Portraits for UMCs (Split from THoT portrait repaints)

[JW]

For context, split after this post: THoT Portrait Repaints

It's situations like this that frustrate me as a UMC developer. I would die to have the quality work that DUHH (and others) can create. Instead they're directed to work on campaigns whose developers don't even know they're getting help with by other art developers like a good 'ol boys club. Thankfully DUHH is also working on a portrait for the EOM that I am very pleased with.

[Jetrel]

Fair enough. But you have to understand, an author won't necessarily be fully conscious about some of this stuff until he sees an image - character construction doesn't work that way, you discover things about your characters as often as you invent things (especially later in their development).

Ultimately, there's a bit of give and take. By getting the help of other people in providing depictions of characters that I feel personally attached to, I'm kind of making them a co-author. They innovate in unexpected ways. Some I like, some I don't. I try to let the minor things slide, and only complain if they make a character the polar opposite of some part of his/her nature that I'm really attached to. It's hard sometimes, but in a way, giving them a bit of authorship the price paid to them for doing all the work of drawing someone else's character. (Artists have a lot of overlap with interest in writing, and often have an army of their own characters they'd love to be drawing.)

All that said, as an artist, it is respectful to try and follow the original author's intentions, and if I were providing portraits for a campaign (har, har - we'll get to that eventually), I'd feel obligated to read all the text behind the campaign (usually pretty easily done by just opening all the level files in a text editor*)). It lets me look at everyone's lines, and those usually serve to give a background of the character. We should probably make this a suggested thing for artists planning to take on a campaign.

It all boils down to people being nice and having a healthy buffer for what they're satisfied with - on both sides of the equation (writer and artist). After all, we're all doing this in our spare time. (and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone - I'm actually kinda surprised at how agreeable people have been in this thread.)


* Yes, either NotePad (windows) or TextEdit (mac) can open the .cfg files. They're just plain text.

[Jetrel]

It's situations like this that frustrate me as a UMC developer. I would die to have the quality work that DUHH (and others) can create. Instead they're directed to work on campaigns whose developers don't even know they're getting help with by other art developers like a good 'ol boys club. Thankfully DUHH is also working on a portrait for the EOM that I am very pleased with.

Yeah, I can understand that that'd be frustrating. We do prioritize campaigns over eras, because portraits really only matter most when they're being used for dialogue, or specific characters, of which generic mainline units end up often playing as "extras", if you will. They are our "redshirts", but we still need 'actors' to portray them. Whereas with eras, they're more solidly geared at MP deathmatches, and portraits are rarely meaningful there - the units aren't talking, and the portraits aren't looked at as much.

Want portraits for an era? Make a campaign where some unit lines from that era have significant dialogue. That's what makes portraits worth having.

[JW]

Want portraits for an era? Make a campaign where some unit lines from that era have significant dialogue. That's what makes portraits worth having.

Count Kromire
The War of the Dragon

[Turuk]

Split only because this is going into what may be a full-fledged discussion which would otherwise derail DUHH's portrait thread.

I have noted both in the title and in the first post the exact context for your statement, JW, so that it remains just as valid. You are free to continue your discussion here.

[turin]

It's situations like this that frustrate me as a UMC developer. I would die to have the quality work that DUHH (and others) can create. Instead they're directed to work on campaigns whose developers don't even know they're getting help with by other art developers like a good 'ol boys club. Thankfully DUHH is also working on a portrait for the EOM that I am very pleased with.

*shrug* Can you blame them? Honestly, even though I have a bunch of user-made campaigns lying around that will never get mainlined and also a bunch of unit lines for the IE that could use portraits, I would rather have new artists like DUHH work on mainline campaigns and mainline units than on the IE, the EoM, or any of the campaigns for either of those eras.

