147 replies to this topic

[Enkida]

First off thanks so much for all the encouragement! I'm doing this mostly for fun, but it makes it even MORE fun to hear about other people enjoying my beginner's stabs at photomanipulation.

I love BG1 Edwin's face too much to mess with it. He's a bit like Minsc to me, sacred ground. ;-) So I won't be tweaking him further than this. There are a lot of people who love Edwin as much as I do though, so you can find a really lot of good Edwin artwork on the 'net, especially at DeviantArt.

For me one of the worst parts of player made mods are the secondary characters when they have really non-matching portraits. It just breaks the immersion for me and screams "I AM A MOD!" even if it's something as minor as the NPC head being the wrong size. No matter how well written a mod is, a bad portrait can really kill it for me (see Kelsey). But a really poor mod will not be improved by a great picture (see Sarelith, yes, I know this is a controversial opinion as many people like her, but well - I won't play any mod where a 15-year-old girl can die of "heartbreak" - full stop.)

To that end, if you're feeling inspired to make a mod because of a good portrait, finish your mod first, and then I will happily make a portrait for it. :-) But don't get a portrait (from me or anyone else, for that matter), and *then* make a mod based off of that. Because a mod is content-driven and the portrait is only the cover of the book, so to speak. You should have the idea burning in you first, and the portrait as an afterthought.

I guess I'm picky about this point because I am a fanfic and comic author besides being a freelance artist in my (?!)spare(?!) time. My artistic talent is not all that great - I might even go so far as to call it poor - but when I had time, I ran a pretty successful webcomic because I had my story all worked out beforehand that people enjoyed. I can't imagine that they liked the art though, LOL. To that end if you have a mod in progress and need some English grammar and language beta-ing, or ideas for story development or improvement, I can help out with that, too (when I have the time).

Back to laundry listing through the male portraits in my installed mods for now, though. :-)

[Lava Del'Vortel]

No worries, it's not that I will make a mod that will suite the portrait I just have a kind of idea, but I also remember that I should release Yvette and Petsy first. I believe both have really nice portraits - I think I'm picky when it comes to portraits. Maybe not even portraits, but all the details - portrait, music, soundset... those stuff make a kind of enviroment for the mod characters and I can't imagine releasing a mod that would have "bleh" portrait or no romance/friendship/any-other-relationship music...
The thing is that I have many in-progress mod and I should release that stuff first... Petsy NPC, CoI: Yvette Romance, CoI: The White Queen, new version of Yoshimo Romance, Tsuki BG2 NPC (continuation of my BG1 Polish character), La'Valygar... huh...
...yet another idea is blossoming in my mind...

However, that's an off-top! I'm eager to see some of your new portraits! I'd love to see new portrait for Fade!

[Enkida]

So this is a minor blonde guy NPC whom I think is named "Neil" - I have not run into him in my game yet so I'm not sure what mod he comes packed with. He does have a medium and small portrait so I guess he is a temporary joinable guy. His original artwork was a blonde painted dude who looked like Kevin Sorbo. So I just took Kevin Sorbo to make his portrait "match." He gets the big size since he was a total conversion, not just a tweak.

[Enkida]

This one was easy. I think it's from the Edwin Romance mod, the red lich. 100% art steal with just a little bit of robe recolouring, from a google search for "lich."



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[Sanctifer]

Hi !

I think your job is really great, I like most of the alternate portraits you did.
I have to say I love what you did with Mazzy's hair !
I also did an alternate for the little girl, I toned down her make-up and made her smile, and I used a plate armor from a portrait of Amaurea to make her look a bit more like the wannabe-knight she is.

I'd really like to see a mix of both actually (that was my point )
What do you think ?

Edited by Sanctifer, 23 November 2011 - 06:07 AM.

[Enkida]

I can try it. I will probably saturate the picture more than yours and tone down her makeup with manual painting, though. I think that armour will also need to be sharpened like Xan's robes were. Gimmie some time, though, I want to finish all the male portraits in my to do list before I take up female portraits again. ;-)


Also MiLeah gave permission to use her non-balding Yoshimo in a portrait pack, see first post for a tiny icon of that. Yay!

[Lava Del'Vortel]

Quote

Also MiLeah gave permission to use her non-balding Yoshimo in a portrait pack, see first post for a tiny icon of that. Yay!

Just a note - I have her permission to include the portrait in my Yoshimo Romance. It will appear in new version as an optional component.

