Ancient/Pre-Steam Unit Graphics

[barocca]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
Indeed nice!

But what's up with the female pirates?

i like female pirates ,

they could be unique characters - like anne bonney, mary read etc,
they could be spies, diplomats or you could have a female pirate civ battling a male pirate civ...
:-)
B.

[Dr Kellogg]

I really like your pirates, particularly their detailed and colourful clothes!

[barocca]

this one is Not Finished,
(of course if Curt wants to take him and play with him, by all means)

i have spent SIX hours on him so far, it's late, i have been awake 32 hours (work and other real life issues) and i am tired, so i am taking a break.

this one came from a "cartoony" photo of a model figurine by a company called the foundry, i found the image when i was researching pirates, it is on a few websites displaying examples of the foundry's work
(i have not yet BEEN to the foundry, i simply used the image i found)

after i cut away the background and the figurines base this is what i'm left with

tons of detail, and way too big.

I keep this image open in photoshop as a reference while i am working on the unit pic.

(not all my "steps" are illustrated here, i make backup copies of the image all the time, so if i dont like the way part of it turned out i simply go back to the backups)

(2x magnification)
the first thing i have to do is shrink him down and import him into my "construction" unit gif.
looks ugly now, thats why i keep an original open

then i worked on his head/face/hat,
next i pick a body part and tinker with it, i often copy that part seperately and work on it, then copy it back over the unit - (rinse and repeat).
in this case i worked on his right arm. sleeve, then cuff,
next i came back across the body filling in his over coat and waistcoat,
i did some early work on his left sleeve and started down the body and on his sash,
his left lower coat i decided was a right mess, so i gave him a cutlass - every pirate needs a cutlass,
then i tweaked the cutlass and continued on his lower left coat and thigh protectors, and his lower right coat,
next came his boots, these i copied from my pirate with the blue trouser and red jacket above,
i could not get them to work correctly so i made a reverse image and gave the new guy two right boots,
tweaked them and the trousers and a few random pixels,
finally gave him some new pistols and did some more on the left sleeve and cuff
- i am NOT totally happy with him at the moment,
but sleep/rest first, then play some more in the morning.

cheers,
B.

EDIT here's the finsihed product, a few tweaks, buttons, shading





here's the normal size unit gif (of the overnight version, not the final one)

[Cyrion]

Very nice!

And very interesting to follow the whole creation process!

[tanelorn]

Very nice indeed
It is actually very similar to what I did (mostly) with the warhammer units in the sci-fi thread.
To speed the Catfish process however I sampled colour from the original and hand-painted the detail... This works fine for prominent features like the eyes,nose, buttons, cloth folds etc.
Why don't you give it a try?
Let me guess what the loot is... slave girls?

[barocca]

@tanelorn and @fairlane
clones there be...

i have cloned some of your units into pirates, some of them i combined with mine (legs/boots),
one i added curt's neat hat to,
some i combined two (or more) of yours,
only a handfull all up though, i can maybe squeeze 3 or 4 more out of your enemies of rome and civil war units
(i could clone a few others too but they will be almost identical to the ones already done - no point in too much duplication really)

a few of your units will slot right in, settlers and priests,
i'll add them in when i finish,
this is not a scenario unit set, as such, it is a collection, some of which i am going to use for a scenario, but mainly they are for anyone else who wants to make a 1700's era scenario featuring pirates.

the very last one (when you look at him 2x mag) is very "village people", but hey, i wouldn't mess with him.
And Ghengis Khan made a very neat pirate, all he needed was a hat and a cutlass.

[edit]fairlanes chinese rifle, from imperialism, fits the theme very nicely!

seeing these guys are created from your originals if you see pixel or ten out of place and want to tweak them please go right ahead.

i have another handful of units that i can clone or that will fit right into the mix, they have no tags in them, they came from different scenario's, how do i credit the authors?

cheers,
B.

[jim panse]

Looking good

[curtsibling]

Certainly the best gang of privateer cut-throats I have
seen in quite some time...And the tutorial is top notch!

Great work!

[tanelorn]

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

[Sarsstock]

Its been a while since I've contributed to the unit threads (in part because of a hush hush work in project) so I thought I'd offer these up for the community's enjoyment. They're all mods from Gareth's "Enemies of Rome" Carthagian Spearman, for which I had the inspiration after a hundred or so hours of playing Eivind's "Colonialism II".

A North American Aboriginal Warrior, a Zulu Warrior, and a generic West African Warrior.

[tanelorn]

Very nice.
No Iklwe

"mine is bigger than yours"
Greatsword, "Italian" field plate, 1400s

[curtsibling]

Fine work, gents!

[Varwnos]

This is an anthopid-neanthertal hunter

[Punknthrash]

Does anybody know of any medieval scottish units, or even jacobite era scottish units? If you need some pictures for for some ideas just ask.

[curtsibling]

This file by fairline has some Scots units, but not from the era you need, but they might be useful...!