Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Let's make Minthara Great Again

In the compare contrasts, the most noticeable differences are in the lighting and how the different contours and color choices affect the overall impression.

There also seems to be a bit less saturation generally in any of the comparisons showing the new Minthara. Not sure if that is from the monitor or just slight differences in how the cinematics are cueing off the environment/environmental lighting, the fact that she's in a slightly different spot, or something they changed in the overall lighting?

But the facial expressions and modelling seems largely unchanged. The wrinkles for example, seem to come from just more of the model being exposed. Or the lightness of the face/neck, often seems to be because more of the contours are now set against the the environment rather than the white hair, which creates different lines. The brow and neck appear lighter because there are fewer cast shadows there.

Having more reflective and light colors on the brow and in the eyesockets also creates like visual jitter, that just makes it look less fully rendered. All I see is the artifacts, and its too busy. Get's in the way by calling too much attention to itself.

The shoulders and the rest of the dressed character below the neck, pop more, because they use warmer colors that also seem less saturated overall. It's like the midrange values on the whole figure were punched up and the overall contrast reduced as a result. We see more of what's there, but it reads flatter, which is what happens when you blow out the midrange.

The issue with how the face reads in the cheeks and ears is just that there is less there breaking it up, so it appears more plastic and video game, than gritty cinematic. Grain can come in also sorts of ways. I think those things are not facial expression but they contribute to the overall impression which plays off the face.

In painting they tell you to use a black mirror, not just because it sounds cool, but because it knocks away extraneous detail, allows one to see a simpler read on the whole impression. Something like that would help with Minthara. Like they're already noodling away at the details around the eyes, when they still need to block in the main figure and choose a value range.

Everything changes when you change the colors of the clothing. We don't experience any of it in isolation, it all keys of everything else. So I think they should go back to basics. Start with the figure, put her in black first. Then see how the rest reads. Maybe that alone would be enough to fix what's bugging me about the newer iteration?

Black Armor and Black eyeliner!

That's the battle cry for the next draft hehe. Hopefully anyway, cause I think she could look really cool that way, and the armor set would ice it for sure.

I mean in the old one she had a vibe like Drow Joan Jett or something. Or, I don't know, I guess she might still be a Drow Pat Benatar Heartbreaker with those glam eyes now, but then they went and changed her hair too? Just kinda loses it in the overall impression for me. Even with more of the absolute neck tat showing, she somehow seems way less hard. She looked boss before and metal, now she looks all middle management casual friday and easy listening. Down to the pressed collar lol

The new armor looks like a rough draft version of the armor from before. You can see how the collar texture seems all muddled now, and the rings and belting looks all like cardboard. Even the cut seems like it hasn't been tailored. It's all boxy in the arms now. Maybe they did change the torso model, but I think its just the armor set. The trim where the arms connect to the torso, It makes her arms look twice as wide, and her spine like its in a totally different position in all these standing shots. The gestural sweep is different now making it feel like she has a different posture or a different build. The effect was created mainly by shadows, and different tangent lines, and color contrast rather than the underdrawing of the model, which is what seeing the new one makes clear to me.

The contours especially around her head, they look more cartoonish in the new version, because they are almost all hard edges now. Before the edges were broken up by cast shadows, or else the hair was breaking them up, or the makeup was breaking them up, or they were lost in the darker colors and values of her old clothing.

Hard edges flatten an image, even 3d images like the ones we're looking at. They got rid of the lost edges and soft edges, especially noticeable now around the ears and neck and so the result is that the total image loses depth. The clothing color choice exacerbates this further, by using tones that don't set up nearly as much contrast. All the colors bleed into each other in our heads, making the overall impression tonally warmer, which is not really what you want for a villain.

Remake the armor, but try it in black. Like with black trim instead of red. Or black belting instead of brown. I think the results would be much stronger. They chose a really poor red too, its garish next her skin tone and the browns. If her armor was going to be red, that's like the most boring red they could have chosen. It was better in purple. It would be best in black.

