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

That portrait illustration above by Aleksandra is a great example of how to handle hair with lost edges and such. The armor too. Sure the armor there is borderline royo erotica lol, but it still gives a nice impression of having some plate components. If there was an undertunic, or an under-hauberk with some mesh to protect the vital organs I think such a look would be essentially perfect. The prob with separate chestplates that hug the figure so closely is that they would direct a weapon towards the core/heart too easily. So it'd be a better design with a single breast plate, instead of two like a bra or bikini top, but otherwise I like the style elements. What we're seeing below is the fantasy equivalent of a babe in a trenchcoat and heels but lingerie or no clothes underneath. Obviously to work on the daily that armor set would need a cloth or leather component to be believable. Metal armor doesn't work like playtex hehe, but I think she was going more for the wowza effect, which definitely carries lol. Throw some chain under that getup though, and it's an instant win. I especially like the spider brooch and web-like strapping.

But the hair there especially, it's handled quite well, and I wish BG3 would do something similar. All the hair models in this game need to have their rastery-ness dialed back with some blur or something, so it doesn't give off that pixilation at various levels of zoom. They also need to work on all the clipping, because strands of hair clipping through ears or clothing is worse than having no hair strands at all.



But yeah, dark eyes, whether red or purple I don't care much, just ditch the glitter. It's distracting visually and doesn't really look good at any zoom.


ps.


I agree. Like anyone who pays any attention at all to what their girlfriend gets up to at her vanity should see that's a pretty poorly executed plan heheh. More glitter! More! I know just enough about wardrobe to know that I shouldn't be putting anything in the washing machine that isn't mine, but even I can tell that the new Minthara has like no sense of style right now! Someone needs to help her get it together. You can't be running shit for the Absolute looking like that. She needs like a makeup makeover intervention or something in patch 6 hehehe

pps. Here this is also interesting, I got the game to glitch out when selecting a non-standard skin color from the "all skin colors" tab or I don't know what happened exactly. It turned the normally silvery eyeliner from silver to red. The head model was in the one mod I bothered to download, which added some companion heads and a few more elf heads and such, but anyhow thought it was interesting. The rest of the makeup selection works as normal, so it's a feature of the head I guess. I'm not sure how it's unpacked or whatever, but you can see the makeup closer that way than the in game zoom. Its more like what we get in the cutscenes, but still rastery looking to me. Just tonally though, when the shadow is red rather than silver/white the read at a smaller zoom is much cleaner. So I guess give her some glitter if you want to, just make it a much darker hue so it's not so blaring haha. This red is still way too bright, but it's better than the silver and indicates where the problems are I think.



Personally I think Minthara totally owned that rocker hair!

But somebody somewhere asked what she might look like with a shadowheart braid, so this was as close as I could get to that. The choice of hair does make a pretty big difference in the overall vibe. Especially when the face isn't animated. Probably like a quarter of the characterization is coming from the haircut alone hehe. I just had her up in the chain cause cleric is the default in the char creator, but I think the colors work better and the armor is better, so that's for that lol

same head in the braid


same head in the topknot


and in that red carpet oscar night hairddo that everyone seems to like for the elf pcs. Probably because it doesn't clip through the ears like some others hehe. Maybe way off character for Minthara, but I think indicates why the haircut choice is such a big deal.


fucks you up in volleyball Minthara? lol


Makes a difference which hairdo she is sporting no doubt. I mean I definitely have a preference for some haircuts over others, but they are all made more tolerable when the silvery eyeshadow thing is dialed back (not bright red like the above, but maybe a very dark red or dark blue or dark purple) and when her brows and lashes are dark again. Even the standard pixie looks better that way. Hopefully they clean it up and don't let it settle too much. Any of the above would clearly be much cooler with plate mail or splint in darker hues.

After playing out the scene again with Minthara where you first meet her, I am once again so impressed with the voice Actress. She really makes Minthara. I found her hairstyle and outfit so fitting only because the VA makes it work. They could put her in a pretty princess dress with frills and lace and she'd still make it work.

That said, I still think the silver makeup has to go and the Ring Mail. She doesn't have to be in special Plate + 1 Armor, but something unique and more appropriate would certainly fit her VA better and her character.

And she needs more lines. Pay that talent well and give her more of a role. 😁

There aren't many illustrations of female drow that I actually like floating around. Like the pickings are already slim, and then I'm pretty nitpicky on top of that when it comes to figurative illustration. The portraits in BG1 and especially BG2 were all pretty crude shops at best for my taste, so I pine for something more.

IWD had much better portraits than BG cause they invested more heavily in creating an art team, but I'm sure it'd be pretty hard to find that same level of talent in one place these days. All those dudes have gone on to work in hollywood or for the major comics and fantasy publishers now, but D&D has always been one of the few places where figurative illustration still has a home and so there is a pretty broad range of material at varying levels skill and artistry. Of the 4 illustrations above I think only the images by Aleksandra Trezvina and Beyit work for me. The top would probably pass for a very small portrait, the middle has too many issue with the foreshortening. But again I'm picky hehe. Since this thread is already very image ladden, I wanted to include some examples of where I think the bar should be set, if Minthara ever gets here own splash loadscreen art.

