147 replies to this topic

[Galsic]

Overall, this is shaping to be the best pack of edited images I've ever seen. Quite nice .

[Enkida]

You're welcome!

RE: BG1 style portrait: I fixed the lighting, which was the big problem in the portrait. I puffed up his hair, because on further study, every bg1 portrait has this huge, volumonus hair, I think it helped. Finally, edited his hand size a bit and reshaped to fit better. Also some colour correcting, but that goes always... I think this one is better. It is still a little dark though, hrm. All of the BG1 portraits have such wonderfully violent, wacky contrast colours that it's hard to emulate. ^^;

Edited by Enkida, 15 December 2011 - 08:45 AM.

[Enkida]

Moar Edits:

Edited by Enkida, 15 December 2011 - 12:10 PM.

[Enkida]

Portrait correction: in my test game, I picked up Kelsey and realized he was too washed out, and his head was too big in comparison to other portraits. Here's the fix:



this is the version that would be included in the pack

[Enkida]

Topical update !

You will not be seeing many more portraits here, but there is news

.. if you have an NPC redo request post it here and I will see if I can find time to do it

.. stay tuned for the upcoming mod Mysteries of the Sword Coast, there will be some BG1 style portraits from myself in there

.. if you are all good bunnies for Christmas, MiLeah and I will collaborate together to bring you a brand shiny new portrait project, the likes of which has never been seen before and quite possibly shall never be seen again. yes, we are just that epic! XD

last but not least if you want to keep up to date on my own work, I always keep my DeviantArt account up to date. If you can find it you can watch my works in progress

happy holidays!

Edited by Enkida, 18 December 2011 - 02:12 AM.

[MiLeah]

AAaaahh! Super congratz on getting your Portrait pack released!!

[ShadowTek]

Wow, and to think I was gonna try and make a portrait pack.. wow, your work is awesome man!! now that I see the work here, I'm not even gonna bother as these are awesome!!

Most EXCELLENT Work man!!!!!!!!!!!

[SkyPiercer]

Very impressive portraits ! Possibly the best to this date.

I was thinking about video games which have nice looking portraits and close (relatively) to the style of BGI/BGII and Koei's games (Romance of The Three Kingdoms XI, and the latest Nobunaga's ambition games) came to mind. Are you familiar with them ?

Here's a selection anyway, some are pretty cool, especially for Orinetal/Rokugan NPCs.



Well, since you said that a large part of your work is about collage, I thought that a talented artist such as yourself could make use of certain parts (Armors, clothing, hairstyles, helmets...) for your future projects. Or maybe you could just draw some inspiration.

You can find the Chinese ones here :
http://kongming.net/11/portraits/

As for the Japanese ones :
http://photo.163.com...6802&m=0&page=1

One more thing about your mod, what if I want to keep the original portrait for one or two NPCs but still replace the others with your work ? Is it doable ? All what I have to do is to replace the bmps in the eportraits folder or it's more complicated than that ?

[Kaeloree]

Of course -- during the install just choose (A)sk for each component. Then you can choose which portraits to install.

[Enkida]

Wow! First of all, what K'aeloree said. You will always have the choice to pass on portraits you don't want, just choose to ask for each one when installing. Additionally it should automatically skip on mod portraits if you haven't installed the mod in question, so it won't take you hours if you choose to go through every portrait individually. I'll make a note of that in the readme for the necpxt update. ;-)

Second of all, thanks for those Asian portraits! You can be sure I'll be using some armor from there for the next portrait project! Which is, incidentally, already underway: since you were all good bunnies for Christmas, delivery as promised: MiLeah and I are working on a brand new PC portrait pack themed around ethnicity - both real world and Faerun. It should have upwards of 50+ new and original portraits of all genders, races and ages. And if you want to be a part of it, you can! Clicky click for details. Happy gaming!

[Sanctifer]

Moar Edits:

I never replied, don't know why, but this is really amazing !

[Eric P.]

Hello Enkida

I want to make a portrait for my character and do a few portrait replacers for NPCs and i wonder if you have any tutorials on how to create a BG1\BG2 style portraits? Any advices would be nice!

