LordBob's commissionned work

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LordBob
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LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

Hi crew!

For some time now, there have been talks with Jetrel about commissionning my next series of portraits; I am glad to announce that this project begins today!
The aim is to give our portrait roadmap a boost and get closer to the completion of the revamping work that began over 3 years ago. To that effect I will tackle a large assignment of 14 portraits, which I will endeavour to produce over a relatively short duration since I'll be doing this full time in my working hours.

Assignment list:
Some of these are brand new portraits ; others will replace existing artwork that has fallen below Wesnoth's current standards.

Edit: the entire cast is done and this commission concluded. I'll link the finished pictures on this page when I get a moment.

* Generic portraits: Troll warrior
* Generic portraits: Troll rocklobber
* Generic portraits: Troll shaman
* Generic portraits: Troll Hero/Great Troll
* Generic portraits: Brown lich
* Generic portraits: Ogre
* Generic portraits: Sea serpent
* Generic portraits: Wose
* Delfador's Memoirs: Lionel (human general)
* Eastern invasion: Gweddry (human lieutenant)
* Eastern invasion: Owaec (human mounted fighter)
* Eastern invasion: Konrad II (human general/royal warrior)
* Eastern invasion: Dacyn (human white mage)
* Eastern invasion: Mal-Ravanal (undead archlich)

Overall planning:
Accounting for my other professional duties, the current completion date would be early in june, with an average pace of 3-4 portraits per week. I will produce the portraits in no particular order, with the exception of generic trolls and Eastern Invasion who each get tackled as a single batch.

Creative process overview:
While in the past I've mostly dropped WIP pictures and finished artwork on these forums, this time I will give anyone interested the opportunity to take a closer look at my creative process through my blog, on which I will post regular reports, sketches and maybe a couple of tutorials.


I hope you will enjoy following this project as much as I enjoy working on it!
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Pewskeepski
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by Pewskeepski »

Looking forward to it! But isn't Eastern Invasion already taken? I guess it's been a long while since the last update, so it's dead?
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LordBob
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

About Eastern Invasion, Ellisae produced a single finished portrait over a year ago before vanishing. We discussed it with Jetrel, but as much as we hate stepping on other artists' toes, in the end our conclusion was that we can't wait forever.

Back to the assignment now. I started with Lionel, the guy from DM.

This is actually an older lineart which some of you might recognize from my random stuff thread. Inspired by Kitty's work on Liberty, I had been doing various studies on the theme of loyalist generals and armoured bullies at large, but never went as far as shading them. However, the outfit and overall pose seemed to fit perfectly with the character of Lionel, so I picked up work where I'd left it, finished the job and voilà.

The only thing I might change is his head, which unlike any other Wesnoth portrait completely ignores the viewer. Not very communicative for a dialog portrait...
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homunculus
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by homunculus »

As for the metal look of the armor, it kind of surpasses expectations imho.

There seems to be something strange about the grey in the beard, though.
The beard seems very intense color, almost red, maybe there could be some more varied hues in the beard, considering that light might be passing through the individual semi-transparent hairs (like candy, if that is inappropriate enough comparison), especially where the light hits it?
right now it seems the other way round, lit parts seem less saturated than shadows.
The gray in the beard looks somewhat blue like the armor, maybe due to contrast, maybe it could look bit more yellowish gray?
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LordBob
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

:hmm: I'm not sure I get your meaning about the armour. Do you mean that I overdid it and it doesn't fit with the rest of the picture ? Is it too shiny/too many reflections ? (This might very well be the case, considering I referenced from modern armour)

I'll give the beard a shot, especially the grey hair - you're right, I used 0% sat., which does look a cold blue in contrast. Though I did want it red-haired with streaks of white showing his age; maybe this is not too far from what I was aiming for ?

In the meantime, I've worked on a troll shaman concept. I've been doing a lot of research for this one, including a drakish outfit, complete with dragon mask and false leathery wings (dragons are supposedly feared by most wesnoth denizens, and the shaman does wield fire after all - so why would he not want to look like one ?). However, in the end I selected this simpler design because the dragon one was confusingly close to an actual drake and too much peculiar for a generic portrait. Maybe I'll re-use this concept if I ever draw a campaign-specific troll, though.

Don't mind the orange colour of his palm : this is a placeholder for fire magic FX.
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zookeeper
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by zookeeper »

I'm not sure about the shaman's pose. It's a pose in which he looks very human and very flexible, which is in contrast with them otherwise being slow, simple, brutish, stiff and moving more like an early proto-human rather than a trained martial artist. What makes him look human might be the fact that he's wearing a mask; the body is naturally very human-like, and when the face is hidden, all I see is a human body, so my brain says "human". I think that probably wouldn't happen if the body and pose were less human or if he wasn't wearing a mask.

