In a rather productive day I have finished my Abjurer. He is now available in the portrait pack.
Now that he is finished I will be starting on Baldur's Gate 2 portraits which will be featured in the original thread where I placed all of my BG1 NPC portraits at https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/16864/new-stylized-portrait-pack/p1. I'm already excited to start on one for Irenicus so it should be up fairly soon.
I use GIMP to create the portraits. Usually I begin with a rough sketch and then create a bunch of layers for individual elements such as eyes, skin, armor, etc.
To keep things simple I usually restrict each element to having one base color, two shadow colors, and up to two highlight colors. These are then blended with the smudge tool (I hear this tool is somewhat taboo among digital painters, but it is the technique I began with and I probably won't be changing it for my portrait series).
After everything has been painted, I will sometimes adjust the hue/saturation/lightness of various layers to create a good balance between the subject and the surrounding environment. I then add a parchment layer overlay to add texture.
As far as where I came up with the idea, there were a lot of portraits in the game that I didn't like and that I didn't feel fit the characters very well. I also found myself stifled in character creation trying to develop characters that fit with available player portraits. To address both of these issues I decided to try making my own portraits. I decided to go with a stylized approach that would be expressive and also fast (because I planned to redo everyone). My original inspiration for the style was to try and imitate the 2D cinematics of Dragon Age. When I first started with Imoen, I never imagined having as many done as I have now.
Maybe I'll document my process more and put up a tutorial at some point.
I've taken quite a long break from working on portraits, but just to get back into it I've finished a human skald character I've been thinking about. After him I think I will get back to BG2 NPCs and finally try and finish the set since I am only a few portraits away.
Comments
Now that he is finished I will be starting on Baldur's Gate 2 portraits which will be featured in the original thread where I placed all of my BG1 NPC portraits at https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/16864/new-stylized-portrait-pack/p1. I'm already excited to start on one for Irenicus so it should be up fairly soon.
To keep things simple I usually restrict each element to having one base color, two shadow colors, and up to two highlight colors. These are then blended with the smudge tool (I hear this tool is somewhat taboo among digital painters, but it is the technique I began with and I probably won't be changing it for my portrait series).
After everything has been painted, I will sometimes adjust the hue/saturation/lightness of various layers to create a good balance between the subject and the surrounding environment. I then add a parchment layer overlay to add texture.
As far as where I came up with the idea, there were a lot of portraits in the game that I didn't like and that I didn't feel fit the characters very well. I also found myself stifled in character creation trying to develop characters that fit with available player portraits. To address both of these issues I decided to try making my own portraits. I decided to go with a stylized approach that would be expressive and also fast (because I planned to redo everyone). My original inspiration for the style was to try and imitate the 2D cinematics of Dragon Age. When I first started with Imoen, I never imagined having as many done as I have now.
Maybe I'll document my process more and put up a tutorial at some point.