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Anyone good with portrait editing/creating want to do some for me?


Mikka

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So. Portrait editing. My bane of adding new students, as I have discovered that while it's pretty easy to just copy and paste and change around eye and hair color a bit, that's obviously enough to obviously make the student look unique and not like someone's bad goatee-verse clone, which is what I'm looking to do. The looking unique part, not the goatee-verse clone part.

 

I've never seen anyone on the forum mention having skill or desire in this area, but I figured it's always worth asking. If you do, please respond or PM me, and we'll fiddle something out- I'm obviously not looking to hire someone, but trading favors for favors is always happy, so if you want something done in return that I can do, um, I'll do it? /g

 

Or, if you're the type who just wants to goof off with imaging programs to see if you can do something to your own satisfaction without commitment or contacting me, here's the easiest one I need:

* Vernin student, female

* Long wheat blonde hair, pulled in to a single rather messy braid going over her shoulder

* Thin face, but rounded features, particularly nose (on the slightly larger side)

* Sullen expression- thin mouth, almost a glare (light eyes- grey/blue/green/violet/whatever, just lighter in color)

* Tall, thin, not particularly well developed

* Not all that pretty: mostly average looking, if not a bit 'eh' due to the general unfriendly air

* Skin color is a bit tricky- there are two others I need to be definitely paler then her, so... 'similar skin color to that used by all the 'Von...' Germanic students, lightened just slightly.

* Face (or nose) tilted a bit to the side, neither up or down, to separate the 'sullen' from 'mischievous' Prudence or 'arrogant' Catherine- try not to edge too close to Flore's position, though, as they have a lot of superficial things in common so it's best to separate them as much as possible.

 

 

If you in any way consider/try doing this, you have my most humble appreciations. I'm not all that picky, and it doesn't have to be perfect at all (I mean, load up a male Aranaz student and stare at the one with the face that's going to eat Manhattan and quite possibly all of New York- perfection is never required :D), and just trying gives us a good start. I do ask, though, that if you are extremely attached to your work in a 'I do not want any criticism and I cannot stand the idea of being asked to edit my art or having anyone else do any touch ups', to, um, just let this go by. There'll likely be a bit of back and forth and editing and stuff, as is usual with our Academagia modding so far, so please try not to take offense to that.

 

(Oh, um, and those working on portraits will get full credit, of course! And I thank you if you even attempt. Um. Yay!)

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Mikka;

 

Additionally, if you have not already considered it, you may want to ask on DeviantArt. Although the artists there probably do not play Academagia, they may have interest in creating your portrait for professional reasons. :)

 

One quick note: assuming it is your intention that we should include this new Student in a DLC, the portrait should very closely match the other Student artwork in the game.

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It's definitely hard. >.< Thanks for the attempt, though, Creme. <3 :D

 

I really didn't want to post this, because it's so embarrassingly bad, but maybe it'll encourage others to help: as I say, no matter what, you can't be as horrible at this as I am. So, this is my first attempt on making a working portrait for one of the other girl, who's supposed to have a distinctly Asian thing going on.

 

miyamostlydone.png

 

As you can see, she's a disaster. Her hair has random points in it and that bun is a mess (despite how it looks so much like the regular female Godina portrait, I managed to ruin it), her cheek is huge and slightly horrifying (and where is her ear?), the white shirt is messed up on her left side, there's nothing unique about it (it's just frankensteined from other portraits and shows no personality), and perhaps most importantly, her eyes! One eye looks Japanese. The other, almost certainly not. And despite all my attempts, I can figure out how to make her right eye angle properly.

 

The only good thing I can say about it is once you figure out who the base for her face was and think about it for a while, you can never un-see it and it becomes sort of hilarious.

 

(I tried one male portrait: it's even worse. Poor kid looks like a very ugly girl on drugs.)

 

 

So, um, yeah. Difficult. >.<

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I think you're right, Creme. She initially had lighter hair, with ribbons tied through it. I then realized it looked like she just had random streaks that made no sense (I don't think 'streaking your (black) hair' is very likely or possible in this setting- any dying would probably be done with magic or with berries/inks...), so kept going over the ribbons to try and get rid of them, and the hair got darker and darker...

 

I have to go cleaning today (blargh), but tomorrow I'll fiddle again, trying to fix the hair and give her more personality, perhaps.

 

And yay, Adrian! Thanks so much. <3

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You have to give the artist credit, he/she really did a wonderful job. The hair looks really good when you look at it.

(My way of saying that for a newb like me it is like pulling out teeth, the hair in particular ;))

 

To add a smile all around, so far I've got:

Found here, as I can't seem to get it to show it as a normal picture!

