Musing on character portraits

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

Here's a shot of the online comic "Alpha Shade" which I am desperately trying to emulate; their use of color is great, for example, and I really like the way they shade things.

I'm starting to wonder whether or not I should include a full-height portrait instead of these scaled - upper half of the body shots.


QUESTION FOR DAVE: What are the exact requirements for unit portrait images? I've been assuming just png/200x200, but can they be different?

I've been thinking that maybe one image of the upper body should be used for dialogue, and then perhaps a full portrait for unit info.

It's a possiblility - In any event, the unit info windows are huge right now for any units with a portrait, and a nicely sized full portrait wouldn't eat up too much space.
Last edited by Jetrel on June 1st, 2004, 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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turin
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Post by turin »

the lower abodomen, under the shirt, seems like it gets cut off too early. it should probably be wider, i'm not sure in which direction it should be widened, though.

these are great graphics, although i'm not usre i could get used to seeing them in-game.
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

turin wrote:the lower abodomen, under the shirt, seems like it gets cut off too early. it should probably be wider, i'm not sure in which direction it should be widened, though.
Both it and the leg need to come up and to the left. All of about three damn millimeters, and it's amazing what a difference it makes.


poop.


In any event, I need to figure out something to do with my line art - I might be able to get away with it as is, thanks to the low resolution of things such as they are, but I really should learn to use a vector program.

Photoshop has some vector functions/ so does illustrator.

grumble. Chances are, I'll fix this one up for the line art, and then ... uh .. do something else, or whatever. I don't know. peace
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Post by Dave »

Jetryl wrote: QUESTION FOR DAVE: What are the exact requirements for unit portrait images? I've been assuming just png/200x200, but can they be different?
They can theoretically be anything the artist wants, as long as they look good/consistent, and generally fit on the screen at all resolutions.

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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

Here's a retake on that picture.

I *so* want to know if this transparency trick will look alright, or if I can use the whole image.

experiment time!
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

and so it seems I can... for better or worse.

I'm not sure if some of the things I tried with this one were good ideas, but at least it was an effective experiment.
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Post by Jetrel »

In this, I've learned how to properly do that back splash - it was waaay too bold before.

Questions still abound regarding the inclusion of the name in the portrait. I think it looks cool, and I think it also helps distinguish main characters from minor/generic portraits, should they be included. The druid I did before, for example, did not have a portrait.


And here's my take on the full picture vs. upper half of body debate:
I think that full body shots look dumb as conversation pictures. However, they actually look kinda cool for unit descriptions et al.

- the idea is this: conversation pictures carry a feeling that it is a picture of the person actively in conversation with you. Unit portraits however, should be a picture of the character doing something else. Standing, yes, but standing in some cool pose or what for. Not unlike "washington crossing the delaware," really. A person simply standing is a bit boring for a straight unit portrait.

It's a question of whether or not Dave wants to code in support for units having separate conversational and description portraits - shouldn't be terribly difficult.

Also, the removal of the ~100px padding on the bottom of the description dialogues would be nice, and would help to facilitate this. I think that was a hack of sorts that was made before ANY unit portraits were around, simply to easily get that dialogue to a decent size. Perhaps having the dialogue simply have that as a minimum size, rather than a value which is always added to its height would do it.


So, um, there are the first two (minor) code requests made in this thread. I think, though, that they would benefit anyone who makes content for this game. Also, should a creator not wish to use the separate images, he/she could simply designate the same image for both.

Which merits another question: I looked at the cfg files describing the units, and being a far better programmer than I am an artist, this stuff all makes sense.

I can now add portraits to any unit I want in my own copy, and get a feel for how well they work.

add line

Code: Select all

profile=path_from_within_images_folder
is there any requirement that it be in the same position withing the cfg file? or can the flags be in any order?


There's a deeper question that I have as well, which isn't so related to wesnoth:
Dave, how did you implement the parsing of these files? Did you code it yourself, or did you use some library? I'm really curious about this, because I'm going to need to do the same kind of stuff in the game I'm writing.
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

Here's why I didn't like fmunoz's picture; a dissection if you will:

1} the line art is actually pretty good. Some lines perhaps should have been dimmed/removed in the final shaded version, but they probably looked just fine as straight line art.

I'm not sure about the forelocks and the big poofy bangs, but that is an artistic choice, not a technical mistake.

The eyes and face are well done.

2} colors were good except for the hair - too dark of a yellow I think


3} it's the shading where fmunoz bit it, per se. This is a error that Ian McConville really hassled himself over on one picture that I didn't mind myself (though, he does a very good job with it). It's the overuse of "airbrushing."

It wasn't so bad on Konrad/Delfador, but it looks terrible on lisar and especially kalenz. It makes them look lumpy.

