Portraits for the NPC's

[Guest Mart]

Hello all!

 

I'm glad this mod is coming along well, I'm looking forward to it, sounds like its been hard work too, congrats on the progress. I don't know if you found portraits yet, but if not I would be honoured if you wanted to include mine

 

I'm making some portraits based on the NPCs, I'm quite new at it so they aren't brilliant, but they are a consistent style with each other and I have more not based on your NPCs that could be used for the main player if you want them. Okay, going to try and link images, it prolly won't work

 

 

They are Nord, Hildury, Nikosh and Jemal. Jemal and Nord didn't look as nice as I hoped, but they still look reasonable to me.

 

I should be able to post more soon, maybe tonight (oh the images are 50% of the large size for IWD2, the real images are the correct size)

[Louis Cypher]

Not bad. I see that you tried to keep the IWD II "painting" style of the portraits. I like Hildury, but on the portrait she looks a bit, as if her head was placed in the wrong place then it should be. And Nord, where you probably wanted to give a sunshine effect on his face seems to be robbed of his forehead. Just my personal feelings.

[Guest Mart]

Hello again!

 

I did some more work on portraits today. I had a go at making one for Salomeya, at first I didn't like it (it's quite easy to tell by her clothes she originated from a NWN model, like all the portraits I do) , but now I've looked at it again I like it for some reason. These are only ideas too, if you like the style and think it will work, I can remake the portraits to correct things that aren't quite right, like the fact she is half naked perhaps.

 

Some full size examples so you can see what these things will look like in game:

 

 

Finally, I read somewhere you would prefer to have the portraits from the waist up to fit in with the other IWD 2 portraits. Well, making portraits that fit seemlessly with the IWD portraits is beyond my talents, but I made my first attempt at a waist up, action shot today! Hmm, not sure if its nice enough for a final version, maybe, but i gotta say this was a helluva lot more challenging for me than the face or upper torso and face portraits that I usually do. Its Nord again:

 

 

Please let me know if you guys think these would do for the NPC's, which style you prefer and if you want me to change anything about the char, if they don't fit with how you imagined them. Don't feel pressured to say yeah if you don't like them, i can always use them for my NWN2 module... if there are still portraits in NWN2

 

Oh a final thought, we could have the characters names put onto the portraits to make them authentic to the mod if you like

[Guest Mart]

Ooh, someone replied while I was making my last post

 

Thanks for the comments Louis, you mentioned the sunshine on Nord's head, and yup, thats one of the things I don't like about it. The other reasons that Nord was my least favourite of the portraits was that he looks a bit young to have white hair, and his head looks oddly thin. In the full size picture, the effect on his forhead doesn't look quite as bad, but its still noticeable.

 

As for Hildery, she is meant to be looking down, and slightly sad, i got the idea that she might be thinking about her past that she is ashamed of. I guess it might be hard to realise that if you didn't know when you first looked at the portrait, something i should look out for in the future. I never shared portraits before, just used them myself, so its hard to know how they will be perceived by others.

[Guest Mart]

Okay, these are not the final versions, but this is what I came up with for the seven "confirmed" characters. In this order - Sir Wind Nord, Hildury, Diriel, Jaemal, Nikosh Bracegirdle, Salomeya, Prachi:

 

 

 

I'm going to make some more action shots like the one of Nord in the post above, but that'll take a while. Let me know what you think of the portraits. I personally am not too fond of the way Diriel and maybe Prachi are looking right now, I dunno what happened with Diriel, i just couldn't get the effect i was trying to get.

[Kaeloree]

They're very good character wise IMO, but the overuse of the 'smudge' tool or similar has made it a little too blurry.

 

The blur and smudge tools can be good when used correctly and sparingly, but when overused its really, really obvious. Sometimes all you need to do is add a texture or something- there's a tutorial on how the guy who painted the NWN portraits worked somewhere... go take a look, should be really helpful!

 

Hope this helps!

[Louis Cypher]

Sword version of Nord looks way much cooler than the original. He has a more adult and warrior-like look, which more fits the reality of Icewind Dale, rather than a aristocrat with a shining armour.

 

As for the rest...I had to pick my jaw from the floor when i saw Salomeya. Don't you even think about hiding that body!

 

Pratchi looks a bit odd. Her fice is just fine, but her clothes make the impression like the whole character was wraped in them, rather than she was wearing them. Maybe give her some hands?

[Domi]

Oh, lookie, leave for a day and come back to a lovely collection like that! Nice. If you'd like to have the whole collection, you might want to include the three 'bonus' NPCs, since they will be present in the mod at release, I just don't know how much material each of them will have.

