I’ve been talking on and off for a while now with my good friend Charles — who is a professional artist — about the idea of doing a custom portrait for a character from my Sanctum of the Archmage saga. We’ve recently agreed to go ahead and try this out with Orion, and I thought I’d post (with his permission) his first sketch to solicit some player feedback.
Keep in mind that this is a preliminary sketch, and that he’s already working on several changes that we’ve discussed to better fit my image of Orion and his personality. The main ones will be to shorten his hair, and to change his pose and expression to be more direct (looking right at the viewer) and less threatening.
Here it is. If you have thoughts or suggestions, let us know what you think!
Wow… I can’t believe this is only the first sketch! Some real talent there!
I think it’s beautiful. I like his eyes very much. Although I agree it’s much more like Orion to look at anyone more directly. I also think that his chin is a bit broad (is that how you say it in English?). A little to wide, I think. (But this’s just me being picky. Besides, I think the broad chin makes him look more manly.)
And you’re right about the hair. I think it will better if it is shorter and tied back. But boy oh boy, aren’t those curls just beautiful! Which leads to a question I want to ask. Does Orion have curly hair?
And I forgot to say, his nose is just perfect!
Hi Aderyn, I thought his facial features (especially the nose and eyes) worked very well too. I hadn’t pictured Orion’s hair as curly, though, but rather relatively straight (but not thin), and not as long as Robin’s. Diana’s should be long and a bit more wavy, and Robin’s should fall in loose but straight shoulder-length locks. (The hair in male Robin’s portrait is too short and the wrong color — it should be golden blonde with a slightly reddish tinge. The one I used, though, was the only portrait of a half-elven man that I could find on the Vault that projected the right kind of personality.)
Wow what an awesome drawing! But I agree with Aderyn that the chin is too broad, and he looks a bit fat too. He needs to go on diet lol. I also agree that his expression should be more direct, although I don’t think he is necessarily threatening here, just he has a very intent look – his eyes are incredible! But please, please don’t cut or tie his hair, it’s awesome just the way it is!
Yeah I’ve always thought how hard it must be to find a portrait that matches your image of a character and then trying to find a character model to match both, having a talented artist for a friend is a pretty good solution! I agree with what’s been said about having a more front on perspective. Though the hair is my main issue, loosing the side part in the hair and having it shortened and pulled back seems good, but this could because I expect this from the character model. I also wouldn’t mind having the cheekbones more sharply defined, purely from an aesthetic point of view, but I think it is looking great. I was also wondering if you are thinking of eventually doing this for all characters? And to say thanks for all the care that has gone into your mods. It really shows and I can’t wait to enjoy all the new content.
I sure understand what you mean by “professional artist”. That sure is awesomely awesome. 😀
Looking forward to anything else he’ll come up with. Is he doing it for free for you or is he taking some kind of payment?
Either case, this surely is an awesome piece. 🙂
Thank you for answering my question! I’ve always wondered what the characters actually look like, since I understand that it can be quite difficult to find a portrait that matches each character exactly.
The more I look at the portrait, the more I become reconciled to his chin. But does it look to you like his shoulders droop a little? Like his back is hunching?
That’s looking fantastic! If a thing isn’t changed I’d still be happy. However, if i’m picky, I wouldn’t mind having the cheeks a little less full, the jaw more sharp and perhaps having the hair not covering so much of the forehead, but the quality is really amazing.
That art is very well done. Ori looks great. He has the intent look of a scholar. I do think he has a bit of a jowl. If his right side of his jowl was streamlined a bit he’d look better. Also, I would change the drape of the cloak so instead of flowing down it went up a bit. Ori is stong and muscular dude.
It might be interesting to have his portrait change too.. As Ori changes.
I can’t wait to see you revamp Robin’s portrait. I’ve never liked female Robin’s portrait since she looks like she’s about 14. The current one captures her spirit, but her age…Is off for me. I usually replace her with an older more mature looking lady.
Overall, I applaud the effort to put some original art in place of the altered photos. I think this will give your mod even more originality and professional appearence.
LadyNaava,
Thanks for your feedback! About female Robin’s portrait, though: *please* don’t replace it with one of an “older more mature looking lady” when you play. That is absolutely the *wrong* look for her! She’s half-elven and only in her thirties, which means that by human standards she is *supposed* to look very young. I wouldn’t put her portrait quite as young as 14, but she certainly shouldn’t look any older than early twenties, tops (which is supposed to be about the same age as the player). I even had her comment on this in the picnic scene, where she says “Remember, I’m half-elven, and older than I look…” when she starts telling the player about Stefan. She does that specifically because she realizes that she looks much too young to have been engaged many years ago.
This is a good example of the hazards of altering portraits when playing a module, which I’ve commented on a few times, most recently here:
http://petalsandthorns.com/thorns/viewtopic.php?t=3982&start=1
The contrast between Robin’s “hardness” and his or her youthful look and suppressed emotional vulnerability is supposed to be deliberate. (The former, in fact, is a defense against the latter.) If you’re playing with a different portrait that changes this part of Robin’s characterization, then you’re altering the artistic effect of the module into something that I didn’t intend.
Female Robin’s current portrait isn’t perfect (her hair is too long and the wrong color), but I’m unlikely to pursue changing it because does work so well for her.
When I mean older, I mean a pic that looks more mature than a teenager.
The artist who does the portrait often uses teen models for her portraits, and well, I just don’t see Robin as being that young, but that’s how she looks to me.
I didn’t mean to offend you, just give you honest fedback. =-)
LadyN: Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as offended. 🙂 I rather like Robin’s portrait myself, but I do see what you mean about the face looking a bit younger than I would have preferred. I had to balance that, though, against other a number of other considerations when I selected it.
But now you’ve got me curious. What portrait did you use to replace it? I spent a couple of days doing a pretty thorough Vault inventory when I picked the portraits for the characters to try to find the best ones available for them, but it’s always possible that I might have missed one that would work even better for her. That’s an open question for anyone else, too — it’d be interesting to see if any of my players are imagining the characters differently than I did. 🙂
Andarian your going to find this funny, but I never was satisfied with anything I found on the vault and finally just used a screenshot of the aasimar head with the short hair from NWN2 that you sent me a link for. I resized it and made it into my portrait. I thought it looked like robin.
I did use another elf head from the vault for a while but she looked too much like Galadriel. I relaly like the ones done by your friend, and do hope he does do one of the other characters.
N.
*Laughs* You mean this one?
http://www.andarian.net/Sanctum/Images/RobinA2.jpg
I certainly can’t complain about that choice, since I made it myself — and spent hours trying to get the look for her as good as I could get it in the NWN2 character editor. 😀
For anyone else hasn’t seen that before, it’s from one of my first blog posts a year and a half ago, when I was first looking at moving to NWN2:
http://sanctum.andarian.net/index.php?p=4
Yeah, that is the one exactly. =-) Not original I know, but It worked for me.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that with 2 new expansions coming out for NWN2. That the developers re-skin and add a few more models for the poor half-elves, they look rather awful.