 

Not amazing I know, will give it a few more goes today, will try to add a braid too.

(Poor Corradin is the victim of this merciless editing ;))

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@Adrian

 

The eyes! The eyes! The eyes! Academagia is not survival horror!

 

(That said, Academikka is an awesome name. I am going to tweak that for future use.)

 

@Mikka

 

Actually, on closer inspection the hair is quite fine - it is just that, if you don't pay attention, it is so pitch-dark that it looks like a MS Paint job.

Did you just kinda tone down the brightness from a originally brown hair?

 

The hair-bun can be a bit bigger though.

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Not sure how blond you want, so here's two type.

 

longhairbraid.png

* Vernin student, female ✔

* Long wheat *Dark* blonde hair, pulled in to a single rather messy braid going over her shoulder ✔

* Thin face, but rounded features, particularly nose (on the slightly larger side) ✔

* Sullen expression- thin mouth, almost a glare (light eyes- grey/blue/green/violet/whatever, just lighter in color) ✔

* Tall, thin, not particularly well developed ✔

* Not all that pretty: mostly average looking, if not a bit 'eh' due to the general unfriendly air ✔

* Skin color ... (✔ I guess?)

* Face (or nose) tilted a bit to the side ✔

 

longhair.png

Bonus: Light Blond long hair

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@ Adrian

 

Heh, Corradin does look a bit frightened, there. Still, I think the eyes are a nice start: they look a lot more feminine and open. The problem is the tiny pupils, which makes 'em look a bit radioactive. It's definitely a nice start there, and I think I can use part of it. :D

 

Blondie's name is Louise, a good proper Germ- er, Staaden name. Though she's supposed to be half Academagia's equivalent of Russia(n), too, but the Germanic influence is supposed to be the most seeable. She's just a wee bit dour.

 

 

@ Creme

 

Hue adjustment was never used- it was bad painting. To clarify, here's her hair 'originally', when I was around halfish-way through fiddling with it.

 

(Ignore the double border, and the blackhole of a face- it's Academikka! Yeah, I like that. Heh.)

miyaoldhair.png

 

Her hair is a peace-mail (that's not the right word, is it?): I believe it's the default Godina girl (who is always going to be Kay to me), Tulia (of course- most obvious influence), Sigilis, and maybe Rixedia? I may be missing someone. What I did was make this, then decide that even with a changed skin tone and attempting to give the eyes a bit of lift and carefully play with the eyelids, with the brown hair, she still didn't seem Asian-ish. As part of the characters 'charm' (she'd call it that, at least), is being somewhat exotic (and thus using that (along with an 'I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that custom/rule! :D') to get away with murd- well, thief), I decided I needed her at least looking the part.

 

You can see the start of this, if you can zoom in this crappy portrait to 400% somehow: there are some random black lines. What I did was use them, and then filled them out specifically at the roots and then running through her hair. I then smudged, used opacity of 40% to add black and dark brown other places, smudged some more, then painted. There may have been a bit of burning, too, but I think actually I mostly just burned the lips a few times. Then I had the stupid idea with the green ribbons, and once I put them in and realized how stupid they looked, I could not get them out. Seriously. (After I finished the portrait, I realize it was layers that had messed me up, but by then it was too late.)

 

So I made them black. And then I had to darken other parts, and I kept going and going until she broke. Somewhere along the way, the messy strands and the huge bun were reduced to the horror that I first posted.

 

>.< As I said, this really isn't my strong point.

 

 

@ Nyaa

 

Ooo!

 

I really like the first one. With your permission for me to alter it, that could be a great base. The only big problem I can see is the braid is definitely shaded differently then the rest of the portrait is (which gives it a slight pasted on feeling), but repainting that isn't the hard part. The hard part is the braid itself, which is really difficult, and you totally got that. If it's just repainted and reshaded a bit, I think it'll work lovely.

 

Thank you!

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That's really cute too, Adrian!

 

(Did she change overnight? I swear she seemed a bit different last night when I had a glance at her.)

 

I think thanks to yours and Nyaa's help, I'll be able to get Louise working okay (though we'll have to see what the Legate says), and I have a few ideas on what to do with the Asian girl that I'll try today and then post.

 

 

If anyone wants to still be helpful, I have a boy whose giving me trouble (work at your leisure, no rush)- the mercenary brat I've been constantly asking questions for towards the Legate.

