GameBanshee Forums

I am looking through custom portraits for BG II and find myself mightly displeased. For while there are many good female ones (and indeed many that are pleasing to the eye, and outright eyecandy), there are no males ones.

Being a Viking fighting re-enactor for 17 years and with an MA in History I find not a single one, well... one or two, that satisfies my. Either their weapons are too large and/or unrealistic, their armour is so fantastically-fantasy that it defies my suspension of disbelief or their combat stances are ridiculous; a 3-year-old could defeat most of these "heroes" by the mere expedient of a push, for they are so out of balance that they would not be able to stay standing.

I am a firm believer in realism-fantasy; sure there is magic and such, but anatomy and balance is as it is for humanoids, so I am a bit at a loss for proper male portraits.

However, I am a viking re-enactor, so I thought if I provided the pictures of real fighters in combat and in realistic stances, movement, with real weapons and real armour; would someone be interested in turning them into portraits?

I think there are a lot of good portraits out there, however.. I do agree that certain types of characters get the overhand on all sites. It is allmost impossible to find a good Gnome Illusionist.

Maybe someone on this site could make them?

No offense, but you are abviously no fighter yourself. Have a look in [url="http://www.foto.skrzypek.eu/Moesgaard%202009/index.html"]this[/url] album and compare...

Edited to add that I hoped someone here would be willing/interested.

I too find all portraits a bit disappointing. However, my enourmous ego allows me to fix the problem by making all characters bear my face

Ekhem.. I suggest getting Icewind Dale portraits, or search some portals where people show off their art. Since Jouke mentioned gnomes. [url="http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/1550/gnomewarlock.jpg"]This[/url] is a good gnome pic, i use it in my D&D sessions. A bit of resizing would make it fit BG2

Edar Macilrille wrote:No offense, but you are abviously no fighter yourself. Have a look in [url="http://www.foto.skrzypek.eu/Moesgaard%202009/index.html"]this[/url] album and compare...

Edited to add that I hoped someone here would be willing/interested.

There are some nice pictures in this album but I don't think they are fit for use in BG2

jouke1988 wrote:There are some nice pictures in this album but I don't think they are fit for use in BG2

Use the paint Luke.

I cannot remember the exact requirements for BG2 portraits, but its just a specific size. I always used the simpliest tools for that mainly "Resize image" in paint.

;-) I have spent 5 hours today finding pics. And I found no realistic fantasy ones. My friends and I may not be suitable for BG, but we keep our balance, fight in real armour, with real weapons. That is how it looks when you do that. What I meant is; try and compare the real thing (ie us) with the portraits you can find online and you will be as disappointed as me. It is not merely BG, it is 99% of all Fantasy Art.

It is easy to make portraits, I do it all the time in paint. Just resize your image to 110(W)x170(L) for the large and 38(W)x60(L) for the small. Do this through a mix of cropping and shrinking for best results.

I usually find the available portraits too "old school" fantasy for me.
So what I do is, I generally look for recent and modern concept arts, or simply arts that doesn't relate directly to fantasy over internet and just crop/rescale them.

Found for example some nice tribal stuff, good for barb, druid, berserker etc:

[url="http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5913/91028710.png"]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5913/91028710.png[/url]

This is the most sensible and comprehensive portrait site I've found (and I'm INCREDIBLY picky): Baldur's Gate - Portraits

Apparently not as much as me...

Balnce, stance and armour- all that needs to be in order to satisfy me.

Here are the custom portraits I am currently using, plus a half-orc since good half-orc portraits are so hard to find. All source images are from deviantart.com and are not mine blah blah blah hope I don't get in trouble lol.

[url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/4561713661_b691139ee4_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/4561713665_bc675529e2_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3011/4561713667_e9b269d1fc_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/4561713671_6fc7a7860e_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4561713677_635db6cb24_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3069/4561713681_4820f167cc_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4064/4562344468_77a6e2eca6_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2743/4562344472_1382e991de_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4562344478_115bcf87b1_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3387/4562344486_46eeded1de_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/4562344490_86e4b5ef69_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/4562344494_1db44ee965_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

[url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4561716519_fb2c908f71_m.jpg"]Large[/url] [url="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4561716523_5ea8ae7242_t.jpg"]Small[/url]

Edit: wish I could use IMG code.

Sorry, cross post.