A matter of ears

[Nilfalasiel]

I was browsing some custom portraits for BG2, and something occurred to me. Gnomes are supposed to have pointy ears, aren't they? At least, they do on the FR Wiki. And yet, Jan's ears are normal. Conversely, I'm pretty sure dwarves are supposed to have normal ears (Yeslick's are, at least), and yet Korgan's ones are pointy.

 

So I did some photoshopping on their default portraits. The difference is rather slight on Jan's (especially since only his left ear is completely in the frame), but much more distinct on Korgan's. If anybody's interested, I can post the results.

 

Or maybe I'm the only one who cares about gnomish and dwarven ears. And that's ok too

[Miloch]

I've never heard of canon "ear" references except that elves are supposed to have pointy ears (and usually not as pointy as a number of WoW-style portraits where their ears are practically up to the top of their heads) and half-elves also, though usually quite less so, somewhat between pointed and rounded. Half-orcs I'd expect would be about the same (so the portrait is about right there). Your conjuectures about gnomes and dwarves sound about right. I'd be interested in seeing your edits (I guess I'd have to change my edit of Jan similarly where he has proper gnome colouring, though I don't have it on hand at present).

[Nilfalasiel]

I've never heard of canon "ear" references except that elves are supposed to have pointy ears (and usually not as pointy as a number of WoW-style portraits where their ears are practically up to the top of their heads) and half-elves also, though usually quite less so, somewhat between pointed and rounded. Half-orcs I'd expect would be about the same (so the portrait is about right there). Your conjuectures about gnomes and dwarves sound about right. I'd be interested in seeing your edits (I guess I'd have to change my edit of Jan similarly where he has proper gnome colouring, though I don't have it on hand at present).

 

Well, concerning gnomes, I always thought it made sense for their ears to be pointy, given that they're also a fey race, like elves. Although not being a fey race doesn't preclude pointy ears, since halflings and half-orcs also have them. Still, I've never come across an image of a dwarf with pointy ears besides Korgan.

 

I've looked at NWN companions, as a point of comparison. Boddyknock and Grobnar both definitely have pointy ears, although not as much as elven ones. Daelan and Xanos do too, so it's consistent for half-orcs as well (although Daelan's ones are distinctly pointier). Conversely, both Grimgnaw and Khelgar have normal ears (can't tell with Dorna, she's got her hair covering them).

 

Anyways, without further ado, here are the edits:

 

 

[Miloch]

Nice Korgan. Same round-eared Jan as BG2 though... thought your idea was to give him pointy ears?

[Nilfalasiel]

Lol...I guess I made the tweak a tad too subtle.

 

They are pointy at the tips, if you look closely. I'll see if I can exaggerate it some more.

 

Edit: Here, it should be a bit more obvious now.

 

 

I'm trying to make them look both pointy and floppy, since the floppiness is characteristic of his portrait. I'm also trying to keep them less pointy than an elf's would be.

[Miloch]

Looks good. I guess on the first one the left one still looked round but the right was somewhat pointy.

[Angel]

Nice edits.

 

Yeah, in my mind dwarves have rounded ears and gnomes pointy ones, but it never occurred to me to look closely at their portraits. I rarely have Korgan or Jan in my party, actually. I usually stick to Minsc and Yoshimo/Imoen.

 

Don't know of any canon sources but really, how canon can a fantasy be? :-)

[Nilfalasiel]

Thanks. I'm not a big fan of Korgan, but since I do have a completionist streak, I do his quest at the beginning of SoA, for the EXP and loot. Jan, on the other hand, is one of my favourite BG2 characters (not least because of his "Ano the Dung Orc" story), but sadly, considering BW just loves gnomes (not), it's not really a surprise to see a mistake in his portrait. Either way though, I've found portraits that corrected the existing mistakes for the other characters, so it seemed a shame to leave these two guys out.

 

As far as canon is concerned, well, the game is set in a preestablished universe which has its own rules, so it does have a form of canon. Like you said, dwarves have rounded ears and gnomes pointy ones: this rule is upheld in most cases, which is why Korgan and Jan appear as mistakes.

 

Which reminds me of something I meant to ask Miloch: I've seen your portrait of Jan where he has darker skin. However, the Wiki states that a gnome's skin tends to go grey/white with age. Now, considering Jan doesn't look all that young, do you think he'd still have dark skin, or wouldn't it have started to "white out", so to speak?