Skip to content

To produce a BG style portrait-

ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
edited September 2012 in Archive (General Discussion)
I was born 1993- only had the demo of BG till I was 11 but I knew that mother f***** like the back of my hand!
But one thing I always wanted was a portrait of myself in the BG art style- I know a few companies make thousands of generic ones but I mean one specifically made to make me look like a mysterious badass.
So a few questions-
1. Does this service exist!??
2. Where/how?!
3. What is the art style called? (eg, fantasy... but more specific so that an artist knows what I'm talking about!!)
«1

Comments

  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    edited September 2012
    I assumed that BG1 portraits were either a: 3D rendered models, b: hand drawn and then rendered or c: completely done by hand.

    Either way the style isn't difficult to replicate. You need a program like Photo Impact, Paint.NET or Adobe. Most of the big programs have filters which take the fine details of photographs away and leave a 'shell' which you can use as a pattern.

    I could do a reasonable job if you want but you might not like the result. I thought of making one of myself once actually, but when do you find the opportunity?
  • DrugarDrugar Member Posts: 1,566
    There was a site, Karwal.dk, who did this. He also made several very good celebrity modifications (http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i124/Lord_Mantis/connerL.jpg for instance) but also some random people. Site's down now though.

    I'm guessing it's doable if you're good with photoshop. Take a picture, add some layers and effects and background and boom, done. Start making friends at art school I say.
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    edited September 2012
    @Jaxsbudgie That makes sense, it explains the portrait's 'unreal' look. Very pretty but they don't look organically made.

    One way of making a photo look similar to BG1 portraits is to use a blur effect to get rid of the fine details, then use a watercolouring effect to smudge the inner colours slightly and redraw the features with a transparency marker. Lighting can be achieved with contrasting darkness.

    Alternatively you could start from scratch with air brushes, it'd take ages and it wouldn't look right.
  • ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
    Yeah a modest replication would be fantastic- So you could possibly achieve a feat of this minute magnitude? If you are that would be fantastic because I really want to look legit. If you know what I mean :D
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    edited September 2012
    @Zearful I'll see what I can do. Only problem is I don't know what kind of size any custom portraits need to be so you'll have to let me know so I can scale it down properly. Taking the picture from the shoulders up is preferable, unless you want to dress up like Demogorgon or something. :P

    EDIT: I think portraits come in two versions, small one for in game and big one for CHAR sheet.

    I recommend you send a link to the picture you want as a PM to me, I wouldn't want all these weirdos looking at me. ;) Make sure you're in a well lit room and in front of a white or black wall. The rest will be left up to magic of digital FX!

    P.S. Look as badass as possible, no 'cheese' smiles.
  • ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
    Okay sounds good to me! 110X170 for the big one- 38X60 for the little ones but could you leave in a full size one? (Using a 8MP camera) I shall also PM you the badass pic, Bear(Grylls) with me as I doll myself up ;)
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    @Zearful Depending on the size of the initial picture, scaling it down to 38x60 pixels might distort it a little but it should work out. If not I'll let you know to lower the resolution on your cameras.
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,533
    @Jaxsbudgie is correct. BG1 portraits were digitally painted over pictures of BioWare employees, their friends or their wives. Mike Sass has an official website with a contact form, in case you wanted to ask him a few tips on how he made them :)
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    @AndreaColombo I wonder who Coran is. Poor bastard. :(
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,533
    @Ward - Coran is Greg Zeschuk. You can see the other correspondeces here.
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    @AndreaColombo He's not as ugly as that, I think they just took a bad picture of him to render. :P
  • JaxsbudgieJaxsbudgie Member Posts: 600
    I think I smell a 'post a Baldur's Gate portrait of yourself' thread ... but I won't be the person to make it, still ... it'd be a nice opportunity to show you all my overbearing good looks.
  • ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
    AndreaColombo said:

    @Jaxsbudgie is correct. BG1 portraits were digitally painted over pictures of BioWare employees, their friends or their wives. Mike Sass has an official website with a contact form, in case you wanted to ask him a few tips on how he made them :)

    Well I certainly would like to thank you with this little bit of information! It must be quite simple in the grand scheme of things!
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    edited September 2012
    @Jaxsbudgie I thought that picture was your overbearing good looks. It would explain your two dimensional personality, AAaaHAHA.