Why? Because it's better to have the main game be polished - to have all of the units in the default era have portraits, to have all of the mainline campaigns have portraits - and not have any portraits for the user-made eras than to have 70% of the default era units have portraits and 30% of the UME units have portraits. The latter looks less professional on the part of Wesnoth, and on the part of the user-made eras. Having a few random units have portraits but the rest of them not makes people think, "wait, why don't those units have portraits? What's up with this?" E.g. the Warg portrait DUHH is doing for you; I'm sure it will end up looking cool, but if you put it in with no portraits alongside it, it will look out of place and IMO make the EoM look less well-done, not more.

Campaigns are a slightly different matter, but I'd still rather have new artists be doing portraits for the default era and the mainline campaigns than for user-made campaigns, for similar reasons.

So, basically, I completely disagree with your complaint.

[Sangel]

I agree with Turin on this one. While Wesnoth benefits greatly from its thriving collection of user-made content, it's the polish of the mainline game that is most effective in drawing people into the game. As such, I feel that we should be steering top portrait artists towards the default units and mainline campaigns.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that our portrait artists tend to work on whatever they feel most comfortable working on, and rightly so. We've got some truly prolific artists working at mainline standards right now, along with a bunch more very close to mainline standard. I have every confidence that the default era and mainline campaigns will be well populated with portraits by the end of the year, and that many artists will be adopting various user-created branches by that time as well.

[JW]

Having a few random units have portraits but the rest of them not makes people think, "wait, why don't those units have portraits? What's up with this?" E.g. the Warg portrait DUHH is doing for you; I'm sure it will end up looking cool, but if you put it in with no portraits alongside it, it will look out of place and IMO make the EoM look less well-done, not more.

I don't agree with that statement. Besides, you have to start somewhere...or should progress never be made? Maybe you're happy with that for your era, but I'm not.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that our portrait artists tend to work on whatever they feel most comfortable working on, and rightly so.

That's the point.

Look, I'm not going to make this an argument - it's just my opinion. I'm frustrated. Can you blame me after reading the posts in the thread this was split from? A good portrait artist gets into an uncoordinated mess because he's led to work on something from authoritative sources without a nod from the campaign director - and just because the campaign is mainline. Well correct me if I'm wrong, but that campaign wasn't always mainline, now was it?

Just think about it.....I'm not going to debate anything with anyone.

[torangan]

So try to get your stuff into mainline and its priority will rise.

[Turuk]

So try to get your stuff into mainline and its priority will rise.

While that statement does make sense, to be fair to JW that is a bit unfair to say given that he would have to get his entire era into mainline since the campaigns use units from an era that is not the default, just as if Turin was doing the same and had to get the Imperial Era in as well.

I think that mainline is indeed the priority, but there's nothing wrong with UMC authors like JW with complete content asking if an artist wants to do portraits for their campaign. It is entirely at the artist's discretion and often times they may find the different units used in a particular UMC more to their taste then those in the default era, particularly as the field of portraits left to be drawn for mainline narrows, as there is a finite number of mainline unit portraits and then character portraits for mainline campaigns. Besides, some of the artists do work for promising campaign on the UMC side now, as kitty has been helping Shadow_Master with portraits for IftU, so it's not as if the idea of DUHH helping out with some EOM portraits is such a crazy idea.

[turin]

I don't agree with that statement. Besides, you have to start somewhere...or should progress never be made? Maybe you're happy with that for your era, but I'm not.

I won't comment on my plans for the IE, as they are unbelievably ambitious and will probably never end up happening. (They don't involve getting portraits in the mainline style anyway, since they wouldn't fit at all with the flavor of the IE, so maybe that's partially why I don't really care whether or not artists work on UME stuff.)

But my point was "stealing" artists from mainline for a UME decreases the quality of both mainline and the era, in the short term at least. IMO you'd be better off waiting until mainline was pretty much finished portrait-wise. That way you're more likely to get multiple portrait artists and not have to share them with mainline, thus slowing both of you down. You'll end up portrait-complete in about the same amount of time, and not spend as long looking silly for have 30% portraits.

