Rizdaer's Portrait possibility (if someone could do an edit?)

[Domi]

It's in Berelinde's capable hands now I am really looking forward to replacing the portrait.

[berelinde]

Now that you mention it, I do like the sandy hair look. I was thinking of trying that myself when I get home.

Dying your own hair that colour, you mean?

Heh. I'll settle for anything that isn't grey.

 

They all look good... I would suggest putting a horizon behind him, perhaps around elbow height. And then make the ground beneath that quite dark (sort of like in Domi's first edit). That way you don't have to worry about the shadows or the glow or the fuzz around his outline below that point.

I'm working on the glow *to a point*. Don't look for it to disappear completely, though, because it won't show up anywhere near as much when it gets shrunk down, and it really does give the portrait definition.

[Domi]

I agree with Berelinde on the last point. The slight glow picking out the figure is nice.

[berelinde]

This is what I came up with.

 

In the end, I liked the "glow effect" too much to loose it. In the big version, sections of his hair still have the original blue-white poking through around the edges, but there really isn't an awful lot I can do about that without making the armor look funny, and it kind of does the same thing as the glow.

 

Some of the intermediate edits were really pretty horrible: it looked like he had two black eyes!

 

[Domi]

He looks amazing on the 'game size' version! Really, really striking. I hope that this protrait will be nuch more liked, than the previous one Adding it to the mod with great thanks to Berelinde!

[Kelenthial]

It's much better, but I really like him more with white hair^^'

(yeah, I know... But complaining is just a part of my nature... or this is how it seemsXD)

[berelinde]

Truth be told, I do, too, but it has to fit the story, and the story says he dyes his hair and bleaches his skin. So, our beloved Rizdaer had a date with a dermatologist and a bottle of Miss Clairol. I think the shade was called "Underdark Sands," but I could be mistaken.

 

The beauty of it is that it is very easy to swap out portraits in IWD2. All you need to do is harvest the images, resize and reformat, and you can use whichever ones you like.

[Miloch]

I was wondering about that too. He almost ends up looking like a normal elf, which I guess is the point of his disguise. I assume the hand on his armour (I didn't see it at first) is wearing a glove (probably - no fingernails).

 

But does he also wear contacts or something? I dug this out of the original 'Vault of the Drow' module:

Drow are black skinned and pale haired. They are slight of build and have delicate fingers and toes. Their features are somewhat sharp and ears are pointed and large, but this does not make them unhandsome. Their eyes are very large, being all iris and pupil. Male drow are of thin build, about 5' tall, have dead black skin and dead white hair, and the irises of their eyes are orange to orange-yellow. Females are slender and shapely, about 5-1/2' tall, and have glossy black skin and shining silvery hair. The eyes of female Drow are amber, though a few are said to possess irises of lambent violet.

[Grand_Dracolich]

The eyes of female Drow are amber, though a few are said to possess irises of lambent violet.

 

Rofl, I'm re-reading the Drizzt books to see if there's anything I missed, lol.

[berelinde]

I'm not terribly concerned about eye color. In the portrait, they look kind of icy blue.

[Kelenthial]

Heh, drow eye color may be very different. Actually amber eyes are very rare (see: Elaine Cunningham if someone has doubts). So you may give him all the colors you like... Some are rare, but everything is possible.

 

Btw, a disguise, eh? This explains a lot.

 

 

So, our beloved Rizdaer had a date with a dermatologist and a bottle of Miss Clairol. I think the shade was called "Underdark Sands," but I could be mistaken.

 

Berelinde...

[Miloch]

Heh, drow eye color may be very different. Actually amber eyes are very rare (see: Elaine Cunningham if someone has doubts).

Maybe, but I don't know if blue is an option, though I don't really follow the DnD fiction and don't know how true they are to the source material. According to wiki, they have "red (or rarely gray, violet, or yellow) eyes" which I guess isn't all that far from the description above. I'm just suggesting the author should have an explanation for his eyes, whatever that might be (he's half-drow, under a spell, wearing some sort of lenses or just physically "odd" for a full drow ). I personally wouldn't care much, but I'm sure there are purists and diehard drow fans (or detractors) who might. (My idea of a drow goes back much further than DnD, which warped the original Norse/Celtic concept rather dramatically. )

[Kelenthial]

Blue are actually quite frequent ones:)

And, about Wiki - it is not alpha nad omega, mind you^^' Most of articles were written by fans whom don't have to know everything and often do not. Besides, RPG is imagination above all - see Mr. Einstein most famous quote, yey. I like to believe that there is no 'must be', only 'may be' when it comes to rules...

 

As for my idea of drow - different ones in every fantasy world, and different ones in mithology. Its like with all the elves - they are to popular amongst fantasy writers and every writer has his own ideas.

 

Um, about his story - description/explanation of his eyes color - you must ask Domi what is she planning for him. I have no slightest idea ^^'.

[Miloch]

And, about Wiki - it is not alpha nad omega, mind you^^' Most of articles were written by fans whom don't have to know everything and often do not.

Yeah. Well I agree with all that. I certainly don't take Wiki as some sort of infallible reference, but it is a reference, and due to its nature, usually gets trashed and revised pretty quickly if it's wrong. In an ideal world anyway (which it isn't, obviously ).

 

But whatever. None of that really matters. I'm just viewing it from a believability standpoint as a potential player (nevermind the fact I don't actually own either IWD - I will someday and play this mod, and no doubt, Domi will still be modding it on the sly half a decade from now. ). I can buy the fact he's incognito, dyes his hair, even has the IWD equivalent of a Michael Jackson-style skin dyer. But what about his eyes? Regardless of the colour, most of the sources agree they just look different - e.g. no whites or mostly irises anyhow. I'd be wondering what's up with that, that's all I'm saying.

[berelinde]

Even at 110 x 170, unless you've got a honking big monitor, you're never going to be able to make out whether his eyes are light blue or grey all the way to the edge or if they have some sclera around them.