And when I say I'm not sure, I mean I'm not sure. :hmm:
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by Crow_T »

I think Lionel could use more contrast in areas, around his right hand for instance. The metal plate armor is looking pretty sweet. I like the shaman pose, it's very well done (his eyes seem crossed though).
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LordBob
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

:hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :doh: Well, you're completely right about the shaman's pose. I focused so much on designing his tribal look and finding a dynamic pose that I completely forgot to account for what kind of creature he actually is.

Aside from this complete fsck up, the outfit and colour scheme are pretty much there, thanksfully. If possible I'll keep the mask, though, because I like the way it differentiates him from other troll units. It emphasizes the tribal aspect I've been trying to give them, and it allows the introduction of some really foreign decoration compared to other factions.
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by Dixie »

LordBob wrote:Do you mean that I overdid it and it doesn't fit with the rest of the picture ? Is it too shiny/too many reflections ? (This might very well be the case, considering I referenced from modern armour)
I somewhat agree with this, in that the metal is SO awesome, that the rest of the portrait looks a bit comic-y / unfinished in comparison. Although it would almost be a crime to "dumb-down" the armour... On the other hand, upping the rest of the piece's quality to match might be an herculean effort (or just an unwanted style - not my place to say, really)? I don't know, I guess the final decision is to be taken by more competent people...
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LordBob
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

There's surely a way around this, such as dulling the reflections with a layer of dust/less polished metal. Anyway, expect a new version sometime tomorrow
In the meantime, here are a couple alternative poses/outfits for the troll shaman. Do tell if you think any of them's better than the previous one.
If not, I'll remove the mask on the former pose.
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by homunculus »

LordBob wrote::hmm: I'm not sure I get your meaning about the armour. Do you mean that I overdid it and it doesn't fit with the rest of the picture ? Is it too shiny/too many reflections ? (This might very well be the case, considering I referenced from modern armour)

I'll give the beard a shot, especially the grey hair - you're right, I used 0% sat., which does look a cold blue in contrast. Though I did want it red-haired with streaks of white showing his age; maybe this is not too far from what I was aiming for ?[...]
I like the armor, especially as it looks like it is done with some nice confident strokes.
Well, yes, there is some contrast with the rest, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable enough looking at it to complain about it, while the less flashy parts could have the positive effect of keeping it more drawing-like.

As I understand red hair becoming gray, it seems to have a more yellowish orange intermediate phase like this.
There are less pronounced examples of this yellowish orange intermediate tone, and a candy-beard effect would probably be more significant anyway.

The first troll shaman could be useful as an excellent orc shaman perhaps?
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LordBob
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by LordBob »

@Homonculus: thanks for the explaination. I will account for this when doing the final Lionel portrait.

Back on the subject of shaman poses, I would certainly recycle that failed attempt as an orc shaman should I ever draw one. I've done some further study on two more poses which I am posting below. To make things simple, let's call the ones from yesterday A (on the left) and B (on the right), and the latest ones C and D. Help me pick the best one, and I'll start over based on it.

Since we're discussing poses, I'm also posting a troll warrior concept, once again from the randomity thread. I'm afraid it suffers from the same "dynamic pose" problem as the shaman. Do tell...

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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by taptap »

The troll warriors seems like clad in a typical fantasy assemblage of armor (with many edges and horns because he is chaotic). And why does a troll need a helmet when there is about nothing on two legs that might hit him on the head? And the helmet looks like manufactured for the troll while the rest looks like loot.
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by zookeeper »

Of the shamans, I think I'd like B best. Then maybe D, then C, then A.

I don't think the warrior's pose is too bad, though. It's a pose I'd expect to come quite naturally when preparing a strike. The twist of the torso might be a bit extreme for what I'd imagine a troll's body would allow for, but it doesn't really strike me as wrong, either. I agree that it'd probably be better to ditch the helmet, though.

Also, I hope you don't mind, but I couldn't resist trying to sketch a shaman pose of my own, quite heavily based on a typical wrestling stance. In his other hand he's holding a bag, sling, charm or whatever, and the other hand's palm would be lit and there'd be some kind of molten fire stuff dripping down to the ground (to give it a more lava'ish appearance rather than just standard flames). The arm looks like it's resting on the hip, but that wasn't intended. Whether there's anything useful to be adopted from this idea I'll leave for you to decide. :hmm:
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Re: LordBob's commissionned work

Post by The_Other »

Taptap wrote:And why does a troll need a helmet when there is about nothing on two legs that might hit him on the head?
Um, arrows?

Disclaimer: I know nothing about digital art - I lose all artistic talent and insight as soon as you take my charcoal away...

The troll warrior looks incredible so far, as does Lionel (though it is odd that he's the only person in the entire world of Wesnoth who doesn't look at the viewer). With the shamans, I actually think the first one was the best (though I understand the issue with his lack of obvious troll-ness). And I second Zookeeper's point about lava, rather than fire - it seems to me to suit the unit better (though it's hard to say exactly why).
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