wizzardz: completed.

[EELuminatus]

EELuminatus - never, ever mention Peter Lustig again!!! he was the nightmare of my childhood, i always found him very creepy - *shudder*!

Haha, gotcha! - Perhaps the similarity is no coincidence... (ssshh... Peter Lustig is a Necromancer! Kids, beware!)

Back to topic: sorry for keeping you from your hooray-all-mages-finished-dance for so long on the last portrait. In my opinion he could look still more grimly, though - here's a suggestion for comparison, not too much of a difference, but rather what I'd imagine his expression to be like.

(I like the new effect, btw.! )

[Akkarin345]

Are the colours darker on the right. I keep looking between them and the one on the right looks eviler and darker but i just can't put my finger on the reason why. I think you changed the mouth as well? The one on the left looks like he is smiling ( he could be smiling because hes going to raise some dead) but it looks a bit too plesant.

[Sapient]

he turned the mouth into a slight frown instead of a slight smile.
he also added a point of shadow under the inner eyebrow.
they are two very small changes, but I think they are good.

[Jozrael]

They certainly do make it much harder to see him in the same happy light.

[kitty]

this time i added a lot (that is a LOT) more detail in the face - i started with EELuminatus' suggestion but added even more wrinkles and tried to make him more sunken.



angry anderson/ marmeluke: i don't know the policy on easter eggs but that would be certainly funny!

shadow: i understand where you come from, but i think he has to be old and driven first of all. he is simply running out of time - he has dedicated his life to the search for immortality and just hasn't succeded yet... that isn's neccesarily madness.

groovy - yes, of course you are right about the light and thanks for pointing that out. i toned it down a bit but i don't want to lose it completely, i need it to have a connection between the skull and the figure - color repetition to create a connection.

EELuminatus: thanks a gain for the PO! It was a great starting point!

[Sapient]

yes now he's looking sinister
I will say congrats on all the mages now.
Although I will wait to see if Jetryl has anything else to say.

[Shadow]

...
shadow: i understand where you come from, but i think he has to be old and driven first of all. he is simply running out of time - he has dedicated his life to the search for immortality and just hasn't succeded yet... that isn's neccesarily madness.
...

You are so undramatic.
Anyways nice work.

[kitty]

final size...

and shadow - pfft! i'm not undramatic! i just have certain sympathies for somebody who doesn't want to die and does everything for it. to me it seems like something very human.

[EELuminatus]

Yay, that's some creepy wrinkles in his face - great!
No objections left from my side!

Even if I don't not what "PO" means: always a pleasure!

Thanks for your amazingly good work... looking at your portraits, I feel the urge to start painting, again.

btw.: this is BIG drama, I'd say... almost a failed faustian character...

[kitty]

PO = Paint Over

Thanks again! And please start painting again! i'm curious what kind of things you do (besides spriting)!

[Shadow]

...
and shadow - pfft! i'm not undramatic! i just have certain sympathies for somebody who doesn't want to die and does everything for it. to me it seems like something very human.

Depends on the price you have to pay and undying is the worst price you have to pay.

[Jetrel]

This looks excellent. Here's to a full set of mage portraits!

final size...

and shadow - pfft! i'm not undramatic! i just have certain sympathies for somebody who doesn't want to die and does everything for it. to me it seems like something very human.

Some thoughts on the light/dark axis of mages:
Yeah. Likewise - I'm probably just as sympathetic to the dark wizards as I am to the light wizards, which is a lot of the reason I wrote their descriptions that way (making their goal "desperate to stay alive", rather than "seeking power/dominion"). I find that it makes them much more interesting "villians", and even gives them the opportunity to reasonably play the good guy from time to time. I mean - I'd like to avoid two tired stereotypes: 1] The "light mages" who are too conservative to be effectively good, or who have some overzealous, borderline evil religion, or who are just plain secretly evil. 2] The "dark mages" who are automatically evil because, um, they're dark mages. They might legitimately be evil a decent part of the time (I mean, we need mooks ), but being automatically evil is just dumb and boring.

What I don't imagine is there being some "dark side" crap where using these powers actively makes them evil - that's been done to death (no pun intended). The powers aren't evil in themselves, but they're tempting and accessible to use for "evil" purposes, so a lot of people tend to do so.

Here's a list of differences:
- Dark mages are often immortal, or unnaturally old. People get really spooked when you don't die of old age (common theme in literature about immortals of any type).
- Dark mages manipulate/animate dead bodies, and it helps if they're fresh. People take it very badly when that's done to anyone they personally know, even if you're not doing anything necessarily bad. It seems to them like you've enslaved their former friend - or even done horrible things to their afterlife.
- Also, people are almost instinctively scared of ghosts and things from beyond the grave. Which is kind of unavoidable for a necromancer to have around.
- Dark mages often have large numbers of undead servants. These can be tempting to use to do naughty things, since they'll do anything - they'll do things that would be below the worst, most unscrupulous mercenaries. And they're free. And they'll never rat on you if they're caught.
- Light mages will occasionally have servants (golems, summons), but these often aren't as numerous, often aren't quite as instinctively terrifying, and often (at least with summoned things) have wills of their own, and aren't just 'do-anything' servants.
- Light mages may/may not know a few tricks about extending their lives, but they're rarely immortal.
- Light mages aren't involved in all that 'things beyond the grave' stuff.
- All mages are usually powerful enough, that they're above the law, or in certain areas, might -be- the law. If you had the power to kill people (who arguably deserved it) and could get away with it, how many of you wouldn't do it? If you start making yourself the gatekeeper of life and death, you're guaranteed to have some people who will consider you evil.

[kitty]

yeah! done!

would it make sense to move this thread to the art development forum to prevent further idle discussion and preserve it so that i could come back to it if necessary?



and jetryl...
its nice you let me know your thoughts on the mages and their magic. now. after i have finished.
i would *really* appeciate it if you already have such decided ideas about a faction (it's character, the outward appearance, the references, whatever) in your head if you let me know about them *before* i start working or at an early phase. it's like last time you told me after i was done with the elves that you would have liked a more ragged, less medieval approach. that's too late. your the f***ing art director - if you want me to produce art, you'll have to offer a bit of *art direction* instead of telling me afterwards what you would have liked!

[Shadow]

Idle discussion tse tse.
Actual a question that philosophs and poets for generations thought about.

[kitty]

hrumph - that wasn't directed at you shadow! i just fear to find this in three month resurrected because somebody finds something doesn't resemble his interprestation of the sprite enough...

and for the philosophical debate - i'm not sure if the possibilities of dark magic really were included in the latest ethical discussions.....