Elf Fighter Portrait

[Shadow]

This is nonsense. The style of Jasons Lutes is distinctive yet everyone is capable in copying it me probably too. Thats because he simplifies the characteristics of the faces and minimize the noise ratio. Some training is needed too but it is possibly. If I would like it is another question.

[West]

This is nonsense. The style of Jasons Lutes is distinctive yet everyone is capable in copying it me probably too. Thats because he simplifies the characteristics of the faces and minimize the noise ratio. Some training is needed to but it is possibly. If I would like it is another question.

No, that is nonsense. Making simplistic art, where a minimum of lines is used to hint at details rather than drawing them in full, is very, very hard. Assuming that anyone could copy Lute's style just because it looks "simple" is dead wrong.

[Shadow]

I have tried to ink in the same manner before but I changed to a more fuzzy style because I like the way more. It comes closer to my hand drawing style but it is possible to imitate it with a good Vector programm. I find it more hard to work out the finer details of face than just the symbolics. That is personal preference though.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Making simplistic art, where a minimum of lines is used to hint at details rather than drawing them in full, is very, very hard.

Word. Or more accurately, it's easy to do, but it's hard to do well.

[Shadow]

First try well.



I just don't like the style that doesn't mean I can't do it.

Obius there some smaller thinks on the left side but it won't get more interesting.

[Jetrel]

I found curious, or better, dangerous, the use of "commercial" on the above post.

Free projects are usually happy in accepting any help they got specially when there are no art for the subject in question.

Free projects are usually crappy because of that, and we're trying to defy that proscribed fate. We've done it with the sprites, thanks to help from several wonderful people like Eternal, Zhukov, Neorice, Ranger M, Turin, Eleazar, Zebulon, Redeth, and a bunch of other people. We've actually managed to have a huge team of people work in the same style, and rise to match the quality of commercial teams.

When you pay, sure... you can ask the artist to do anything you want. I can accept a refusal by the art not being good enough, this is fine, but because it doesn't match a previous artist vision is just asking too much for someone who went out of the way to contribute.

For the artist, I repeat, there is little to no incentive in copying another artist job. I close saying if you really want unity, you need to have the same guy doing all the thing like Jerkyl wants to do.

I'm an artist too, and I wasn't the original art lead around here; cripes, this whole project is radically different from my preferred style. I didn't choose the basic style of this project. But I chose to work hard in spite of that, because I could help to make a great game. And I never got paid a dime. The reward is the game, not the fame for making it. We're not famous enough that anyone would actually care who made what. Our game would have to become better for that to ever happen.

Bottom line is... even if I do a wonderful piece, Lute takes the credit because at the end of the day, I just copied his style.

No one who plays the game knows that Jason Lutes made portrait A, and Jetryl made portrait B - the "author" of the portraits is seen as "the wesnoth team". We all work together, and because of that, we can create something much bigger than ourselves.

Even if I wanted to copy Lute I couldn't make it 100% and anyone with a keen eye would notice the difference.

Bull. Pekka has done exactly what you say is "impossible". Every single in-betweener at an animation house does this as their job, every day.

It's tough, but look at it as a challenge.

[Beholder]

People are credited like seen on http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Credits

The public may not recognize then, but same can be said of Samwise of Warcraft. If a single person like my art, I'd prefer it be 100% mine instead of copy of someone else style.

I can understand your point and see you want to convice me, but I think a skilled artist which like his material will hardly accept to copy someone else style.

P.S. Animators are hardened profissionals which work with lots of precise references. There is no guide to Lute style and I until this post, I didn't knew I was supposed to follow one.

[Jetrel]

So, the people who do the art aren't recognized in the credits?

They are, but not so specifically. The credits say:

Artists:
Major Contributors:
# Francisco Muñoz (fmunoz) - Founding Artist and former lead artist, worked consistently on all aspects till around v0.7-0.9.
# Richard Kettering (Jetryl) - Current art director/slave, major focus on sprites, portraits, buildings, and icons
# Hogne HÃ¥skjold (frame/freim) - Former director of terrain art, made much of the current terrains (esp. mountains)

...

