainline before.
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Amorphous
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Amorphous »

The changes you've made texture- and lighting-wise add a lot. Between these two most recent versions, I'm wondering if there's an easy way for you to take the skull of Dragon31 and put it on the body of Dragon32. By giving the skull stronger highlights (maybe even stronger than the ones you have right now on 31), you increases its visual priority and also might add a bit to the sense of scale, with the difference in lighting emphasizing that the different regions of the body are far apart from one another even though they're all on the same skeleton.

Last thing that just occurred to me, how does this guy look on the dark background that shows up in the help menu?
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Here's another update.
Skeleton Dragon33.png
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skeletal-dragon-ingame.PNG
I did test what it looked like ingame with the 32 portrait and it was a little too dark, so I increased the frequency of the lighter colours. I dimmed out the overall light and added another light around its head, giving the head more of a contrast. In its current form, the portrait looks good ingame. Now that I adjusted the lighting, you can see a little more details within the shadows. Hopefully the highlights and shadows now present the true scale of the dragon.
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Amorphous
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Amorphous »

I'm not doofus so I don't get to approve anything, but I think this is very much up there with the mainline portraits.👍 Would love to see you make more art with this approach!
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Lordlewis
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Lordlewis »

Speaking of which, I think I'll give the Chocobone and Wyvern/Wyvern Rider a shot, and maybe the boats if I can manage to model one. Not sure how well I'll do with something not boney and dead, but we'll see. The more portraits there are in that style, the more they'll fit in.
I've already got a pretty god idea of how I'd do the wyvern, but I don't remember where it's used in campaigns, unless it just hasn't been added to anything yet. I'll probably continue this in another topic in art contributions unless this one can somehow be moved, or I might just change the name of this one, or both.

Thank you both for your feedback.
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Amorphous
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Re: Skeletal dragon portrait

Post by Amorphous »

Chocobone seems like it wouldn't be too big of a leap after this one. Definitely eager to see the wyvern when you get to it, too.
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Lordlewis
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LordLewis' Portraits: 3D Art WIP

Post by Lordlewis »

I've changed the name for this discussion to match the future stuff I plan on doing.

As for now I've started work on the chocobone portrait and it's heavily work in progress (bones and stuff take a very long time to model or sculpt). I'm not exactly sure what to do armour wise. I might change some of the armour to something similar to the cavalry or horseman portraits. I assume the things on the chocobone's helmet are meant the be the equivalent of the fans on the grand knight's helmet, but I couldn't get it to work just yet. I might remake everything eventually outside of the skeleton as I can just stylise them to match the final look I want.
Chocobone8.png
Chocobone8.png (265.6 KiB) Viewed 2044 times
The posing for the portrait might be a little squished, but I will deal with that when the time comes. Honestly, the way the sprite is designed kind of helps with the squishing too since the chocobo only has two legs. If need be I can always change the camera angle to better fit the frame. At the moment I'm just trying to get a similar shot to the paladin portrait, but I might change the pose if I have enough space to as the skeleton portraits in particular are usually exaggerated slightly in a way.

I'm happy with how the shield and spear looks, although I may adjust some of the colours a bit. I also plan on adding more of a clothy look to the spear as well. Speaking of which, if there are any attack icons that need to be made, I can see if I can model a weapon meeting the description as well and make an icon for it.

The cloth on the neck is mostly temporary as I haven't modeled the neck yet, and I don't know how realistic I should go on it since I might just cover it up. I will probably end up using a bit of cloth covering the bottom rib sections where the buckle and harness will be. There also seems to be a bit of cloth covering the back of the chocobone sprite as well, which I will add to the portrait in a similar way to the paladin or death knight.

Hopefully the end product doesn't look super realistic because that would kind of go against my general plan for this portrait. I could probably achieve this with better lighting, but I also want that spooky lighting similar to the death knight and revenant. Overall I am trying to make a unique portrait, I just have to base a lot of the initial looks on what already exists.
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Skull.png
Skull.png (236.77 KiB) Viewed 2044 times
ChocoboneHead2.png
ChocoboneHead2.png (181.18 KiB) Viewed 2044 times
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