    I'm kidding. I vote somebody make a 'Pose as your favourite NPC' thread but I don't support rampant and unnecessary spreading your picture on the internet, there are lunatics out there!

    Cameras steal your soul according to Trent.
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,533
    Just emailed Mike Sass with a link to this thread, asking whether he'd like to partake the discussion and share tips on how to "baldurize" our own pictures. I sure hope he gets back to us!
  • ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
    Well thank you kind sage! That would be super dooper if he agrees! Who knows whats next? A "baldurize" App? THAT would be cool!!!
    I will donate $100 :3
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    edited September 2012
    @AndreaColombo I should take a picture of your avatar and put some text on it for the meme thread.

    "AndreaColombo"

    :D (this is you)

    "Proving he's God since 2012"
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,533
    I LOLled big time at " :D (this is you)"

    :D
  • GloomfrostGloomfrost Member Posts: 273
    edited September 2012
    how about $29.99 a pop to whip up our own custom portraits done by the pro himself :) , hey cash is king in today's world!
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,533
    I would pay for Mike to baldurize a picture of me, but $29.99 a piece is a bit harsh. I have four pics in mind (not all of me), and that would amount to almost $120.00!!
  • PaladinPaladin Member Posts: 335
    I would love that! I would happily ante up some serious greenbacks for a custom Baldurization.
  • RabainRabain Member Posts: 39
    I have attempted Baldurization of photo's though the outcome can be hit and miss. My profile portrait is a recent baldurisation of a picture of Zak Galifanakis.

    You can see some old attempts here:

    http://www.blackwyrmlair.net/~rabain/rabgallery/

    Some new attempts in recent posts here:

    http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showtopic=664

    Almost every mod site has some resident portrait maker, have a look around:

    http://www.shsforums.net/
    http://forums.pocketplane.net
    http://forums.gibberlings3.net
    http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net
    http://www.baldursgatemods.com

    I am not an artist, I just use Gimp/Photoshop to chop stuff up and hopefully blend it together in a decent fashion for use in game.
  • Syntia13Syntia13 Member Posts: 514
    There's a neat little tutorial by Enkida over at Deviant Art. It starts here:
    http://enkida.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps#/d4moped
    Of course, if you don't have a decent drawing skills to start with, no amount of tutorials will make an artist of you... *looks at her own sad attempts and sighs*
  • KlonoaKlonoa Member Posts: 93
    @Zearful Yeah, the originals were definitely photo paintovers.

    http://lenorehawk.deviantart.com/ (who is on here somewhere and posted on another thread) was taking requests. She is working through some of them and said there might be more.

    I do pictures from scratch (with some facial references), I am taking a small break to work on a pic of Ust Natha but will be doing more portraits soon.

    I've had a lot of fun digging up BG goodies on DA lately, if I see anyone else taking requests I can point you to them if you like :)
  • ScarsUnseenScarsUnseen Member Posts: 170
    I'm working on an attempt at Baldurizing a half-elf kensai right now. I'd post my progress, but I'm at work at the moment. I'm pretty much done with the filtering, and about to try my hand at the painting bit(I expect I'll be making several attempts before I'm happy with it). I'll put up what I've got when I get home.
  • ZearfulZearful Member Posts: 16
    Wow thank you all so much! I will deffinatly follow these up :) and hey will probably show the results! (will probably end up being my forum picture also :P)
  • serabietserabiet Member Posts: 52
    Heya, it's me, lenorehawk (really want to get a premium upgrade and change that to something not as can't-even-remember-what-i-was-thinking-username-y)! Anyway yes, was taking requests but froze them for the time being as to not get overwhelmed with the amount of work. Will most likely open them up again (before September 18th) once I get the current ones churned out and showcased so people actually can get an idea of what they'll uhh.. get. Yup. Thanks for the mention, @Klonoa !
Sign In or Register to comment.

2025 Overhaul Games, a division of Beamdog. © 2025 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Baldur's Gate, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, Baldur's Gate, Wizards of the Coast and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries, and are used with permission. Hasbro and its logo are trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. and are used with permission. © 1998 BioWare Corp. All Rights Reserved. BioWare, the BioWare Infinity Engine and the BioWare logo are trademarks of Bioware Corp. Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Entertainment Corp. Atari and the Atari logo are trademarks owned by Atari Interactive, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.