Lisar's skin was ok - there were a few lines on her stomach I would have done without (see {1}, above), but overall it was alright.

The hair was bad - the shading makes it look embossed (like a raised relief carving), not volumetric.

Though the light angling was decent on the armor, the presence of the strong outline (again, see {1}) is one of the biggest things that makes her left breast look ... odd.


Airbrushing is a hard way to shade, which is why I haven't used it anytime remotely recently.
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Post by quartex »

Now that you mention it, Lisar's hair is really golden yellow, and the hair in front of her ears (on a man i'd call it sideburns) does look a bit odd. But I never noticed it before. Somehow it doesn't seem half as bad in game.

My favorite Lisar you've done so far is actually the front-on shot you posted on Tue Mar 30, 2004 at 9:51 am. The pose looks a lot more natural. I think, as you can see from the ingame shot, the reason why people started with upper-body portraits was that most campaign developers will only use a few lines of text in each dialog box, so since the image is usually bigger vertically than the text, it looks really odd if you have a really long image. Since most conversations are 1 sentence at a time, having a shorter image makes it look better in-game.
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

It's not that I can't draw, it's just that mashing my drawings into a form suitable for wesnoth is hard.

And it's a skill I need, sadly, but it'll be really fun once I actually, um, have it.

This drawing is completely unrelated to wesnoth, but I just felt like posting it so you guys have an idea of what I'm working with.

Actually, this just gave me an interesting idea. Maybe, just for the hell of it, I should try for a more painterly look?

Another experiment.
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Post by methinks »

HI!

The biggest problems I see with your drawings is character faces. Eyes are strange (big but not even mangaish, though I wouldn't like them even if they were) and their facial expressions are bizarre. They look sad, perplexed and whatnot. I would be the most happy if you would have gone for more classicall style.

Just my random ranting :)
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

which drawings?
methinks
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Post by methinks »

Actually all of them apart from the happy one. You use mostly the same style for all portraits so I thought it was obvious, that's wjy I have skipped mentioning that. ANyway keep it in mind that it is only my opinion and I hate manga :)
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

I'm curious to know what you mean by "more classical" style.

I mean, it would rock if I could emulate this guy, but I can't.

Classical coloring, whether by paint, by pastel, or by watercolor, generally does not have edges like comic art does. Sure, some painters, like picasso, do, but much of that kind of drawing is far from realistic, and a good deal of the subjects become far less intelligible. In picasso's drawings, for example, the gender of the subjects is often up for grabs.

In classical painting edges must carefully be defined by light and color, and are notably more volatile.

Comic art is a lot more symbolic. Instead of going from a sketch to a primary blocking of colors, you go from a sketch to a hard piece of line art. Really, a finished work of art on it's own. Then, color is applied and shaded to the desired values. The result, though, is never classical in style, or at least, no one considers it so.

The most common output comes out in American "Marvel" style work, or in "Manga" style work, both of which are virtually identical, save for minor details in proportion, (eyes, hair, many small facial details). Also, obviously, one can pick up a newspaper and see a smattering of comic art styles that are vastly more different that manga and "marvel" style work.

You'll notice, though, that many of them are vastly more symbolic as well. I mean, calvin and hobbes, for example; calvin's nose is a round ball for god's sake - no one has a nose like that. His mouth is usually enormous, and his head is bigger than his entire torso .



All said and done, I think, without a doubt, that some style of comic art is what is appropriate for Wesnoth.
Whether it be traditional american/japanese/other style, I don't care at all. I have no attachment to any one style.

You know, actually, Wesnoth characters that looked like calvin and hobbes characters would be kinda cool. It would certainly match the proportions used in the game.
:D Christ, man, maybe we're onto something - That would potentially be REALLY easy to do, on some levels... (coloring)

(Side note - what expression do you think would be appropriate? If they're all the same it gets boring real fast. On a good deal of them, I did not try to convey any emotion, rather I just tried to give them an bland, ambient expression. Some people naturally look one way or the other - the druid, for example, has nearly the same shape of lips and eyes that this one girl I know named mia, has. And strangely, mia doesn't look sad - you can see the edges of her lips always curling into a strange smile, as though she knows some joke that she's not telling. I had not intended for it to come out that way, but it did, and I just kinda flowed with that (ie, didn't change it), when I saw how it ended up in the sketch, as I felt that sort of sentiment was quite appropriate for a druid.)
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

If anyone ever accuses me of having a rigid, unvarying style ever again, the sky will crack open and god himself will [censored] slap da motha'

It's true that many of the pics I posted were in one style, but I can adapt, dammit.

You know, this might actually be the start of something good.
I had no idea calvinesque stuff was so retardedly easy to draw. [censored], I did this in like, 5 minutes, and it looks better than stuff I've spent hours on.

If nothing else, it's pretty funny, at least
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