EVE portraits - share tricks, and share yours!

Communications Center My EVE
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Ok, so we got a new event and of course, I had to make some new portraits…

This time I went more for a close-up view, though not so close that you can’t view the character’s apparel. And hopefully it showcases the new apparel items released with this event…

One of the things I’ve found to be tough with doing these kinds of portraits is getting the eyes to look good, as in “Here’s looking at you kid”, so to say…

The trick I’ve found is to use the mouse wheel and zoom in close on the face, then position the mouse directly over the center of the eye and for lack of a better description, when it starts flashing you can then click / hold the mouse to then move the eye itself into the proper position.

It takes a bit of time and patience to actually get it right since the eye itself is constantly moving ever so slightly and when you do release the mouse, the eye will then be in that position. Also the eyebrows usually need to be adjusted as well, both on the inner and outer sections of the brow itself.

I then zoom the character back out for a viewing to make sure it looks good and if needed, will repeat the process until the desired effect is achieved.

Anyway, all I can say now is…

“Viva La Tercio Rojo”
(Long live the Red Third)

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Nice advice, playing with the eyes and eyebrows can really bring life to portraits!

I also really like how well those new facial augments look with the black and red from the suits and headwear. Fitting!

If you don’t mind me giving advice (otherwise please ignore the next part :stuck_out_tongue: ), what I personally would do next to tweak my portraits is:

Hidden advice

Play a bit with the chin and corners of the mouth to give them more life there, just like the eyes!

Next, I would play with various settings with the motto ‘less is more’.

In these two portaits I see the new facial augments which I assume are the focus of these portraits. I also see a lot of other things that all try to grab my attention: a white eye, eye implant, unique head covers, tatoos, earrings, piercings… The focus is a bit lost to me. What I usually do is to pick a unique combination of at most two or three from the list for my portraits. Bonus: because of a smaller selection I have a lot more options for unique combinations!

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Yes, that’s all good advice.

The reason I didn’t mess with the mouth too much is because I actually wanted the portraits to convey a more serious / stern look. I think having them smile, smirk or frown would have detracted from the overall serious look I was trying to convey.

And yes, sometimes “Less is more” is actually better. However that depends on what the overall look is trying to achieve. In this case the characters are actually Cyborg’s so I think having the eye implants and headwear goes quite nicely with the new facial augmentations.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I’ll try that with the next portraits I create…

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I agree that for this theme the eye implants, facial implants and headwear goes great with eachother and the suit!

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Speaking of “Less Is More”…

Here’s a close up portrait of my Caldari female character, no special Apparel items other than the Festive Rocket Dress, the make-up / hair / jewelry are strictly generic stock options available in the character customization screen.

Doing the lighting with a touch of shadow and the slight smile on her face gives this portrait a nice life-like realism… And of course her eyes, definitely mesmerizing…

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All your portraits look great, but there’s something about the PI character that speaks to me haha. The beret and glasses to the mohawk transition has spun some sort of villain-story in my head.

I change my portrait all the time and I never really put any effort into them until I saw your post. I’ve been playing around with my portrait a bit. I just wish that female characters didn’t have to go bald for wearing headgear. My character started off very pro-caldari. Everything changed when the trigs came around. I gave into the temptation of the unknown and fully committed. 2 years later and I’m still running around Pochven and lowsec.

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Still kept my caldari jackets :stuck_out_tongue:

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I like that jacket, looks great with the trig shirt!

It’s pretty new I guess? I don’t think it was around last time when I went through the entire list of clothes to see what my character could wear.

I agree it’s a bit annoying that characters go bald when they wear headwear, mostly when wearing berets. A previous version of my fourth character had it, for example (although the bald head didn’t look bad on her, to be honest):

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She looks a bit

scarier and outworldish

now, but is still flying mainly Gallente ships.

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That’s one of the 8 different Caldari ‘Mega Corporations’ Jackets released in the recent Caldari ‘Union Day’ event.

Basically had to pick one of the eight Corporations for the event and when the Agency points was completed, players were awarded a set of Male and Female Jackets as the final prize for completing the event.

I think the Jackets are still available in the Market…

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oh god the deamons

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Ok, I decided to employ @Gerard_Amatin advice of ‘Less Is More’ to create new portraits for my 2 Amarr characters, integrated with my own policy of showcasing apparel items, specifically the newest Amarr apparel items recently implemented in the game.

Pertaining to these portraits, my tip is about selecting which one of the various backgrounds that’s available to use as the correct one for the portrait.

Basically when I create a new portrait, I usually have a general ideal for a specific scene to portray which will also invoke a specific feeling in the viewer. That pretty much dictates which apparel items to use as well as which expression / pose to set with the character. After that I’ll mess with the lighting just a little bit in order to get a general impression of what the portrait will look like. Mainly because the background you select for the portrait will also dictate how the lighting will be set. All of that is very important because it helps establish the type of ambience you want to portray in the portrait.