That means:

* Male, Aranaz

* Spanish (easy/stereotypical ways to distinguish this is art is to make the nose sharp and make sure attention is drawn to the eyes- distinct brow-line and slightly larger then average eyes usually work)

* Dark (black or brown) hair that's doing that curly/wavey thing that's so common

* Then tan skin, and green eyes

* ...My original plan was to have him wearing a bandana/hankerchief, either tied around the forehead (in what we call the sweatband style) or in the original triangle shape over the hair (in what we call the do-rag style), which is the part that proved impossible for me. If you can get anything of a similar shape working like that, though, it'd be perfect... don't woring about the patterning, I can take care of that.

* Smile or smirk- expression either friendly or mischievous, as long as it's open

 

 

Um. Cookies?

 

 

Thank everyone for yer help. <3 :D

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm still trying with this.

 

The latest attempt with blondie, using Nyaa's braid. I re-painted her hair and darkened her skin to help her fit in a bit better and be less shiny, then I drooped her eyes and enlarged her lip size while thinning the width to give her a bit more of a miserable look. Then I tried enlarging and fattening the nose in order to stand out a bit better, and make her less attractive (she's really not supposed to be a pretty girl- more awkward).

 

Well, she's certainly not attractive now, because there's this strange warped thing where her nose is. The size is probably around right, but my attempts to shade it so far have just led to her losing almost all shading and, you know, giant warped thing where the nose should be.

 

Any ideas on what I can/should do about the nose, and what else needs improvement? Am I getting any closer to 'sort of fits in with the default portraits without looking like Frankenstein from hell'?

 

Please, crit hard. (Well, not too hard, but yes.) She's worthless until I get her looking like the others, so please tell me where I'm messing up.

 

 

louisestilltrying.png

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Hmm. Is the braid stiffness better if it's done like this?

 

louiseshort.jpg

 

(Ignore the ugliness of that white 'band' and the fact the braid now fails at being a braid due to someone messing up when making it.) If it's obviously cut off length-wise there and the braid direction is reversed, does it look a bit more natural, or still too stiff? I want to avoid hiding it behind the shoulder because that's how the majority of the gals in game wear their longer hair, and because there's nothing else going on below her shoulders (my attempt at adding a feather necklace failed miserably).

 

I can fix the hair blurry. Is the skin-tone too blurry as well, or is that okay?

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The image names get more and more bitter the longer I work at this (IHateThisChick.jpg). Master of photoshop, I ain't.

 

 

louisesucks.jpglouisesucks2.jpg? -_-

 

Is the hair blur better in either of those? Of course, I think now I have the opposite problem- it's too drawn.

 

Is the coloring (skin, highlights) better in the first or in the second?

 

Am I getting anywhere with either of them? /grin

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Not sure if I think it is too unblurry here,.. My personal preference is the left one - hair and in general.

 

I'd have to agree though, that the braid seems a little stiff *duck and cover* (Thank the gods I've stopped playing with this - I feel your pain!)

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mikkanemesis.jpg

 

See the red circle? It looks like a hole in the hair; I zoomed in and found the hair partially transparent, making the ear look a bit weird when viewed at normal size. Your call on whether cover it up or not though, it's personal preference.

 

I think the reason why the braid seems so stiff is the part in yellow circle.

The braid seems to be too heavy, too big in comparison to the hair that is connecting it to her head, and it ends up looking like a disconnected, almost falling off wig-part.

 

...And the braid also seems too straight. If you can manage to preserve the Vernin Uniform, I'd suggest you to add a little curve to the braid : P

 

 

Yeah, yeah, I know I sounds like a picky guy nitpicking

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No, no, you don't sound picky at all, Creme! Thanks to all three of you- it's a huge help. :) Necessary, too- I'm at the point where I've stared at her for long enough and it's hard for me to decide one way or another about quality.

 

I have to work for a bit today, but I think I can go back and play with this during the afternoon. I can see all your points, and have an idea. Curving the braid is tricky, but if I do a slow copy-and-paste routine, I think I can get it. And I can easily get rid of the dark eyes, I hope.

 

...I'm not sure what happened with that ear. Silly layers. That one, at least, is certainly easy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right now I'm actually experimenting of using a combination of Aveline, Amada, Gwendy and Kurt to have her right arm lifted so she's sort of tugging on her braid in the universal gesture of preteen girl shyness/irritation/boredom. It helps explain why the braid's not falling naturally: she's holding it, and saves me from breaking myself with the warp tools. Which are being very mean. :(

 

I'm actually using Photoshop, but yeah, it can warp, too. As the 'parts' of the braid are so big, though, warping it hasn't worked all that well for me, though as I'm not sure how this arm experiment is going, I may need to give it up and try again.

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