Son of the Black Eye portraits: COMPLETE

[thespaceinvader]

Beginning thread reconstruction work. The project Girgistan and I were working on before I went on holiday and the forum collapsed. Portraits for Son of the Black Eye. Some of them are already finished and in-game. Some aren't. I'll be adding a zip of those that aren't, but have been seen before, including big transparent-background versions, and then adding those that haven't yet been seen in attachments.

Plus, attempting to reconstruct the master list.

Done:
Kapou'e/Kapou'e Angry

Gruu

Inarix (attached)
Shan Taum

Lan'Bech

Young/Novice shaman

Shaman

Elder Shaman


Jetto


Flar'tar


Al'Brock


Howgarth



In progress:

Still to do:


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Inarix, then. I had some previews posted before I left. I've updated the linework a little and the shading a lot to give a more scaly effect. I'm very pleased with it. The larger version includes a taller crop with bits poking out the top, as I gathered would be soon becoming possible with the new ways of doing portraits that are planned.

[Girgistian]

Here's the shaman. Jetto's sketch has been deleted, I'm afraid, so I'll make a new one sooner or later. Good work with the Inarix portrait.

[thespaceinvader]

To work!

EDIT: preliminary lines/flats, and a sketch for the magic. I need to liaise with Kitty or someone about how best to do that bit... His head might be a touch large though.

[Girgistian]

Looks good to me. I could have a go with the magic. I can save a separate layer and post it (yeah, I just noticed that. Seems I could have sent the linework like that as well).

[thespaceinvader]

Doesn't really matter too much if the sketch is flat or layered, TBH - i draw straight over the top on a separate layer anyway. I'll wait to think about the magic until i've done some more on the shading, though.

[Girgistian]

Righty. Here comes Jetto.

[thespaceinvader]

He looks excellent. Must look out reference images of people in cloth masks now, to see how the features look underneath.

[cretin]

glad to see your art again guys. inarix is awsome

[thespaceinvader]

Elder shaman (after battling with a VERY odd and concerning GIMP bug where that xcf and that xcf alone (and any copies I made of it) mystically stopped accepting any input from the pressure-sensitive painting tool (AARRRGH!) and any copies made of any layers were blank 1x2 transparent rectangles and reconstructing the xcf by saving each layer as a .png and copypasting them back together) preliminarily complete. The magic effect is a little hokey, but i think it ought to suffice (i did my best to imitate Kitty's methods by reverse engineering from the few similar effects I have available at a decent size).

/me stops stressing out at GIMP before moving on to the next image.

[Girgistian]

The magic looks good, even though it's a bit pinkish. Doesn't matter though. The face's shading does seem very flat lacking in contrast compared to the robe. maybe add more shadows?
Also, the neck seems to be awfully thick. It reaches almost to the chin.

[thespaceinvader]

Both good points - the neck looks odd because i was trying to get those wrinkles that tend to dangle either side of the adam's apple in. but i may have overdone it. I'll add some more contrast to the face, too.

[Girgistian]

Ah. Well I think we can make it without them. The hair looks cool, by the way.

[thespaceinvader]

Thanks, I'm very pleased with it myself =) I think i'm channelling Old Wolverine from that alt-future story...

I'll move the wrinkles back a little bit.

[deserter]

The Elder Shaman generally looks very nice.

But...
The smaller version loses way too much detail on the face. However it's no biggie if we're using only the big versions in the future. Was it so?
The visible sleeve's folds could be redone IMO. At the moment they are a bit too repetitive if I'm not mistaken.
I think that you shouldn't actually see behind the adam's apple at all from this perspective. Not sure though. So if you have a reference picture I'm happily proven wrong.

[thespaceinvader]

Duly fudged-about-with a little. Deeper shades on the face, narrower neck.

I think it is the case the the bigger version will take precedence in future (i think the appropriate GUI changes will take place sometime during 1.5.x so that they can be released in 1.6.0) so i'm not too fussed about the definition of the face. That being said, kitty uses a sharpening filter of her scaled-down pictures, so if it looks bad enough, i might run the whole set of portraits through the same process - personally i think it just looks different rather than better or worse, though.

As for the neck, you're probably right. i think the new revision about covers it, though.