 

I'd say that Nord and Nikosh are pretty cool as they are.

 

Hildury is gorgeous, the only trouble I wrote her from the NWN portrait and she is mentioned as a redhead (as well as Salomeya) a couple of times, so if you could retouch some of her braids to be dark-red that should work. Same with Jaemal, if you can but darken his hair, to match his brows, it'll be great.

 

Diriel is a bit more of a challenge; he is a Sun Elf (the game won't let me, but he is), so he will be the 'golden' boy. I am thinking that if you change this portrait's (Diriel's) hair/brow to white, he'll do a convincing Rizdaer, actually (it is really not even necessary, as Rizdaer colored them, but I think it could be a striking effect with your palette on that one). I like his facial expression by the way!

 

Prachi and Salomeya have a bit of a different zoom on their bodies than the rest of the portraits. There is one banter that specifically refers to a red warrior's dot on Prachi's forehead, so if you zoom in on her a little bit and add that, it should work pretty good. Same with Salomeya - she needs a zoom-in. I know it is a creative licence, but if you try to drape her in firs or tight chain she'd look more likely to stand a chance of surviving Northern elements and a few hits, and still look sexy

 

And thank you for doing the set - it is very, very nice!

 

If you are interested in bonus guys, neither Valeero, nor Rizdaer have any particular restrictions (appart from Rizdaer's darker skin - his hair can be anything- but I actu). Peony will have "like Lady Alustriel hair" (again, a banter matching original NWN portrait, sorry!) ie silvery-blue, a-la moonshine; blue eyes probably.

[Guest Mart]

Hello! Thanks for the positive feedback guys

 

I took a look at the link you provided K'aeloree and wow, i thought the IWD portraits were painted in real life with real paint and just touched up on the computer, i didn't realise they were made from scratch, what a talent those guys have! It came in useful, i made a pic from scratch today following his method and holding back on the smudginess a bit, the face and hands were terrible, but the rest of the pic looked okay, so i think i might add a few things, maybe cloaks or fur to my portraits from now on

 

I'm going to revise the pics a bit taking in Domi's recommendations, i'll prolly remake them from scratch as with the exception of Hildury and Nikosh i kinda rushed through these as i wanted to show examples of all 7 chars, it sounds like the mod is nearly finished and i didn't wanna miss it

 

and Gold Elves... I take it they have goldish skin and light hair? not sure I've seen a pic of them yet, though i have heard about them.

[Domi]

Have fun and let us know how things go. Sun (Gold) Elves have bronze skin and gold or blond hair (but can have black one as well), but he'd been bright blond in all builds, and I am sort of used to how he looks.

 

And don't worry about the timeline - it's gonna take a while to finish Phase II, which is the earliest possibility of a public release.

[Kaeloree]

Mart inspired me to take a go at Prachi... I used the NWN portrait you had for her as a reference for the head, I can always try something else if you want to use this portrait. I've only spent a few hours on it; everything is mostly blocked.

 

Her head is more detailed than the other IWD portraits, I'm not sure if this is what you were going for, but I thought I'd see what it looked like anyway.

 

She's going to be carrying a quarterstaff, which is why her hand is in that position, in case you were wondering...

 

[cirerrek]

Mart inspired me to take a go at Prachi... I used the NWN portrait you had for her as a reference for the head, I can always try something else if you want to use this portrait. I've only spent a few hours on it; everything is mostly blocked.

 

Her head is more detailed than the other IWD portraits, I'm not sure if this is what you were going for, but I thought I'd see what it looked like anyway.

 

She's going to be carrying a quarterstaff, which is why her hand is in that position, in case you were wondering...

 

 

Pretty cool Kaeloree, I wish I had a tenth the ability, but is Prachi supposed to only have 3 fingers?

[Kaeloree]

Okay, this is the next version... refined, added a purple cloak...

 

 

I can change the colour of any of the garments, her hair or anything else. If you like the basic portrait so far and would like to use it, just tell me any designs or anything you'd like the clothes or whatever to have, or any other features.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Very nice portrait, though I'm not sure the dress she seems to be wearing would be practical for either fighting or trekking through the North.

[Guest Guest]

Wow thats stunning K'aeloree! As for the dress not being practical, maybe not, but it is in line with what many of the original portrait characters are wearing, half their clothes is a little in-practical too. I struggled to do details such as the hands etc when I attempted to make a portrait without editing an existing picture, do you use one of those pens or just a mouse? im thinking i might like to try one.