Good portraits for a male evil elf fighter/mage?

Oxford_Guy

Could anyone point me in the right direction for some good professional-looking portraits for a male evil fighter/mage CHARNAME (which I intend to use in my first BGEE run-through)? Am having problems finding a good one that would fit in with the standard BG NPC portraits.

Also, quite a few of the portraits I've dowloaded and tried out don't seem to work in BG2 (well, BGT-WEIDU), they either just appear in BG with a "?" symbol, or are just not listed, even though they're in the "Portraits" sub-folder. Does anyone know why that might be? They're all .bmp files. Thanks

Oxford_Guy

Anyone?

LadyEibhilinRhett

Make sure your bmp files are the proper size and format. There are several different types of bitmaps, and you need specific ones to work as portraits.

Oxford_Guy

LadyEibhilinRhett said:

Make sure your bmp files are the proper size and format. There are several different types of bitmaps, and you need specific ones to work as portraits.

Thanks, is there a decent guide on all this somewhere?

Dee

Check the game's manual; there's a note in the Character Creation section that talks about dimensions and colors.

elminster

You also have to make sure they are named properly.

Edit: File name should be less than 8 letters long, with an "s" or "L" (for small and large portraits) taking up the last letter of that 8. So evfigmgL.bhp should be a valid name for a "large" portrait.

phase_nz

LadyEibhilinRhett said:

Make sure your bmp files are the proper size and format. There are several different types of bitmaps, and you need specific ones to work as portraits.

At this point have the developer's even told us if the portrait feature's have been enhanced as well?
For all we know we may be able to have a litlle bit more depth than 8bit for our protaganist.

Mungri

24 bit already works for both the large and small portraits.

phase_nz

Here----------->

Mungri said:

24 bit already works for both the large and small portraits.

wOW did not know that after all these year's thank you for enlightening me.

regardless im wondering if they are going to support higher resolution character portraits.
Maybe even an option to have new re mastered artwork or the original.

Queynos

Try this site, it contains LOTS of portraits for all kind of characters
http://drakonis.org/

Oxford_Guy

Queynos said:

Try this site, it contains LOTS of portraits for all kind of characters
http://drakonis.org/

Thanks, some decent-ish ones there

Mungri

Very nice pictures there, look in the dark spellcasters or dark knights sections for an evil fighter / mage,

Oxford_Guy

Mungri said:

Very nice pictures there, look in the dark spellcasters or dark knights sections for an evil fighter / mage,

Indeed! Thanks for that

Oxford_Guy

There are some great female dark spellcaster portraits, and I really prefer how female elf mages look in robes, I'm tempted tp make my fighter/mage female, though that would mean missing out on the Viconia romance, though I guess Dorn (and possiby Rashad?) would be a romance-able option. What other options for an evil female CHARNAME romance are there in an in-modded BG2?

Kirkor

Custom portraits need to be 24-colour BMP file.
Large picture need to be of a size 110x170
Small picture 38x60

Put them all in "Portraits" folder, which should be in your BG folder (if not, create portraits folder), for example:
C:/Games/Baldur's Gate/Portraits

File name should be less than 8 letters long.
I never needed to to this, but many people say, that large picture should have "L" at the end of its name, and small picture "S". For example:

viconiaS (for 38x60)
viconiaL (for 110x170)

Xanthul

There are some good celebrity portraits here:

http://mynameisnotlilly.voltronarmy.com/?p=1932

I always rather liked the Jude Law one because it's good looking and dark and it really doesn't look too much like Jude Law so I don't associate it with an actor. It's the one I use for my fighter / mage.

Mungri

Lol those are just hilariously ... bad

Oxford_Guy

Kirkor said:

Custom portraits need to be 24-colour BMP file.
Large picture need to be of a size 110x170
Small picture 38x60

Thanks, though I though the small one had to be 8-bit?

Am liking this one: http://drakonis.org/picture?/5839/category/29-dark_spellcaster_f

Oxford_Guy

Xanthul said:

There are some good celebrity portraits here:

http://mynameisnotlilly.voltronarmy.com/?p=1932

I always rather liked the Jude Law one because it's good looking and dark and it really doesn't look too much like Jude Law so I don't associate it with an actor. It's the one I use for my fighter / mage.

Yes, the Jude Law one looks pretty good for a male Fighter/Mage, if I make CHARNAME male I may use that one

Bugrat

I never liked that Jude Law one, the head doesn't seem to be at the right angle for his hair. Here's one by @Enkida that I think looks a lot better: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/52267-various-alt-npc-portraits/page__view__findpost__p__527073

Oxford_Guy

Bugrat said:

I never liked that Jude Law one, the head doesn't seem to be at the right angle for his hair. Here's one by @Enkida that I think looks a lot better: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/52267-various-alt-npc-portraits/page__view__findpost__p__527073

Yes, I agree the final one shown (this: http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/317/5/7/bg2_xan_by_enkida-d4futf2.jpg ) is much better than the other Jude Law one, and would definitely be good for an elf Fighter/Mage, though perhaps not evil enough...

Bugrat

Perhaps you're right, the dark colors are pretty good for evil, but his face might be too mellow. Not chaotic evil certainly, he doesn't look like someone who would engage in wholesale slaughter. I think it could work for a lawful or neutral evil character, he has kind of a calculating, cunning look to him. Like he would pretend to be friendly but betray you when the moment is right.

Oxford_Guy

@Bugrat - maybe it'll work, then, as I'm planning on a Lawful Evil Fighter/Mage, both for RP reasons and because LE gets the best familiar (can polymorph!)

Oxford_Guy

Am trying that modified Jude Law one as my profile picture to see if I warm to it...

Kirkor

Oxford_Guy said:

Kirkor said:

Custom portraits need to be 24-colour BMP file.
Large picture need to be of a size 110x170
Small picture 38x60

Thanks, though I though the small one had to be 8-bit?

Am liking this one: http://drakonis.org/picture?/5839/category/29-dark_spellcaster_f

I think 24-bit works with patched versions of the game.
You also don't have to add L or S at the end of picture names. At least I didn't have to do that.

Oxford_Guy

Okay, I've managed to get all my portraits to work IN BGT with some editing in Photoshop. In my current "training" BGT game for BGEE I've changed the portrait of my (now female - thanks Shadowkeeper) elf evil Fighter/Magic user to the one I've just changed my forum profile picture to, I'm quite liking it as:

a) she definitely looks like an elf
b) she has an ambiguous look which could be a fighter, a mage (or even a thief), so suits the multiclass
c) whilst by no means ugly, she's not inappropriately astonishingly beautiful (consider CHARNAME currently has 8 Charsima)
d) she has a bit of an evil look to her, but not over the top

I think the only downside is she looks a little old (in her 30s, if she was a human) to be CHARNAME, but I can live with that.

I think I may use this for BGEE and just miss out on the Viconia romance in BG2EE, female mages just look better generally, and I'm not so keen on how male elves looks, and Dorn could be entertaining to romance!

I got this from this portrait pack: http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/993-enkidas-portrait-pack/

Kulm

Would you like this? http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6224/custom-portrait-artwork#latest

Oxford_Guy

Kulm said:

Would you like this? http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6224/custom-portrait-artwork#latest

Hehe! That's good, but a bit *too* evil for the CHARNAME I had in mind! :-)