New Portraits Pack for BG NPC
Trouveur
Member Posts: 980
Hi, I made a portraits pack with alternate portraits for BG NPC, trying to have the same style for all of them, with higher resolution without being too realistic.
A word of warning, I used some AI tools to do so.
Thanks to all which advised me and supported me, on G3 Discord, and particularly thanks to Darkodave for making all the technical side and adding them to his mod hosted on his Github.
BGEE :
SoD :
Black Hearts mod :
The mod to install them is here : https://github.com/dark0dave/bmp_portraits/releases/tag/0.11.0
BG2 part should come soon.
Any feedback, particularly constructed critics, are welcome of course.
I can't promise I will take all in to account. Some have already been taken into account for some future updates.
They are all based on BG1 original portraits, except Jaheira and Minsc based on BG2 ones, M'Khiin totally newly generated, and Kagain based on his portrait from Murders in Baldur's Gate D&D module.
A word of warning, I used some AI tools to do so.
Thanks to all which advised me and supported me, on G3 Discord, and particularly thanks to Darkodave for making all the technical side and adding them to his mod hosted on his Github.
BGEE :
SoD :
Black Hearts mod :
The mod to install them is here : https://github.com/dark0dave/bmp_portraits/releases/tag/0.11.0
BG2 part should come soon.
Any feedback, particularly constructed critics, are welcome of course.
I can't promise I will take all in to account. Some have already been taken into account for some future updates.
They are all based on BG1 original portraits, except Jaheira and Minsc based on BG2 ones, M'Khiin totally newly generated, and Kagain based on his portrait from Murders in Baldur's Gate D&D module.
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The only reason i don't immediately switch to these is because i have A LOT of my own custom portraits in my game, which are specifically tailored to be in the style of another (moreso realistic-style) portrait pack (see here and here)... but as much as i love these realistic portraits, the style of your pack is great as well. I will definitely give your portraits a try at some point, even if it means i have to re-make all of my custom portraits to fit (
From my previous portraits I used KREA AI, but for this pack, I used Bylo.ai. It notably allows to add a custom background or to try to merge two portraits (I did it for my BG2 Imoen portrait, merging her original BG1 and BG2 portrait, and I also tried it on both of your Dorn portraits. I can post the result if you want and allow it).
The prompts are optional, but as always can help to keep an hair color, an accessory... About the age and the young portraits, for some NPC it's a deliberate choice : they are level 1 or 2 adventurers, and their bio really screams teens or just out of teenage for some :
- Minsc : he's doing his dejemma, a "ritual journey to manhood". Passage from kid to adult happens usually during teenage, not after 25 years old. Even if taking into account he was traveling since one year, I would say he's not older than 20 at most in BG1, and could be 17 or 18.
- Dynaheir : I see her a little older than Minsc but not by much, a level 1 witch of low rank, doing something similar to Minsc's dejemma.
- Ajantis : it's a squire, not yet a knight, and the bandits hunt is his first mission alone without being just a knight assistant. Typically in middle age, squires started as young boys and were knighted still in their teens. And he must be younger than Anomen, which he's still young too, but he's already a knight and served in a war.
- Skie : she's the typical teen rebelling against her father, and all her banters, voice lines, reactions, depict her as a teen.
- Safana : escaped in her early teens then stayed on the ship several years before escaping at BG port shortly before we met her. So she's at most 25, and more probably 20.
- Eldoth : Entar talks about him as a "boy", he went to Waterdeep when he was a teenager and stayed several years before fleeing. I see him at 25 at most.
- Garrick : all the voice lines, banters, biography depict a very young man, very naive and discovering the world.
- Branwen : she left her island at an early age, traveling the coast for some time before meeting Tranzig's crew. Since she's only level 2, she probably didn't spend decades as a mercenary between her depart and her petrification. She's probably in her early 20.
As for Imoen, I tried to make her younger than the original BG1 portrait :
Main char is 20 years old at BG1 start, and Imoen says in BG2 to Jaheira than she's of the same age, so I aimed to picture her as a 19-20 years old woman. Older than Skie but younger than Safana.
I didn't find a definitive canon answer to the NPC age (beside Jaheira being very young since born during Tethyr civil war) , so I went for my own interpretation of different elements like bio and banters.
It's my personal view of this and I don't claim it's the right one of course. I saw during my internet search someone viewing Minsc in BG1 as a 35-40 years old man, to show you how there is no consensus about this. :-)
As for Kagain, two reasons :
- I wasn't satisfied with the results from his original portrait
- I had great results with the Murder in BG portrait when using KREA AI, so I tried Bylo on it and I really like the result
I will probably try again with the original one at some point, because I want to stay faithful to the original ones for this pack.
But especially the SoD versions and BGEE Faldorn will become my standard portraits from now on for every playthrough.
Great work!
Hi @Trouveur,
Now I see the portraits side-by-side I can see that your Imoen does indeed look much younger than the original. With regard to her age, I think her dialogue with the Charname in the prologue suggests Imoen is the younger of the two so you could probably make her look younger still if you chose to do so. Though Imoen is my favourite NPC, I have never really liked any of the official portraits of her. She never looks like the happy-go-lucky girl I imagine her to be.
I didn't know Kagain turned up in Murder in BG and looking him up led me down a rabbit hole where I discovered that the 5e version of Imoen is "a fusion of god, human and vampire" and has elongated incisors from her vampiric heritage! https://5e.tools/bestiary/imoen-mabjov.html
Imoen is the only one NPC I was aiming to have different portraits, because IMHO she's the one evolving the most during the saga.
Beside the BG1 and SoD portraits here, I have a BG2 one and a post Bodhi one.
Thank you. 😊
I think it is very good but she still looks a bit serious and sophisticated for the way I imagine her. But I am hard to please when it comes to pictures of Imoen. I have been playing the game on and off since it came out and I am yet to find one I really think fits the bill.
I love your Alora though. I think that one is right on the money.
Only request I'd have for those would be to not forget to give some love to the original non companion portraits too, you know, like Man1, Woman2, GENDWRF and all of those.