More Choices: PC Portraits

ktchong

Just a simple request: more choices of the main character portrait. Ideally, every gender/race/class/color combination should have at least good-looking model, i.e., a male black dwarf, a female Asian elf, Hispanic half-elf, etc., not just a bunch of white people like in the original game, with really just one good-looking "default" male and female model. Most other choices were either ugly or just recycled portraits of in-game NPCs.

Risingsun

Based on the first two Manley portraits in BGEE I think you are getting what you wished for:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/77845/#Comment_77845

This is what PhillipDaigle had to say about their approach to portraits this time around:
"This is actually one of our goals. There is a startlingly wide variety of ethnicities in the Forgotten Realms, and only a handful were represented in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. While the Sword Coast is largely hispanic (although you'd never tell from looking at it in-game), there's no reason the PC can't trace their mortal lineage to somewhere as far away as Kara-Tur or Calimshan."

So its a good sign, and I'm with you. Diversity is much appreciated.

ktchong

The art style and format of the new PC portraits should be consistent with that of the original portraits. Unless the Enhanced Edition is going to update/overhaul all the portraits from the original games.

I could look online for character portraits myself, and download them for my PC. However, finding a portrait whose art style and format are consistent with those in the original game was difficult. Most of the available custom portraits were horrible, (i.e., they had completely different art style, head/body ratios that were too different from the original portraits, they were badly cropped, or they had low resolutions.)

Jason Manley's portraits are more in the style of those from Icewind Dale games. They are very different from the Baldur's Gate portrait style.

Risingsun

guess you can't please everyone. Still, I'm glad they are putting in the effort.

kilroy_was_here

I've found that it was pretty easy to crop any image you can find and make it into a portrait. I posted the exact instructions in some other thread; I can try to find it if you need me to. No matter how good the portraits included are, odds are good you've come across a picture somewhere you think will work better.