The Citadel

Greetings everyone!

I am Peuri, a new member of the Game of Thrones mod team. I am tasked along side with dauncosony with creating new portrait outfits for the different cultures of the mod. This thread has several purposes. (1) The first is to create a connection through which people working on the mod and roaming the forums can suggest what kind of outfits they would like to see in the mod, so that dauncosony and I can try to create them. (2) The second is to display the work that has been done so far, so that people can criticise them and make suggestions. (3) The third purpose is for special reguests that don't belong to any special culture, but belong to all of them. Like eyepatches for example.

In the following section I will display the outfits currently done, and update these as new outfits are made.
Northmen
Male clothes

Male headwear

Beards


Female clothes

Female headwear


Dornishmen
Male clothes

Male headwear


Female clothes

Female headwear


Requests
Eyepatch, maester clothes, septa clothes


Backgrounds

Sources:
http://freebigpictures.com/wp-content/u ... -trees.jpg
http://freebigpictures.com/wp-content/u ... y-land.jpg
http://www.freefoto.com/images/15/47/15 ... ia_web.jpg
http://www.scenicreflections.com/files/ ... __yvt2.jpg
http://www.dicts.info/img/ud/battlement.jpg


dauncosony's work is a few posts down. Here is a link to his post:
http://citadel.prophpbb.com/topic342.html#p3610

AWSOME!!!

So, as I discussed with dauncosony earlier, given how many crowns the Targaryens had, I think it'd be really cool to have a number of culture-specific crown graphics. Because of the way the portrait properties are set up, it would also be possible to link certain crowns to particular personality traits of the ruler in question, assuming we kept them consistent across graphics sets. I was thinking they would be, in order:

• A big, elaborate crown, for proud rulers. For the Targaryens, this would be Aegon the Unworthy's crown.
• A warrior-king's crown. For the Targaryens, this would be Aegon the Conqueror's crown.
• A "standard" crown for characters with no other stand-out traits. For the Targaryens, this would probably be either Aenys's or Maekar's crown.
• A diplomatic king's crown. For the Targaryens, this would be Jaeherys I's crown.
• A simple gold circlet, for humble rulers. For the Targaryens, this would be Aegon III's crown.

In terms of things that should be consistent across all cultures - the armor of the Kingsguard (I'd say go with the show's look, visually, since it doesn't contradict the books*), and a black set of armor for the Night's Watch (here, I think we should just use a black version of their native culture's armor)

The eyepatch looks perfect! I do think the Dornish helmet could be a bit better defined, though. I actually mistook it for a fur hat the first time I saw it.

* For the record, this is my general policy for visuals. The show is the most official visual guide we have. We're going to contradict somebody's mental image no matter what we do, but basing our visuals on the show where it doesn't contradict descriptions in the books will contradict the least mental images.

Edric Storm wrote:Please don't go with the HBO show's look. Please don't go with the HBO show's look for anything - it's horrible!

I totally agree with it, one looks at the hounds helmet turned me off the whole show for about 6 months...

I will start shamelessly bombarding with requests then;

1. Crowns;

Bare in mind Galles work ; ( topic333.html )
and the crown duncosony did ( topic333.html#p3547 )

I really hate the biggest of the vanilla crown (emperor stuff, lokks really ugly imho) and i would like to see more like these 3;



First being a northen crown, made of copper-base and iron swords.
2nd is a dragon crown for the targs... might be too difficult to make...
3rd one is a crown for the more war-like kings...

2. Some more "knightly" helms;



Just examples.

Peuri, you are awesome I'll merge your work into the mod when I can. Still, I also mistook the dornish helm for a fur hat at first. It should probably be more shiny and metallic.

And a suggestion: Could you create some clothing for Maesters? Maybe their chains too? It would be great to be able to tell them at a glance.

EDIT: I moved the posts about the show's visual style to the other thread for clarity.

Thanks Galle and Cabezaestufa for the criticism regarding the dornish helmet. I scrapped the design and made a new one. I hope the new one looks metallic. I also changed the northman helmet to have a more smooth texture.

The visual style debate is important. Currently I've mostly used various different kinds of sources to draw the ones I've made so far including the series and Amok's art. And also my imagination, which is a bit selfish, seeing as the visual style of the portraits draw such ferocious debate. It would be good to agree on something before going forward. I'm a bit apprehensive about making knight helmets because they cover the face, which is important to distinguish between characters in this game. They also make moustaches and beards look like a mess. Which is probably why vanilla CKII only has open helmets too. Sure the vizier could be lifted, but that could look weird too. These are the reasons why I have so far only made open helmets more in line with HBO's series.

@Galle. I like the idea of making different kinds of crowns for different personalities a lot. But I think crowns are going to have to wait a while, since I can't really make good jewelry. I can't seem to get the sheen even remotely right.

I am dauncosony and I am an artist of the modding team. Below you will probably find a lot of unfinished work. You might think of me being lazy, but I am being efficient. I am blocking the paintings to give you guys the idea of how the new portraits might look like so you can critique them and give me feedback before I spend hours on the finishing work.

Targaryen Crowns
Targaryen crowns for the Valyrian Kings!



Westerman
Right now I have been tasked with the Westerman Culture for clothing. I would like to discuss with you what kind of traits would define a Westerman. The West is no doubt the richest region in the Seven Kingdoms so I think it would be appropriate to give their clothes more jewelery than the rest of the cultures. What do you guys think?

Right now I have blocked the Lannister Guards' outfit. I understand most of you hate the TV adaption's rendition of the armors, but that is exactly why I did not outright finish it. (Although to be honest, I do think it looks cool, if not practical.)



