I think your dwarven ladies look pretty awesome. It’s funny how removing the beard affects the look. But of course your tweaking is presumably why your results are so good.
Although I like the first portrait of Tess better. I like the “action” element of the second one, but the character herself looks better in the first one. Maybe it’s just that I like hair…
I know what you mean about Tess. That's actually a direct result of one downside of Bing AI Art - there's a number of characters limit in the description! So in order to add more detail to the background I had to actually remove some of the details from the description of her. Tradeoffs.
Considering a run with the Hero/Kat/Falcon/Tess quartet teaming up with Turald and Bethany NPCs, so I'm looking at portraits for them that match the others. Bethany's is already in about the right style, but Turald doesn't look anything like the others. So starting from this:
About the best I've managed is the below. Can't quite get it to comprehend the original "mace and boot" motif. And I've never travelled with him before so I don't know his personality much beyond the original portrait. Definitely been interesting trying to match an existing picture rather than starting from a character in my head.
The start was the portrait distributed with the NPC mod. Trying to get it to understand how to properly emblazon a boot on the tabard has been.... entertaining. Looks more like he tied on an actual boot. This one is better on that score, but still not quite... right.
I just finished my latest run of Baldur's Gate ("Jaynee and Taggert") and am working up my next team for Icewind Dale. This time, with my own AI portraits! Thank you very much Zeno_42.
Hopefully I'll have it up in a day or two. I'm also rebuilding my Icewind Dale install, so a bit of fussing around yet.
Cool, cool. Glad you're enjoying them! Looking forward to reading about the new run.
I'm setting up for another run myself. Still narrowing down on which party in my backlog most needs a new go. Leaning towards Keira and Kord, together with Dura (their adopted "mom" the no-nonsense Dwarven blacksmith from the previous page) and still combing my cast of characters to fill out the party (they were traditionally a trio).
Sometimes Dura had a druidic husband:
Haven't really found anybody else who fits well with that crew just yet. But contemplating doing a writeup like yours once I settle on all the members.
Also toying with the idea of setting up a web page for some of these folks. Just haven't decided if I really feel like maintaining a web page as opposed to just playing with the artwork.
I did fool around a little with generating portraits for a couple members of a very unusual crew I used to run. All disaffected fey of one sort or another. Two of my favorites:
"Smilin" Sammy Shades. A halfling sorcerer with dark fey ancestry. His smile is not something you actually want to see.
And a partner who goes by "The Grindlejack". Technically a Tielfling Barbarian. But his "rages" are fits of joy rather than anger:
I love it! The old Druid is delightful, awesome image. Your hobbit looks like Frodo’s cousin. The happy berserker is really inspired, I love that sort of changing things up.
I have mixed feelings on my website. I’m the sort who enjoys sorting and organizing things, and I already have a couple other sites at Word Press, so it was easy to me to start one for gaming write-ups. And I really like the thought I can keep everything up for both private and public viewing as long as I want. I was reminded how good that is a few weeks back when this site was down for maintenance for a couple days. Sometimes, these things just go away. Sometimes forever.
But it is a little disappointing when it gets no traction, no viewership at all. I have to keep reminding myself, that’s not why I’m doing it.
I do have my newest write-up, with new AI generated portraits now up at my website. Isabelle and the Questionable School. I expect to have a re-edit of it up at this site, under the Challenges and Playthroughs header later tonight.
Good points. I'll think about that for the website idea. If I think about it as merely a more organized and permanent way to keep track of my own ideas then the viewership pressure goes away.
The fey crew are a fun bunch. Full of oddities. An intensely legalistic elven fencer - a mercenary who twists contracts like a genie. A warped cross between a druid and a necromancer who summons undead plants. A fey bard with harpy lineage who's song causes pain when she's angered. The most "normal" of the bunch is an angry satyr warlock who made a pact with the god of wine. He's bitter and moody, but required to act "merry" to use his powers. But the berserker is my favorite. Always speaks in rhyme. Always refers to himself in the third person, and enjoys combat so much the harder you hit him the harder he laughs. They don't come out in games much - its very hard to do them justice in that format.
I'll check out the writeup on your site. Looking forward to seeing what sort of results you're getting from playing with the AI!
Oh I still have much to learn! And I got exasperated with trying to get a crossbow convincingly rendered! But I did get a crew that mostly looked like I wanted.
I do love conceiving the team, characters and personalities. And I love the character of your characters! It’s obvious you love what you’re doing too, it would be great to get more of this written down.
Currently I’m having some issues with my game builds, I think Deities of Faerun is really fussy about how it plays wither mods. So I’ll be starting it all over…
Tried to leave a comment on your blog about your new character concepts and portraits. It appears to have vanished into the ether - not sure what happened there. Perhaps its just in twilight awaiting moderation.
I've utterly given up on Crossbows. I don't know *whats* up with that, but Bing's AI apparently has absolutely no clue what those even are. Even if I call it an Arbalest - so that the word "Bow" is completely absent - you get something that looks like a modern compound bow with too many pulleys. And my stable is rather heavy on Dwarves and Inventors who favor them. C'est la vie.
I'm still trying to settle on a set of mods for my next run. Looking to use "Talents of Faerun" - from the author of SCS. It also adds a lot of deity-specific kits and multiclass kits, has its own sphere system, etc - and most of his kits appear reasonably well balanced (as to be expected from the author of an enhanced AI difficulty mod).
These are my most amusing attempts at a crossbow. No idea what either of these are supposed to be.... That second one in particular.... just wow. Looks like he's firing a cross between a spinning wheel and a geranium
The first one looks like it has some plumbing attached to the end? And yeah, the second is good for a laugh. I don't think I've seen any crossbows in AI art, period.
