BG1 style portraits for BG2 companions
lgoon17
Member Posts: 12
As a longtime fan of both BG1 and BG2, I’ve decided to embark on a long-term project: creating portraits of BG2 companions in the art style of BG1.
Below are the first two results of my work.
I’m creating these artworks entirely for myself, but if anyone wants to use them for their own BG sessions—feel free.
More portraits are to be expected.
Below are the first two results of my work.
I’m creating these artworks entirely for myself, but if anyone wants to use them for their own BG sessions—feel free.
More portraits are to be expected.
Post edited by lgoon17 on
0
Comments
Hi Lava, I think I understand the purpose of your question.
I’m not talented enough to do everything 100% on my own. For the first step of the process—creating initial sketches (pose, sense of movement, overall dynamics)—I use the OpenAI chatbot.
Once that part is done (the result is usually quite rough and not even close to the original graphical style), I take over. This is the part I’m good at and really enjoy: all the tweaking, mashing, recoloring, and playing with saturation, contrast, etc. The final result, from start to finish, usually takes me around half a day to complete—to the point where I’m happy with the outcome.
The plan is to create portraits for all BG2 companions (excluding the EE additions), as well as some of my favorite mod companions and to post them in this thread—so feel free to check it from time to time
BG I style aside, you gave these portraits so much more flavour: Mazzy holding her bow like that, Nalia preparing a spell ecc...
Especially the fact not all of them are looking at the player/viewer.
Thanks for the motivating words. I’m glad the result appeals not only to me. It may not be the ideal level at which the artwork becomes ‘invisible’ among the rest of the in-game graphics, but personally I don’t think I can get any closer to perfection than this.
I have been waiting for someone else to take on such a project so I could simply enjoy the results, but after 25 years I finally decided to do it myself. More realistic, natural poses, facial expressions, and more human, imperfect features make up the final 5% that’s missing, but I can personally live with that.
If, some day, you would need some suggestions :-p, I would say that you could work also on some of the following ones:
BG1:
Ophysia
Valerie
SoD:
Mother Lost
BG2:
Lava's Xzar And Montaron
Lava's Skie
Lava's Khalid
Lava's Dynaheir
Lava's Quayle
Lava's Faldorn
Lava's Dvaradime
Baeloth
Xan
Yeslick
Husam
Adrian
I was thinking about a mod for cleaning up/expanding the PC portraits, but if you would like, I could wrap your portraits into a mod as well.
I really appreciate it, thank you!
Well, the list of companions for whom I’ll be making portraits is already fixed. As I mentioned before, the purpose of this set is to make my own playthroughs more enjoyable, so I plan to call it a day after finishing the rest of the vanilla cast (Jan, Korgan, Aerie, Yoshimo, Anomen, and Sarevok) and three additional mod companions (Adrian, Kivan, and Isra).
Regarding the style and your (I think quite accurate) assessment—I’m aware that these portraits don’t perfectly replicate the BG1 style. However, for me they are close enough to blend in reasonably well. There are currently no plans to create a reworked set for the BG1 vanilla companions. That said—never say never. If my in-game experience with this portrait set turns out not to be (subjectively) acceptable, I might decide to go the extra mile.
And one more thing—mods that transfer BG1 companions into BG2 don’t require new portraits in my view. They already use the original ones.
The portraits blend great. This style between BG1 and BG2 and adding/expanding the personal traits is a perfect combination.
Also, the mods don't simply "transfer" the NPCs from BG1 to BG2. They are mostly a full experience with lots of dialogues and quests. Also, BG2 takes places some time after BG1 and the gained experience is visible on the faces of the returning vanilla NPCs. Additionally, most of the mentioning mods have already BG2 portraits so it's similar story with creating the vanilla ones :-p. Plus the original BG1 portraits look weird next to the BG2 ones.