Royal Clothes


Ironborn
A viking like helmet for the Ironborn.



Armor
Because quite the number of you hate the armors in the TV adaption, I took the liberty of blocking random pieces of armor worn by medieval warriors. However, my perception of characters wearing armor in CK2 is that they are probably rich enough to afford high quality armor, given that they have commanding positions, so not all of these might not be used if you agree with me. Below I have painted the knightly hounskull for use for Andal Knights.

I think it would be best to stick to open bascinets and half-helms for any helmets used. (The vanilla helmets with nasal guards are more than adequate enough to still use!)








Using your imagination isn't selfish, it's what we (the majority at least) like to see. I think the most democratic approach would be to propose concept designs and get a discussion going on proposed designs. All it takes is a sketch and a descriptive sentence. That way we can all make a concerted effort to move towards a consistent style.

What you have done thus far is looking excellent. Really looking forward to seeing more!

I have posted an update:
topic342.html#p3610

You guys don't mind that I do these small minor posts to show my updates, do you?

dauncosony wrote:I have posted an update:
topic342.html#p3610

You guys don't mind that I do these small minor posts to show my updates, do you?

No, I at least dont mind.
...and i love the efficient way you are taking this!

I think by now its obvious, im against the western armor having the HBO adaptation. Don't like it visually, and its not practical.

The rest of the armors look pretty cool, we can block these by status using tires.
#4 i think is too "byzantine", but we could probably use it for some essso cultures.
#5 generic or ironborn?

(personal wishlist; would love to see some proper knightly open visors... )


@Peuri
The maesters clothes are just awesome! Almost missed that one, i wont mind you would also start posting small "updated"-'s.

Ogaburan wrote:The rest of the armors look pretty cool, we can block these by status using tires.
#4 i think is too "byzantine", but we could probably use it for some essso cultures.

If it can be used for Essos cultures, than it can also be used for the Dornish culture, for they are a mixture of Andal and Rhoynar culture.

Fair point...

dauncosony wrote:

Ogaburan wrote:The rest of the armors look pretty cool, we can block these by status using tires.
#4 i think is too "byzantine", but we could probably use it for some essso cultures.

If it can be used for Essos cultures, than it can also be used for the Dornish culture, for they are a mixture of Andal and Rhoynar culture.

Certainly applies for east and central, but with the Stony Dornishmen of the mountains it would apply less as there's not as much Rhoynar influence there.

Blocked Targaryen Crowns uploaded:

topic342.html#p3610

@Ogaburan. I'll start updating like dauncosony does then. Also, I'll redo the salt dornish tomorrow and not remove so much tan.

New clothes for higher tier northmen and maester clothes.
http://citadel.prophpbb.com/topic342.html#p3557

It's great that you are taking this approach to your work. It's efficient and the team get a chance to influence design and give feedback throughout.

As you probably guessed I'm against the HBO design for the Lannister helmet.

The historical helmets are definitely the way forward. As you mentioned about the wealth and prestige of characters and their choice of headgear, I'd agree that certain helmets might not be worn by most characters (like the Kettle helm which is more of a levies/militias helmet). I think the best type of helmet for most of the characters would be knightly two piece bascinets (with face visor) that is open to show the face. It would be great to have most other helmet types as variations of the barbute and bascinet types. Then the usual cultural specific helmets for the Iron-born and Dornish.

Keep up the good work.

A few clothes for northman females.
http://citadel.prophpbb.com/topic342.html#p3557

As always, if you think that the pieces of clothing I've made are outright bad, or could be otherwise improved, I'd like to hear about it so I can try to improve them.

As soon as I am done with the northmen I'll go over to the dornishmen. I haven't found a lot of pictures of the dornishmen though, and the TV series hasn't progressed to the part where dornishmen are seen, so I can't use that as a reference either. I always imagined them having light indian type of clothes with bright colours etc. I would love to hear some suggestions about the kind of clothing people think would a appropriate for them.

@Edric Strom. Very well, I shall try to create the kind of helmet you described for the northmen. I would like to draw attention to the fact that there is currently only one frame for armors and helmets designated in portrait_properties (this could, of course change) and 10 for other types of clothing. So while the armor is an important part of that, there is an overwhelming majority of other kinds of clothes in the files.

By the way, has there been any talk about how the portrait system should be changed? We obviously want to have seperate clothing for maesters and septons, but what else? The last time I tried to add more frames to the headgear layer in portraits.gfx it produced some weird results, so I don't know if it is possible to add more than the existing amount of headgear and clothing to the mod, which currently is 15. There are other, less useful layers too which could be used, like scars, boils, imprisonment, all of which could be replaced with something else. No new layers can be added to my knowledge.

i'm new to ck2 graphic modding. how does ck2 handles the outfits? i just need a quick tutorial, i'm a fast learner.

Peuri wrote:A few clothes for northman females.
http://citadel.prophpbb.com/topic342.html#p3557

As always, if you think that the pieces of clothing I've made are outright bad, or could be otherwise improved, I'd like to hear about it so I can try to improve them.

I don't think they are bad, in fact I think they are unfinished works of awesome. You just need need to push the lighting more, make the left side more dark

Peuri wrote:@Edric Strom. Very well, I shall try to create the kind of helmet you described for the northmen. I would like to draw attention to the fact that there is currently only one frame for armors and helmets designated in portrait_properties (this could, of course change) and 10 for other types of clothing. So while the armor is an important part of that, there is an overwhelming majority of other kinds of clothes in the files.

That is fine mate, I wasn't expecting you to make loads of armour/helmet types for each culture.

Looking forward to seeing more stuff.