LordBob's random stuff : Nagas and more

[Pewskeepski]

There's a white outline surrounding him. It's probably there because my board style is Acidtech.

[em3]

Yep, it's there. Tested against black background.

[homunculus]

The troll has fangs? Is this intentional? Well I guess it must be intentional.

[LordBob]

He does, and so do other existing troll portraits, which is why I included this - arguably cheesy - feature in the beginning. I agree that there's hardly any cultural or biological facts to support this in the lore, but it's either live with it or change the troll & troll whelp portraits as well. Which can easily be achived - we just need to agree on something.

The white outline was a side effect of 8 bit PNG format. I wanted to give 8 bit a shot as it cuts down file size by two thirds, but it turns out Photoshop automatically adds this outline when mapping transparency. Unless I can find how to get rid of it, we'll have to do with a larger 24 bit file. Which is attached hereafter, along with the small portrait.

[em3]

The topic of fangs/tusks was discussed here.

- Some barely-there tusks are cool, but full-on warcraft style stuff is a bad idea.

So, yeah. Tusks are here because of the rule of cool, but one shouldn't go over the top with them. I'd say LordBob didn't.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

So, yeah. Tusks are here because of the rule of cool, but one shouldn't go over the top with them. I'd say LordBob didn't.

Considering that I never even noticed them until they were pointed out, yeah, definitely not.

[beetlenaut]

8-bit PNG's can't have semi-transparent pixels, so there can't be any anti-aliasing of the transparency. That's why Photoshop had to add a background color.

[boru]

I'm using Photoshop CS2. You can open your image in ImageReady and in the optimize pallet you specify Matte as "none." See attachment.

By the way, I really hope you will do a rocklobber troll portrait as well as the others you're planning.

EDIT: Also, a technique I haven't tried, that might be worth investigating.

[thespaceinvader]

Aaah, jaggies. The original was better (and not having semi-transparent pixels is an absolute killer for any technique to be used on portraits). Optipng can save the rest.

[LordBob]

Aaah, jaggies. The original was better

Are you refering to 8bit vs 24 bit, or is there something I should change in the latest version of the troll ?

Boru: rocklobber is planned as well, I simply forgot to mention him.

Now back to my regular trolling of the forums ( ): WIP for the warrior sketch. I've taken some liberty compared to the sprite, since it is very similar to the great troll/troll hero line. Instead, I'm following the unit description which mentions makeshift armour crafted with whatever gobelins could gather. In this case, a mix of human/dwarvish steel plates, chainmail, shields, some drakish bronze, leather, rope, ...And a cooking pot for a helm !
I'm hoping the result will be fearsome enough. Just let me know if I'm overdoing the "armoured troll" bit.

[thespaceinvader]

To the one boru posted.

Keep using 24-bit =)

The Warrior looks cool to me. I'd probably tone down the armour a little though - and it's worth considering that to find knee armour to fit, it would have to be custom-designed, Troll limbs would be much, much bigger than any of the other humanoid species.

I'd suggest, however, that in light of it, you make the Great Troll, above, into the Troll Hero, and do a similarly-themed portrait to the Warrior for the Great Troll - the Great should definitely look more powerful both socially and physically, than the Warrior.

[LordBob]

The knee armour I thought he would have plundered from a drake, but this might be far-fetched since I don't have a clear idea of trolls' & drakes' relative scale.

What you suggest for the great troll would be quite challenging - short of a tank, can there be anything more powerfull than both the Hero & Warrior that still looks trollish ? :p
I'll start with toning down the Warrior's armour, then try and come up with some distinctive feature for the Great.

[em3]

Maybe he could use human pauldrons for knee armor?

[thespaceinvader]

Trolls and drakes have similar scale, but radically different anatomy...

[AI]

I forgot to say this earlier, but a few months back, we converted all indexed images to 24 bit RGB/32 bit RGBA. With optipng, the size doesn't increase much, and it can sometimes choke on indexed things.