I use photoshop CS3.

My observation has been that artists are either unable or unwilling to divulge the specifics of "baldurizing" a portrait (meaning they don't tell you what constitutes a BG-style portrait in either the look or the color palette), but instead they show example images. The tutorials I've seen are the artists' descriptions of what they individually do when working up a portrait, but the results often don't look like BG-style to me. I hope this will someday change, as I'd like to try my hand at transforming existing images to as close to "baldurized" as possible.

[Enkida]

[My observation has been that artists are either unable or unwilling to divulge the specifics of "baldurizing" a portrait (meaning they don't tell you what constitutes a BG-style portrait in either the look or the color palette), but instead they show example images. The tutorials I've seen are the artists' descriptions of what they individually do when working up a portrait, but the results often don't look like BG-style to me. I hope this will someday change, as I'd like to try my hand at transforming existing images to as close to "baldurized" as possible.

Look: it's no big secret among the cabal of artists out there. There is no "way" to Baldurdize a Portrait. This is because "Baldurdized Portraits" translates to "people trying to copy Mike Sass, Matthew Goldman, Todd Grenier, Marc Holmes or Dean Anderson's personal artwork style as closely as possible, and usually failing. Why do they fail? Because none of us are Mike Sass, Matthew Goldman, Todd Grenier, Marc Holmes or Dean Anderson. Most artists will and do try to help people asking for tutorials as best we can, but when you get right down to it, we can only tell you what we do to put out portraits in our own style. If you think they match the BG style, great! If you think they don't match, you better send a mail to one of the gentlemen above asking them to make you a tutorial personally.

Sorry, but that was a kind of really offensive answer to give in my stead, especially since I already answered that person's question back when it was posted. Twice, once verbally and once later on pictorally.

[MiLeah]

[My observation has been that artists are either unable or unwilling to divulge the specifics of "baldurizing" a portrait (meaning they don't tell you what constitutes a BG-style portrait in either the look or the color palette), but instead they show example images. The tutorials I've seen are the artists' descriptions of what they individually do when working up a portrait, but the results often don't look like BG-style to me. I hope this will someday change, as I'd like to try my hand at transforming existing images to as close to "baldurized" as possible.

Look: it's no big secret among the cabal of artists out there. There is no "way" to Baldurdize a Portrait. This is because "Baldurdized Portraits" translates to "people trying to copy Mike Sass, Matthew Goldman, Todd Grenier, Marc Holmes or Dean Anderson's personal artwork style as closely as possible, and usually failing. Why do they fail? Because none of us are Mike Sass, Matthew Goldman, Todd Grenier, Marc Holmes or Dean Anderson. Most artists will and do try to help people asking for tutorials as best we can, but when you get right down to it, we can only tell you what we do to put out portraits in our own style. If you think they match the BG style, great! If you think they don't match, you better send a mail to one of the gentlemen above asking them to make you a tutorial personally.

Sorry, but that was a kind of really offensive answer to give in my stead, especially since I already answered that person's question back when it was posted. Twice, once verbally and once later on pictorally.

[In a British Accent] Spot on! And well put! Well put indeed!

[Eric P.]

I meant no disrespect, and now I wish I'd re-read that before posting it, because it looks accusatory when I didn't intend it that way. I apologize for a poor choice of phrasing that skewed what I meant to say into coming off uncalled-for and rude. More sense and more consideration from now on.

[EDIT] Yeah, just read it again. My God, that sucked [/EDIT]

Edited by Eric P., 14 February 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[Daulmakan]

Is there any chance of you doing some drow versions of the vanilla characters - for when they're transformed? I always thought this would have been a nice touch!

I realise that's asking a whole lot, but, well, just wanted to ask!

You might want to check this out.

/Shameless self-promotion

[Enkida]

dm's pack is on the next version to do list

[William Imm]

dm's pack is on the next version to do list

While you are at it, why not try making drow versions of mod NPCs that you have made portraits for (joinable, of course)? It would be cool to see you make them...