Tweaked Viconia's Portrait

[XVIII]

Viconia's Bg2 portrait is rather nice and all, but it always struck me as more of a "human woman with blue skin" rather than a drow

(is black even a valid eye color for drows btw?)

 

Left is the original portrait, right is the tweaked one

 

[XVIII]

Another version with the traditional (I think) drow clothing color

 

[jester]

Am I the only one who doesn't see any of the altered images?

 

I can see them now. Sorry.

[Meira]

I see them well enough.

 

Vic's skin colour is better now and I like the purple hood, but her right eye seems to be a little off. Looking at wrong direction and a bit larger than the left, I think.

[jastey]

I see the pictures, too.

I have problems with her eyes, too. Her right one is a bit larger than her left one (as Meira already pointed out), and in my opinion the distance between the eye and the eyebrow is too short now. (The eyes are a bit too large for my taste, too.)

The eyecolour is good, though!

[XVIII]

Made some minute adjustments, updated the portraits to reflect that change. Looked at the comments... err... right eye as in our right or her right? As for large eyes... that's the typical elven fearure no? That was the whole point after all, to make her look "drow" ie "dark elf".

 

If you do not like that type of look, there's always the original portrait. Like I said, it *is* beautiful. I jut did not think the look was "drow" enough though.

[BigRob]

Good editing. I especially like the purple hood!

[XVIII]

Could someone please tell me which eye is larger than which? Her right, or our right? I need to know in order to correct it. I really can't see it myself

[Domi]

Viconia's (not our mirror right) right eye to me looks at a steeper angle than Viconia's left eye, which probably creates the illusion of it being larger.

[XVIII]

Hmm... I see, but considering that that particular feature was already present and even more pronounced in the original version, I think I'll leave it as it is. Curious though how noone seems to like this version of Viconia. Ah well, I guess that's because the original was already hot, and we all have our own ideas on what is the "elven" look.

[Domi]

Heh, I think mine are: strong and coordinated slant in eye, brow, cheekbone, and possibly jawline. Obviously no body/facial hair. generally elongated body frame, long of limb. Slender-muscular as opposite to buldging-muscular... and for drow - generally about a head shorter than a human, while faeries of a height with humans of the nations that do not sport large specimens as a national type...

[JPS]

It's nice, but there are a couple of things that differ a bit from the typical BG portraits (that's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. The original portraits are by no means perfect...).

 

The eyes are much bigger and more detailed than the BG1 portraits, but they don't quite have the "sharpness" of the BG2 portraits, so they sort of clash with both of the styles. I assume this won't be as obvious in the game, with smaller portraits and lower resolution.

 

The narrower chin also makes her face look round and a bot cartoonish – again, not necessarily a bad thing, but not how I've gotten used to looking at Viconia.

 

And now for something completely different: I started making a Viconia portrait with black skin and red eyes a while back, and I also decided to make her hood blue-ish. Her in-game colour scheme seems to support that, too.

[XVIII]

*Looks very carefully*, I do not think my version of the eyes were any more blury than that of the original. Well, stylistics and what one considers the "elven" look aside (I never really liked the original Viconia, thought her features were too heavy to reasonably be considered elven, but that's just me), your version is a very nice alternative for people who only want to change Viconia's colors and clothing style.

 

However... there are a few points you might want to consider. Her forehead where you removed the headband looks a bit smudged and dirty, one can still see traces of the headband in the light shadowing. The hair that you edited to look thicker (the hair on her left, our right) is a little smudged and messy. You might also want to work on the area from her collar bone down. Right now, it doen't look very convincing. Other than those minor nitpicks though, your edit is very well done. Good job

[Echon]

I would like to see a version where she actually looks like a drow, i.e. not dark blue or grey but black.

 

-Echon

[JPS]

*Looks very carefully*, I do not think my version of the eyes were any more blury than that of the original.

 

Well, I've looked at it again, and there's definitely something weird going on with the eyes. I doubt I would notice it at 38x60 pixels and with lower resolution, though, and that's probably how I would see the portrait most of the time.

 

And I did say that I like the portrait, didn't I? Well, in case I forgot: I like the portrait. It doesn't quite fit my mental image of Viconia, but neither did the original portrait before I got used to it.

 

However... there are a few points you might want to consider. Her forehead where you removed the headband looks a bit smudged and dirty, one can still see traces of the headband in the light shadowing. The hair that you edited to look thicker (the hair on her left, our right) is a little smudged and messy. You might also want to work on the area from her collar bone down. Right now, it doen't look very convincing. Other than those minor nitpicks though, your edit is very well done. Good job 

 

Thanks.

 

It's not quite finished, and you're definitely right right about the hair and the forehead. I think the area below her collar bone looks off because the "armour", or whatever it's supposed to be, is just pasted in without any tweaking, so it's not properly aligned with the rest of her.

 

Oh, and I should probably have mentioned that I posted it because I thought it was a funny coincidence that I was working on the same kind of portrait, and definitelay not to say "this is how it's done"... Just to be sure.