# Jason Lutes - portraits (major focus on humans, some campaign portraits)

So, it's not specific enough to really know who made what individual images; it just says what major areas they worked on.

[Beholder]

All I can add it's wouild be good to warn the other artists of that guidelines. It's pretty clear most of the art I see posted here won't be accepted.

Look how many pics I did, and think of the time I lost because I didn't knew I needed to copy a previous artist style.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Look how many pics I did, and think of the time I lost because I didn't knew I needed to copy a previous artist style.

If you want to learn to draw, time spent drawing is never wasted, even if it doesn't produce anything you like or find use for, because it's still practice. That's how you get good at anything, by doing it, a lot.

[turin]

I basically agree with what Jetryl's been saying, but there's an obvious flaw in it - we don't have one style, Lutes', to go with, we have two. At least. Perhaps more like three. If you browse through the official portraits directory, there are ones done in the Lutes style, the Jormugandr ones, the Pickslide ones (which are, it seems to me, kind of like a cross between Jormugandr and Lutes)... we definitely don't have one style, even in the official portraits. And unless we want to redo all of these portraits except for the Lutesian ones (or the Jormugandrian ones), we're never going to have one style.

[Beholder]

I basically agree with what Jetryl's been saying, but there's an obvious flaw in it - we don't have one style, Lutes', to go with, we have two. At least. Perhaps more like three. If you browse through the official portraits directory, there are ones done in the Lutes style, the Jormugandr ones, the Pickslide ones (which are, it seems to me, kind of like a cross between Jormugandr and Lutes)... we definitely don't have one style, even in the official portraits. And unless we want to redo all of these portraits except for the Lutesian ones (or the Jormugandrian ones), we're never going to have one style.

Can you post a link for Jormugand's art?

[Darth Fool]

I have made the following topic sticky, at least for now:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 717#228717
Art devs might well de-sticky it in favor of a formal declaration or as part of another sticky.

and from http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 776#225776

I am not a pixel artist, but have some drawing skills, and I think a good portrait is important to give a unit character.

How is the process of adding a pic to the game? Format and aproval process?

Basically

• *you find something that needs a portrait,
  *do it
  *post it
  *you will probably receive feedback
  *incorporate the good feedback
  *if it reaches sufficient quality, a dev will take it and add it to the game.

Basically, what it comes down to is in order for portraits to be accepted into mainline they need to be of sufficient quality. If your portrait style clashes with the other portraits in mainline, it will probably be rejected for mainline. This does not prevent your work from being used elsewhere, UMCs usually needing art like crazy, and the story art generally needing help even in a lot of mainline.

As with code development, scenario development, and other contributions, artists should only work on projects which they enjoy doing. They should not work on projects simply for the sake of getting included into mainline. If you feel working on a piece of art will be worthless if it is rejected for mainline, you shouldn't be working on it.

Personally, I like your portraits and I think that they have a lot of promise.

[Sgt. Groovy]

If a single person like my art, I'd prefer it be 100% mine instead of copy of someone else style.

One thing you have to understand is that Wesnoth is not an art gallery, it's a collaborative project for something that the art is only one component of. Like in the coding part of it, people can't submit pieces of code in just any programming language and coding style they happen to like and expect their code to be taken in, neither can't they expect that their code is not modified after it's submitted. Even though it's reasonable to expect to be credited for your effort, after you submit art, you have to accept that it's not really "your" anymore.

[Woodwizzle]

I think in the realm of portraits (as opposed to interface, or sprite art). Varied styles are perfectly acceptable. Portraits don't have to integrate with each other like sprites do. Heck, you never even seen more than one portrait at a time! I think quality should take precedent over consistent style with portraits. Look at something the Magic the Gathering. Many artists do those cards in many different styles but it is still a successful and good lookin' game.

Just my $0.02