Subset Games Forum

CONGRATULATIONS Trilobite!!! Awesome Let's Player VanguardofValor featured your awesome portraits in his most recent FTL video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNHKn2bKuag

Love the idea and mod but agree with VanguardofValor's comments in his video about Rockmen and Crystal portraits.
Are you considering to make another version?

splette wrote:Love the idea and mod but agree with VanguardofValor's comments in his video about Rockmen and Crystal portraits.
Are you considering to make another version?

On the previous page Trilobite already said he might make a few adjustments to several portraits. They could use some adjustments, but I just wanted to say again, they still look awesome already.

Mandibles on the mantis may make it work for me.... idk, I picture them with mandibles a lot.

Alright, I redid the rockman completely. Now he's a bit more zoomed in, and seriously grumpy. I started with a general rock face, but it looked a bit boring. So I added some mouth parts, and liked it.
I also changed the Mantis a little. I changed mostly the body so he looks more scary and added his wrists too. I also emphasized the mandibles a little more and made the eye larger. I quite like it.

Tell me what you guys think!

LordTrilobite wrote:Alright, I redid the rockman completely. Now he's a bit more zoomed in, and seriously grumpy. I started with a general rock face, but it looked a bit boring. So I added some mouth parts, and liked it.
I also changed the Mantis a little. I changed mostly the body so he looks more scary and added his wrists too. I also emphasized the mandibles a little more and made the eye larger. I quite like it.

Tell me what you guys think!

Nice job again! I like the new Mantis, that seems like the posture they would normally have with their arms up like an actual Praying Mantis. The only thing I would change on them is I would give them some noticeable spikes on their arms. They are said to have blades on their arms that they use to fight.

For the Rockman I would give it some broad shoulders extending across most of the rest of the portrait. That would make them seem really large still. Also, maybe it's just me, but the Rockman seems a little bit sad. In every picture I've ever seen of them they have a very neutral complexion. I would have been fine with you just doing a more zoomed in version of the original Rock.

The only things I would request now is a sharpening of the blades on the Lanius and a slightly more detailed, less ghost-like, and possibly partly transparent Zoltan.

Well, to answer the Mantis spike thing. The idea is that those spikes are facing down. It's basically his wrists that you see now, with his hands and spikes facing down. Besides, there really wouldn't be much room for spikes there on the portrait.

Concerning the rockman. The main problem was the shoulders actually. I can't use the entire space of the window, or else it will break the borders of the cloning bay icon when reviving. I think my Lanius portrait is the maximum width.
This is why I originally made the Rockman portrait smaller, so there was room for his shoulders. Now I took the other approach, placing his head above his body so I could show it more closely. I'll see if I can widen the shoulders a little, but I doubt I can increase them much.

I was also experimenting with the Lanius a little. It's probably my favourite portrait of all of them. But some were saying he should be more metal-like and shiny. I've been experimenting a little, but no success yet.
the Zoltan is also a hard one, because of the extra colour layers, intense colours are hard to pull off, and as a result a glowing Zoltan is also hard to do. I could change the design, though I don't have any good ideas for that now. but I really have no idea how I can improve the glowing effect.

I also tweaked the skin tone of the humans a little. They should look a little better.

LordTrilobite wrote:Well, to answer the Mantis spike thing. The idea is that those spikes are facing down. It's basically his wrists that you see now, with his hands and spikes facing down. Besides, there really wouldn't be much room for spikes there on the portrait.

Concerning the rockman. The main problem was the shoulders actually. I can't use the entire space of the window, or else it will break the borders of the cloning bay icon when reviving. I think my Lanius portrait is the maximum width.
This is why I originally made the Rockman portrait smaller, so there was room for his shoulders. Now I took the other approach, placing his head above his body so I could show it more closely. I'll see if I can widen the shoulders a little, but I doubt I can increase them much.

I was also experimenting with the Lanius a little. It's probably my favourite portrait of all of them. But some were saying he should be more metal-like and shiny. I've been experimenting a little, but no success yet.
the Zoltan is also a hard one, because of the extra colour layers, intense colours are hard to pull off, and as a result a glowing Zoltan is also hard to do. I could change the design, though I don't have any good ideas for that now. but I really have no idea how I can improve the glowing effect.

I also tweaked the skin tone of the humans a little. They should look a little better.

I always thought the Mantis spikes were on the top part of their arms, but whatever you think is best.

The Rockman doesn't need to be too big, I just think you should broaden the shoulders a bit, they look a bit hunched over in game so I think widening the shoulders would be ok, it doesn't have to be too big.

The Lanius portrait is really good, it is one of my favorites too, though my personal favorite favorite is the Slugs by far! I just think the Lanius should be a bit "sharper" to match their ships.

Sleeper Service added extra glow to some of the Zoltans in Captains edition so he has also added an extra layer of glow to your portraits. It looks pretty good, not sure if it will help you make a brighter Zoltan or not.

Keep up the good work.

They look great

I'll be using these starting on the next ship I play after the Mantis run I'm doing now. They add such character to the game.

Before opining on what you should do with the rock man, I have 2 questions:
1) How ugly is the clone bay graphic when you overlap it? Is that the only problem with making them wider?
2) Is it possible to change the clone bay graphic in any way? Maybe remove the sides or the entire border around each person to give more room for your graphics?

And now that I've asked those questions, I'll opine:
Make him wider. So it'll overlap the borders (unless you can change them), it'll look cooler!