Watch how quickly the whole impression then shifts and throws the makeup and everything else in a different light again. They should dial her get up, so it can play into the rest of her design. Black armor would be the easiest way to make everyone applaud whatever ends up happening with the face. Especially if the PC could loot it from her! Easy win

Can't really remember many drows with tattoos. Might be another plane.

I do find the feminism arguement weird, considering we talk about a women who grew up in a straw feminist society. For me, every argument against a drow design based on feminism falls flat, when we consider that the Drow where based on a parody of (extrem) feminism.


On topic a bit more, I am actually undecided.
When I put aside my optical preferences in female characters, I am starting to kinda like the new look.
Obviously, she could be improved, but her looking older makes her more believeable to me. But I really liek the thread, lots to learn for me here. =)


I also want to add that many male npcs also could use soem overhauls.
In my humble (and probably biased) view, most humans should have some sort of beard. Beardlessness is for children and elves!
Or, humans who have more contact with elves should usually have beards, humans more in contact with dwarves should usually be shaven.

I wouldn't say drows have much in common with the most 'radical' feminists, at least as far as the topic at hand is concerned. We're talking about a society so into vanity that they actually breed for good looks. A female matriarch/scion who cuts her hair and dyes it pink should lowkey still look better than the average surface elf, fairly so at that.

Yes, maybe her new slightly less constricted and more frail/human look is better now than it was before, since it apparently slightly detracts from the "beauty" of her retrograde storyline.

Sorry, but you can't really separate the aesthetics of someone's story from their face. I think her previous look was aesthetically more functional/traditional/regressive within her 'M. Butterfly' -type of story, which is where her perceived beauty, or lack of it, lies. Zooming in on bad makeup, hairstyles etc. is just another way to avoid tackling the "sacrificial idiot foreign madwoman"- aesthetics of her storyline. Based on reactions to her new look, it appears she was more palatable sacrifice as long as her looks were more in line with her crude characterization as a fanatical, one-dimensional, morally reprehensible, subjugated and mentally shattered foreigner: a psychopath with subjugated "mad eyes" and corresponding makeup, that, if we believe OP, previously signaled both psychosis and psychopathy(psychosis and psychopathy are two totally different types of "crazy" btw), at the same time.

BG3 slightly modernizes this sacrificial storyline mold in the sense that it allows the player to join Minthara in sipping the flayer cult squick-koolaid and doomer romance her as the romantic proxy of the new emerging squick god.

So, I didn't know Astarion would approve of following the Absolute. Time to make sure he is always dead in my game from now on. But back to topic, I was watching videos and comparing her again as well. Even her facial expressions seem better before, I can't say why, it just looks... better, more interesting. She had the air of superiority that fails her with the new design.

This thread is to discuss our opinions about her facial aesthetic; yes in this thread we are examining aspects of her appearance pre patch 5 and patch 5; so yes we are zooming in on the details of her appearance, skin, makeup and etc ; it would be hard to examine the changes to her facial aesthetic if we didn't do that; so we're comparing and contrasting pictures; I don't need to tackle the "sacrificial idiot foreign madwoman"; I didn't start this thread to do such a thing.

Yeah, I'm not interested in starting a debate on the matter. My short point, while also answering the topic question from my perspective, mainly was that it's disingenuous to separate these two aspects(story & face), especially since many of the complaints I've seen seem to amount to complaints that she doesn't look evil and "crazy" enough now.

Soo... those Avallonkao screenshots gave me better shot at photoshopping her makeup, and I took it. Also look at her brows. I don't think the problem is in the color itself, it's that they have very little to no contrast with her skin. So I made a version with much lighter brows.

you really need to start putting those pictures in spoiler tags, it's brutally difficult to read the posts here with all the pictures constantly loading and taking up 90% of the space.

Can't really remember many drows with tattoos. Might be another plane.

Some new lore that popped up recently, white face paint / markings that fade when you lose faith in lolth.