Look, I'm not going to make this an argument - it's just my opinion. I'm frustrated. Can you blame me after reading the posts in the thread this was split from? A good portrait artist gets into an uncoordinated mess because he's led to work on something from authoritative sources without a nod from the campaign director - and just because the campaign is mainline. Well correct me if I'm wrong, but that campaign wasn't always mainline, now was it?

Honestly, I don't see your complaint. At all. I have no idea why you would think DUHH ought to have been working on UMC stuff rather than THoT. And to clarify - I have no problem at all with portrait artists working on UMC or UME stuff if they want to, but I do think you're not really justified in getting frustrated at them working on mainline stuff first, and I do think it's somewhat silly of you to post in the introduction thread of every new artist "hey, come work on the EoM!" when they're already starting to work on mainline stuff. But I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on this, so whatever. You don't have to reply to this if you don't want to.

[JW]

But I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on this, so whatever. You don't have to reply to this if you don't want to.

Well, I will, since you're painting a picture of me that's inaccurate.

But my point was "stealing" artists from mainline for a UME decreases the quality of both mainline and the era, in the short term at least.

And how do you feel about "stealing" UME artists for mainline?

IMO you'd be better off waiting until mainline was pretty much finished portrait-wise.

TBH I have pretty much been doing that. The confusion in the other thread made me think 'wtf' though. I really didn't expect a large discussion to spawn from my frustrated feelings.

Honestly, I don't see your complaint. At all. I have no idea why you would think DUHH ought to have been working on UMC stuff rather than THoT. And to clarify - I have no problem at all with portrait artists working on UMC or UME stuff if they want to, but I do think you're not really justified in getting frustrated at them working on mainline stuff first

That's not what I think at all.......it's that the campaign director apparently didn't realize that work was being done for him since DUHH was directed to the campaign by other people (and the author doesn't use the forums much). Perhaps DUHH could have been working on more coordinated efforts with someone else.

Try rereading my posts with that perspective in mind and you may find that your disagreement with me begins to fade. Also, please check your PM box in about 5 minutes.

edit: reworded 1 sentence

[Sangel]

That's not what I think at all.......it's that the campaign director apparently didn't realize that work was being done for him since DUHH was directed to the campaign by other people (and the author doesn't use the forums much). Perhaps DUHH could have been working on more coordinated efforts with someone else.

Ah, now I get it. You have absolutely no problem with mainline being the focus, you're just a little annoyed that this focus led to work being done without the proper communication channels being opened first. Fair enough.

I would note that we've had a few mistakes like this in the past, and the lesson usually gets learned properly. I imagine that none of the regulars will direct an artists to a mainline campaign again without making sure that the lines of communication are properly opened.

[DUHH]

I don´t really get the point of this.

As I see it, the mainline unit-portraits should be the most important for the artists to work on. The mainline campaign art the second most important. The UMCs behind that again. It´s only natural. The mainline game is the first impression that people get of Wesnoth, and it should have the most polish and most effort put into it.

Whether or not the writer appears to appreciate it or not is irrelevant. Creative differences and problems in communication are just as likely to affect a UMC as mainline campaign. No biggie. It happens.

Right now I´m working on a mainline-campaign, because I said yes to it before I really got a full picture of the workflow here. I´d rather put in effort towards finishing the unit-portraits, but what the heck... Campaigns also have to get done. And dwarves are fun and challenging.

The reason I´m doing the Warg is just because I thought it´d be fun. I´ll probably try to do all the different Wargs because they are fun to draw, but it will be second in priority to me.

[Iris]

correct me if I'm wrong, but that campaign wasn't always mainline, now was it?

THoT was not strictly mainline at a certain point, since it was being distributed via the add-ons server.

However, its development was begun by two mainline developers (ESR and Taurus) with the only intention of including it for mainline. It was already decided that THoT was going to be mainlined when completed, even before its first release as semi-UMC was done.