Basically for the background, I’ll cycle through the various types and when I see one that I think is appropriate for the portrait, I’ll take a snapshot of it in one of the 4 portrait spots. I then continue doing that until all 4 portrait spots are filled. I then cycle through those 4 portrait spots and fine-tune the lighting in each one so that it fit’s the background.

After that’s done, I’ll cycle through each of the 4 portraits a couple of times and then select the best one I think portrays the overall impression I’m trying to create with the portrait.

Granted this all sounds like it takes a lot of time but after doing it a few times, you’ll know which background to choose and which lighting effects to use for your portrait, thus making the whole process much quicker to complete. For example, if you intend to portray an exterior / outside scene, you don’t need to cycle through all the backgrounds portraying interior scene’s.

Anyway, as I said in my initial statement, here’s my version of ‘Less Is More’ that hopefully invokes a specific impression while showcasing the newest Amarr apparel items recently implemented in the game.

I present to you the most benevolent sacred paragons of piety, the High Priest and Priestess for the Amarr Council of Apostles…

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I like them!

I’ve noticed, it’s something you sometimes pull off really well! I recall a set of halloween themed portraits you made that each had their own theme. Was easy to tell the themes even without description, well done!

Lol, it’s probably not nearly as much time as I’ve wasted on my portraits… :sweat_smile:

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Thank you, while doing these Amarr portraits, I also incorporated the ‘Less Is More’ approach in a few other character portraits as well. They actually turned out pretty good.

However since this thread topic is about portrait tips and tricks, I felt these Amarr portraits were great for showing how a background can not only help portray, but also even enhance the overall premise being conveyed in the portrait. Such as the religious aspect for these Amarr portraits…

Ahhh, yeah… and thank you.

Those were actually fun to create. Granted the available options were limited to actually do those portraits justice, they still came out pretty good…

Guess I could post those portraits here as well, just to show how lighting and shadows coupled with background and character pose can really help a lot in conveying the overall theme you’re trying to portray…

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Even with the limited options available in Character Customization, you can still basically convey the overall theme of a portrait by using a combination of light and shadow, specific background scene and character pose. Course having some of the special / NES apparel items also helps too… :wink:

Anyway, here’s all 12 of the Halloween Portraits I recently created…

Demon

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Evil Queen
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Goblin
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Banshee
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Emperor Palpatine
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Vampire
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Wolfman
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Wraith
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Skeleton
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Cyborg
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Frankenstein Monster
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Shaman Witch Doctor
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It may seem like I’m being a hog, constantly posting replies for validation but believe me, that’s not my intention.

This thread topic is about sharing tips and tricks for Eve portraits. I mainly post a lot of replies here because I have a lot of experience with this topic… and as a bonus I get to show off various portraits… :wink:

Sooo, my tip this time is just do the best you can and don’t spend a lot of time working on it.

Despite having a clear idea of what you want to portray, sometimes the limitations in Character Customization just won’t let you create the portrait that you want. When that happens the best thing to do is just get it as close as possible and then don’t think about it anymore.

Case in point. For the past couple of days I’ve been spending a lot of time constantly going into Character Customization to re-work my current portrait. Even though it was close to what I wanted, it just wasn’t what I had envisioned and that was bugging me to no end.

Since the options available for light color and placement location is very limited, I actually tried all kinds of other tricks to achieve what I wanted, everything from various lighting options to character position in the portrait, even rotating the body in various ways in the hope of creating the image I had envisioned. Nothing worked… I wasted a lot of time until eventually I had to accept the fact that I’d never be able to accomplish what I wanted, all due to the limitations of the Character Customization screen.

For this portrait I wanted to have the character in half shadow and half lit up with blue hue from the blue star in the background. The location of the blue star is actually opposite of the available shadow / light options and even though the best blue hue aspect of lighting is left sided, unfortunately it’s paired with a right sided yellow white light. Basically all of the available options were opposite of what I wanted to portray…

So that’s my tip, just do the best you can to get it close to what you want and don’t spend a lot of time working on it.

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Pochven got nerfed so I switched sides :grimacing:

Also, I seem to have decided that whatever was off to my characters left was no longer interesting. Followed the advice, wanted simple portrait, went with simple background. Less turned out to be more, I’m happy with it. Slowly becoming addicted to cosmetics in this game(thankfully someone paid over 15bil for my trig armor :flushed:).

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Does anyone have new portraits to share?

(Also bump)

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Miss Clyde

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Very nice, classic ‘Biker’ look.

Soo, any tips, tricks, etc to go with your post?

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The tip is that portraits don’t always need to have headspace.
If you imagine this image further zoomed out, so the full head would be visible, the focus on the main features (glasses and black lipstick) would be far less prominent. It would probably become a rather average image.

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Ahhh, good point…

And thanks for the reply…