[Enkida]

Great! I'm desaturating her Yoshimo a bit to match the default BG2 artwork, and I also asked to include her "eyeball" Sarevok. I may also ask to include her Xan which is hot, but I think that one might be a no-go since she's working on her own portrait pack. ;-)

There was also a Coran put out there in her portrait thread by someone named l-goon17 that I might just throw in, for the sheer lack of Coran portraits out there, as it was mentioned as free for use.

Incidentally, MiLeah is starting a whole project to redo the portraits in BG___1____ style which also looks promising, so keep an eye out for that: http://www.petalsand...opic.php?t=5327

Anyway, onwards to Sawa, and as a side note, I roughed up Kelsey's face a bit more so he would look less photographic and more painted:

[Enkida]

So this is that Sawa guy from what I am pretty sure is the Angelo mod. Note that he only has to come in 39x60 size so I didn't pay a lot of attention to details. He'll blend enough when he's tiny, heh. Base face is Hiroyuki Sanada.



edit: whoops, and there is his properly saturated version

Edited by Enkida, 24 November 2011 - 03:14 AM.

[Lava Del'Vortel]

Quote

39x60

38x60

BTW, if I were you, I would focus on more... significant stuff like joinable NPCs portraits. I'm still eager to see Fade, since her original portrait doesn't suite BG2.

[Enkida]

Minor NPC portraits with heads in the wrong size ARE a significant annoyance to me. XD Don't worry, I will get around to Fade sometime. I have a stock image female head that I think will suit her just fine. And there's only 3 more male NPCs to go.

[Enkida]

Haha! You got me thinking of how to save time and cut corners and I found a way! Finally a use for my "Female PC head" - Edwina! From the Edwin mod, I think.



Face stock is still the same as before, La Esmerelda Stock. Also: minor tone corrections on Keto and Valen, nothing worth reposting though.

Edited by Enkida, 23 November 2011 - 03:32 PM.

[Daulmakan]

'Enkida', on 23 November 2011 - 07:25 PM, said:

So this is that Sawa guy from what I am pretty sure is the Angelo mod. Note that he only has to come in 39x60 size so I didn't pay a lot of attention to details. He'll blend enough when he's tiny, heh. Base face is Hiroyuki Sanada.



edit: whoops, and there is his properly saturated version

I really like this one.

[Sanctifer]

'Enkida', on 23 November 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

I can try it. I will probably saturate the picture more than yours and tone down her makeup with manual painting, though. I think that armour will also need to be sharpened like Xan's robes were. Gimmie some time, though, I want to finish all the male portraits in my to do list before I take up female portraits again. ;-)

Thank you !
Take all the time you need, no worries ^^
And keep up the good work !
(My, that Kelsey is gorgeous ! Any chance you'd like to make an alt for Nathaniel ? :-° )

Edited by Sanctifer, 24 November 2011 - 12:14 AM.

[Enkida]

I've never heard of Nathaniel before but I can add him to the queue. I might cheat on the two red wizards left because they're just minor chars I think you get to kill and only come in the 38x60 size. So they might just get "portrait portaled" ^^;

[Enkida]

Nathaniel:



I wasn't sure how old he is supposed to be, actually. His writeup says Flaming Fist, which makes me think experienced veteran (at least they always kicked my ass in BG1), but his default portrait looks like a college age kid to me. I hope this sort of spans the age gap with obscurity. ^^;

Again, this was stock photography to the rescue, source can be found here:
http://browse.devian...set=48#/d33iaor

Edited by Enkida, 24 November 2011 - 12:22 PM.

[Enkida]

Minor NPC "Red wizard of thay" from the Edwin romance mod. There are 2 of these guys, but I am lazy so #2 is just going to be the portrait portal Edward Norton image, because he's got a red hood. I didn't fuss on the details again because this guy only gets 38x60:



Again, great stock imagery, this time from xtwizx:
http://xtwizx-stock....ald stock&qo=19

[Enkida]

You Americans are just going to die of laughter for this one. Replacing the minor NPC Tenft is Ambrose Burnside.



Well. He was bald and had mutton chops. XD

[Enkida]

Last one for today, Fade. She's still a work in progress as I need sleep before I could put in her red hair and her tiefling ears. But for the most part there she is.




face by glamourousacid stock:
http://glamourousaci...-stock-51394077

clothing by faestock:
http://browse.devian...ypsy14#/d33c1vm

*falls over to sleep*

[Lollorian]

Grabbing all the awesome and passing through Love your Angelo, Solaufein and Valen! (awesome improvement over their stock portraits ) Hoping you'll do more NPCs... here's an awesome list that might have almost all NPC mods ever released for BGII

About Nathaniel though, his stock portraits have a brown haired dude wearing something green So... ummm...