Portraits for Northern Rebirth

Post by **Taurus** » April 18th, 2007, 5:37 am

Yeah, thanks for the effort VonHalenbach, but I kind of prefer the other one. If it's a little scandalous - oh well. Kind of fits with the characther: "I have just been to hell and back so I don't give a damn what I look like. And if you have a problem with it then you can just eat cold steel!"

Post by **vonHalenbach** » April 18th, 2007, 4:50 pm

Taurus wrote:Yeah, thanks for the effort VonHalenbach, but I kind of prefer the other one. If it's a little scandalous - oh well. Kind of fits with the characther: "I have just been to hell and back so I don't give a damn what I look like. And if you have a problem with it then you can just eat cold steel!"

Yeah. No problem. I had fun to do it. I am no artist, so no wonder that my drawing won't get used. I should stick with the translation job, i have to do.

Post by **Taurus** » April 19th, 2007, 6:14 am

Hey, don't say that vonHalenbach. Everyone has to start somewhere eh? It just takes a while for it to be accepted, but - as they all say - it comes with practice. So, if you find it fun then then keep it coming

Post by **Jetrel** » May 3rd, 2007, 4:46 am

Semi-cleaned pencils of a portrait for "Stalrag", the dwarven leader.

I decided to do something a bit more interesting than the usual "gimli-clone" look with this guy - for starters, because he leads a clan composed purely of berserkers (at least in HttT), I gave him some of the trappings of one (he'll have tattoos in the colored version). His hair will also be shot with grey, in standing with his age.

This would actually be a good excuse to frankenstein a custom sprite for this guy - just copy-pasting the berzerker's torso onto a dwarvish lord's image would take care of most of it. It's easy enough that someone else can take care of that, if you're interested in it.

Post by **Sgt. Groovy** » May 3rd, 2007, 6:07 am

That's quite splendid. Few things, though:

The proportions seem a bit closer to a body-building hobbit than a dwarf. I would suggest a bit boarder chest and shorter neck, and probably five heads of height, instead four. Bigger feet would also help in a more robust and less child like-look.
The attachement of the axe blade look sort of flimsy and impractical.
The elbow of the shield hand seems to be lower than that of the other, theough they are in almost the same positition (or at least something looks wrong in how the lower arm connects to the elbow).

Post by **Jetrel** » May 3rd, 2007, 2:00 pm

Sgt. Groovy wrote:That's quite splendid. Few things, though:

The proportions seem a bit closer to a body-building hobbit than a dwarf. I would suggest a bit boarder chest and shorter neck, and probably five heads of height, instead four. Bigger feet would also help in a more robust and less child like-look.

The attachement of the axe blade look sort of flimsy and impractical.

The elbow of the shield hand seems to be lower than that of the other, theough they are in almost the same positition (or at least something looks wrong in how the lower arm connects to the elbow).

Thanks.

I'd actually toned down those things, a bit; however, it'd be easy to big-ify the feet, and I think I'll do so.
It's based on an old native-american style of construction; they'd place the blade in a split bit of tree branch, and, over several years, allow it to grow together. Still, you're absolutely right that it just doesn't look strong, here; I think I'll draw-over it with a bunch of lashing.
I'll look into it; that arm gave a bit of trouble.

Post by **Sgt. Groovy** » May 3rd, 2007, 4:22 pm

I think I nailed down the problem with the elbow. I have drawn a red line where it appears to me that the inner bend of the arm is (and the equivalent line on the other arm). You probably meant it to be higher, but according to the musculature, this is where it appears to be. The elbow joint would be lower than this, and so way too low. So it's the upper arm that appears too long.

I'm not sure the berserk weapons should look considerably primitive. While they probably don't practice much artisanship of their own, one would think they take their fighting seriously enough to trade the best of weapons from their more handy dwarven cousins.

Post by **Jetrel** » May 3rd, 2007, 8:51 pm

Sgt. Groovy wrote:I think I nailed down the problem with the elbow. I have drawn a red line where it appears to me that the inner bend of the arm is (and the equivalent line on the other arm). You probably meant it to be higher, but according to the musculature, this is where it appears to be. The elbow joint would be lower than this, and so way too low. So it's the upper arm that appears too long.

You're right - the lower arm should be considerably longer.

Just for your own art, it's worth noting that like many other metrics, the rule of "keeping the elbows at equal height" can actually be dangerous; this on account of it being too simple an approximation.

In this case, the rear elbow should hang somewhat higher than the front elbow, because it's on a lower perspective plane than the horizon line (which I estimate to be near the neck/collar, given that, the upper surfaces of certain lower cross-sections, such as the waist, are visible).

I also noticed that: some of the muscle pathing on the shield forearm is off, and also, there's a lack of a characteristic asymmetry in the placement of muscles on the interior/exterior side of the elbow. JeJ for anatomy.

Post by **Jetrel** » May 3rd, 2007, 10:48 pm

This should fix (hopefully) everything except the axe. Thanks for the tips, sarge.

Darn Penguin · Post by **Darn Penguin** » May 3rd, 2007, 11:17 pm

The face makes him look like a hippie to me. Not that I have anything against hippies, I just don't know a lot of tree-hugging dwarves.

Post by **Taurus** » May 3rd, 2007, 11:46 pm

Darn Penguin wrote:The face makes him look like a hippie to me. Not that I have anything against hippies, I just don't know a lot of tree-hugging dwarves.

Looks fine to me - gives me the impression that he is old - which he is.

Overall - I think it looks pretty damn awesome

Post by **West** » May 5th, 2007, 12:09 pm

Darn Penguin wrote:The face makes him look like a hippie to me.

Actually, I think he has more of a southern boogie, Lynyrd Skynyrd type look

Na'enthos · Post by **Na'enthos** » May 7th, 2007, 9:03 am

Hippie? He makes me think of a somewhat diminutive Gaul / Germanic person. Ever read Asterix?

Nice picture, by the way.

Post by **turin** » May 7th, 2007, 7:07 pm

I like it, though the face looks to me somewhat too Hun/Mongol in style. I think it is a combination of the eyes, the beard, and the cheekbones. It isn't really a problem, it's just not what I would expect from a picture of a dwarf.

(Seeing sketches of dwarven warriors always makes me wonder how dwarven females should be portrayed...)

Ronin Teturo · Post by **Ronin Teturo** » May 7th, 2007, 7:44 pm

*salute* Colorist reporting for duty!

Just point me in the direction of the high priority pieces, give me a large source lineart file, and I'll get to work.

Question: what is the BBCode for the image table with the description and filesize and all those goodies? In my many storied forum travels, I have not yet come across this except for here...