23 replies to this topic

[Leila]

Sarevok's eyes always bugged me. Despite lacking any of his father's taint by ToB, they were still glowing as fiercely as the night you first met him. I sought to change that.



Personally, though, I wasn't really happy with that. His portrait was always so brightly coloured that I found it distracting, and it never fit with the other bioware portraits. Uniformity makes me happy. So, I copy pasted his background all over the place, changed the lighting (sort of), and now I think it fits better, despite his misshapen tattoo. In case someone likes this sort of thing, here it is:



I think it takes away from his intimidating stare, but ah well.

PS: If someone can give me a reason for why his eyes are glowing, I'd be grateful. I'd like to think there was a reason besides aesthetics.

Edited by Leila, 05 June 2009 - 01:12 AM.

[Miloch]

Nice... sort of like my portrait edits, though much better of course.

NiGHTMARE did something like this, only yours is superior IMO.

I always thought his armour should be black too, or a sort of dark grey/purplish like it appears in some of the BG1 cutscenes.

[Qwinn]

I agree, Leila's Sarekov is/are superior. Very nice work. And yeah, I agree the glowing eyes stop making sense in TOB.

And as a gratuitous plug for you, I really liked the pics you did here too:

http://www.shsforums...opic=29893&st=0


Qwinn

[Leila]

Thank you kindly. ^^ I'm a bit embarrassed by those 4 portraits, if only because they don't fit in well with bioware's at all.

Miloch, I'm going to try and work on the armour, but I'm afraid of quality loss by darkening it. Did you do anything specific for your half-orc portrait to avoid that?

[Miloch]

Miloch, I'm going to try and work on the armour, but I'm afraid of quality loss by darkening it. Did you do anything specific for your half-orc portrait to avoid that?

Normally, I draw an outline around whatever I want to adjust with the Freehand tool (in PSP which I think you said you have) or if possible with the Magic Wand to autoselect (either RGB value or Perceptual with a moderate tolerance) then Feather it (Selections > Modify) by a couple pixels or so, so it doesn't stand out from the background. You probably know most of that if you adjusted Sarevok's background that well. Then I do an Adjust > Hue/Saturation/Lightness and mess with those three scales until I get the right shade. Shifting to a blue/purple and desaturating would probably do the trick for Sarevok. Then if necessary use the Brightness/Contrast tool to finish it off. I did Viconia, Minsc and most of the other edits here that way too.

[Jazhara7]

Nice... sort of like my portrait edits, though much better of course.

NiGHTMARE did something like this, only yours is superior IMO.

I always thought his armour should be black too, or a sort of dark grey/purplish like it appears in some of the BG1 cutscenes.

I think Nightmare used Yoshimo's eyes for that edit, right? That would always distract me if I were to use it.


Yours is lovely though, Leila. Good work!


-

[WeeRLegion]

Smooth work. :]

Hm. I'd maybe darken the eyes a little still, they, ahem, visually pop out a little from the rest IMO.

[Epantiras]

Nice portrait, but his new eyes are a little weird imo. Maybe they're a little too wide. About armour color, I think the actual "golden" color is better since lots of other characters have golden parts in their armour - I guess it's part of the SoA style.

[Leila]

Thank you, Miloch, for the advice. I edited the OP. And thank you, Jazhara, Legion, and Epantiras. I wasn't sure what you meant by darkening the eyes. Were you referring to the eyes themselves or to the sheen? I went ahead and did a bit of both. How is it?

As for the size... they're supposed to be cast upward, as if his head is tilted forward a little, but I can see that even then they'd be abnormally large pupils. I tried to make them a bit thinner...

Edited by Leila, 05 June 2009 - 01:30 AM.

[WeeRLegion]

I think you nailed it. :]

The darker version might call for a hint more of it though, and additional contrast, to fit with the surroundings.

Mmm. As for the new armor color, methinks you should desaturate it a bit further and fiddle a bit with the brightness & contrast settings to get it to fit properly, it kinda glares at me saying 'Hue change! hue change!'.
I think the upper version is better since it takes in some of the ambient light, fits in better.

Edited by WeeRLegion, 05 June 2009 - 01:25 AM.

[Leila]

Hmm, I was afraid of that, but now I'm afraid it just looks like I adjusted the saturation. Still, fixed the armour some, fixed the eyes some. And I think that's all I'm going to change now unless someone wants pink armour.

I know what you mean about fitting in better with surroundings, and I find the art quality of the original Sarevok portrait superior to the other NPCs' portraits. It's just that I like everything to fit in to the last detail, and if that means looking like they were pasted onto a background, so be it. It's a bit easier to do than making everyone else fit in.

[WeeRLegion]

Hmmm. Here I think part of the 'pasted-on-top' feel comes from how the original armor color better contrasts with the background.
A curious experiment would be to see how it works with a brownish/orange BG and recolored highlights. @_@

[Jazhara7]

Hmmm. Here I think part of the 'pasted-on-top' feel comes from how the original armor color better contrasts with the background.
A curious experiment would be to see how it works with a brownish/orange BG and recolored highlights. @_@

I think the specific problem is that the lights at the neckline are nearly non-existant in the black version. If you compare it to the version with the original background, where the lights on the armor are still very much there, you'll see that it fits much better in that one.

So I think emphasizing the highlights on the neckline could solve the problem.


-

[Lava Del'Vortel]

This work is great, Leila. I think there is a Sarevok Romance project somewhere in the mod ideas. I think this portrait would be ideal for that mod

[Leila]

Thank you. ^^

Jazhara, I think I see what you mean, and it started bugging me so I tried adding a few highlights.

[Azkyroth]

To me, there seems to be something not quite right about the pupils of his eyes (they look a little...flat?) Other than that, it's great.

[darlarosa]

oooo I like those very much, actually one of the best Sarevok picture edits I've seen yet.

[Miloch]

I don't know what the problem with the armour was, but I didn't see the earlier edits. It looks fine to me.

Regarding the eyes, maybe his upper eyelids should be shadowed more from his eyebrows down - it almost looks like he has no eyelids. You see the same sort of dark shadow under his nose and his lower lip - maybe it should match that.

[Leila]

Thank you. ^^

@Azkyroth, I'm not sure what you mean by flat, unfortunately. I had to darken them quite a bit or they'd draw too much attention.

@Miloch, the eyelids were like that in the original portrait, I think its just that you can't see where the eyelid folds.

[Miloch]

I think its just that you can't see where the eyelid folds.

Perhaps that is it. It also looks like he has no eyelashes at all, but maybe he got them burnt off back when his eyes glowed .