I did have to approve your first comment, it looks like the second one went through though. I may have to look into my settings. I've often seen where comments with too many links or attachments get caught in the spam filter, but that wasn't the case here. They may have turned up the default settings.
Both of those mods (Deities and Talents of Faerun) look excellent, adding a lot of PnP type detail to the game. But the build I did today is just DOA. There's a whole bunch of rules and restrictions listed in the readme file for installing, including a lot of warnings about interactions with the Tweaks mod. So I think I'll need to start over and pay a lot more attention this time!
My first attempt at a web page is up at https://zenosziggurat.com. Primarily covers Grim's Gang at the moment. I'll add the others as I work my way through them. You were right - if I simply think of it as a way to organize my own notes and headcanon then its much easier.
Just updated the site to add my favorite crew of all time - Hero and the Kat. And in the process settled who is travelling to Kuldahar next. In all the time I've had them they've never made that particular trek. And the story of IWD just begs for Roland's brand of optimism. Grim's Gang fits IWD2 better. They'll get the first crack at the IWD2EE mod.
Any luck getting the mods sorted out to get Isabelle and her Classmates off and running?
Comments
Although I like the first portrait of Tess better. I like the “action” element of the second one, but the character herself looks better in the first one. Maybe it’s just that I like hair…
About the best I've managed is the below. Can't quite get it to comprehend the original "mace and boot" motif. And I've never travelled with him before so I don't know his personality much beyond the original portrait. Definitely been interesting trying to match an existing picture rather than starting from a character in my head.
Yeah big difference from the starting point. Was the start another AI, or just sourced on-line.
Hopefully I'll have it up in a day or two. I'm also rebuilding my Icewind Dale install, so a bit of fussing around yet.
But dang, the portraits were fast and easy!
I'm setting up for another run myself. Still narrowing down on which party in my backlog most needs a new go. Leaning towards Keira and Kord, together with Dura (their adopted "mom" the no-nonsense Dwarven blacksmith from the previous page) and still combing my cast of characters to fill out the party (they were traditionally a trio).
Sometimes Dura had a druidic husband:
Haven't really found anybody else who fits well with that crew just yet. But contemplating doing a writeup like yours once I settle on all the members.
I did fool around a little with generating portraits for a couple members of a very unusual crew I used to run. All disaffected fey of one sort or another. Two of my favorites:
"Smilin" Sammy Shades. A halfling sorcerer with dark fey ancestry. His smile is not something you actually want to see.
And a partner who goes by "The Grindlejack". Technically a Tielfling Barbarian. But his "rages" are fits of joy rather than anger:
I have mixed feelings on my website. I’m the sort who enjoys sorting and organizing things, and I already have a couple other sites at Word Press, so it was easy to me to start one for gaming write-ups. And I really like the thought I can keep everything up for both private and public viewing as long as I want. I was reminded how good that is a few weeks back when this site was down for maintenance for a couple days. Sometimes, these things just go away. Sometimes forever.
But it is a little disappointing when it gets no traction, no viewership at all. I have to keep reminding myself, that’s not why I’m doing it.
The fey crew are a fun bunch. Full of oddities. An intensely legalistic elven fencer - a mercenary who twists contracts like a genie. A warped cross between a druid and a necromancer who summons undead plants. A fey bard with harpy lineage who's song causes pain when she's angered. The most "normal" of the bunch is an angry satyr warlock who made a pact with the god of wine. He's bitter and moody, but required to act "merry" to use his powers. But the berserker is my favorite. Always speaks in rhyme. Always refers to himself in the third person, and enjoys combat so much the harder you hit him the harder he laughs. They don't come out in games much - its very hard to do them justice in that format.
I'll check out the writeup on your site. Looking forward to seeing what sort of results you're getting from playing with the AI!
I do love conceiving the team, characters and personalities. And I love the character of your characters! It’s obvious you love what you’re doing too, it would be great to get more of this written down.
Currently I’m having some issues with my game builds, I think Deities of Faerun is really fussy about how it plays wither mods. So I’ll be starting it all over…
I've utterly given up on Crossbows. I don't know *whats* up with that, but Bing's AI apparently has absolutely no clue what those even are. Even if I call it an Arbalest - so that the word "Bow" is completely absent - you get something that looks like a modern compound bow with too many pulleys. And my stable is rather heavy on Dwarves and Inventors who favor them. C'est la vie.
I'm still trying to settle on a set of mods for my next run. Looking to use "Talents of Faerun" - from the author of SCS. It also adds a lot of deity-specific kits and multiclass kits, has its own sphere system, etc - and most of his kits appear reasonably well balanced (as to be expected from the author of an enhanced AI difficulty mod).
I did have to approve your first comment, it looks like the second one went through though. I may have to look into my settings. I've often seen where comments with too many links or attachments get caught in the spam filter, but that wasn't the case here. They may have turned up the default settings.
Both of those mods (Deities and Talents of Faerun) look excellent, adding a lot of PnP type detail to the game. But the build I did today is just DOA. There's a whole bunch of rules and restrictions listed in the readme file for installing, including a lot of warnings about interactions with the Tweaks mod. So I think I'll need to start over and pay a lot more attention this time!
Any luck getting the mods sorted out to get Isabelle and her Classmates off and running?
https://zenosziggurat.com/ai-concepts-portraits-step-by-step/
Half Orc "Monk":
Half Orc Street Tough:
Halfling Knife Thrower:
Human Fighter:
Human Rogue:
Dwarf Warrior:
Gnome Inventor:
Gnome Alchemist:
Lots more on my web site - free for any to use:
https://zenosziggurat.com/