Here, some illustrations that I thought were handled reasonably well, and where the painting presented a unique characterization. A couple more stylized, some more traditional, but still well executed in terms of the technique, brush strokes, proportions, color choice and whatnot.

Sorry for the added load time, but I think they are worth it, and this thread will surely bump to the next page soon enough anyway haha.

I believe this one is by Tooth Wu, though I could be mistaken. A lot of talent is overseas these days. For me it gives off a potential druid or wizard vibe, but like a Drow that doesn't look straight up evil. Maybe for an aevendrow type by the new reckoning.



A Brom, just to set the tone. Crop from the Insurrection cover



Something arcane archer-y, by Livia Prima



I don't really need the giant ears if the hair is working well, so this image by Stefan Koidl gives off an impression like a possible Drow warlock or wizard for me. Most of these are going for the latest, Drow are greyish blue or purple and elves basically look like humans, but just more super-model-y, where the wizards seem to be headed with it hehe.



Some midriff and a pair of knives by Dave Greco? lol It shows the other extreme of elves being more alien anatomically. This sort of elven look is a bit too manga for my D&D tastes, (I like more humanoid looking Elves, the way Alan Lee drew them, but that's just me) Greco makes up for it with attention to the background elements, the overall lighting and mood. Better hope no one goes for the gut on that one though! It's mage armor all day for her I guess? lol



Here's a crop from the Council of Spiders cover. I think by Aaron Riley? It's not my favorite thing ever, but he gets bonus points for trying to pull off the ever ridiculous triple headed flail instead of the usual curved blades or bows lol



And finally something that I think would be a bit more Minthara-like, at least in terms of a functionally appropriate armored outfit. I don't know if it's Marko's or perhaps an understudy? but someone at Six More Vodka clearly knows what's what! Berlin will get the job done haha



Anyhow, this is the level of illustration I feel that Baldur's Gate 3 deserves, and I'd like to see something more like that last when it comes to developing a look for a character like Minthara.

I don't want great again, I want even better than before.

Best
Elk

Here's a thought. What if the Voice Actress got that very same haircut and that was the inspiration for it. Now everyone's picking on it. 😯

I like the hairstyle as long as the armor and makeup goes. Thr more I look at the image of her with darker eye shadow, short hair, and drow armor, and the more I replay the scenes with her, the more I think just a few more tweaks like that would work. She doesn't need a total appearance overhaul. She just needs those few tweaks...

...and for them to fix her stats and have her only in Night Fights... because she's a drow... with Sunlight Sensitivity.

minthara really looks very wrong to me though. her nose, eyes and i think worst offender would be her lips would say. there are alot of suggestions in this thread. but i don't think larian will change much how she will look honestly. there may be a slight change but hoping her to change to a beautiful viconia or some drow art suggsted here would be a fool's hope i would say. hopefully it will be easier for modder to change how she look or replace her with someone entirely.

The problem I see is that their vision of elves, in general, is not good. In my opinion, they are just adding point ears to humans' heads and calling them elves/drows. Just look at the amazing lvl of work they've made with Tieflings, They could show some love for the elves too. Or maybe they will, in time.

I don't know, I think she's being judged by an almost impossibly high standard of beauty in that case. I'd point again to the base Minthara head model shown in 3/4 profile, with the Shadowheart style braid.



There are only really a few things here that are differentiating Minthara from a straight up super-model face.

1. The bridge of her nose has been broken, so it has that mid ridge bulge, kinda sensible given her character type and fairly minor as far as broken noses go. You can barely even see it in the angle above.

2. Her orbicularis oris (where the various muscles of the cheeks connect to the lips) is slightly puffed up, giving her a permanent sourpuss or pissed off pouting expression or half smirk depending how you want to read it.

3. Her brow is furrowed, giving her the mark of Cain, or the Tau shaped indentation on her brow between the eyebrows, which we typically associated with someone who is constantly angry and scowling or racked with guilt. This is played up by having her eyebrows squared off and overplucked on the inside edges, which further emphasizes the furrowing.

4. the mental protuberance of her chin protrudes slightly and is just a bit more rounded than average. I think to make an elf face, or a half elf from a human scan, they just carve in the jawline and then add the ear models. Giving the elves a more severe jawline, though not necessarily a different cheek bone structure. All the head models kind of do the same thing there, so there's probably a mesh or something they can play with to emphasize or add some stuff that couldn't actually be there in the scan hehe.

Remove those minor accent and expression features that were probably played up in the scan and in the shading, and her basic head is essentially that of a Covergirl. I'd guess she is maybe one of the more classically attractive women in the Larian offices, and they probably just directed her to do a really thin-lip'd expression when they scanned her head initially lol. For me it completely works, given the character.

I think Tiefs have taken over from the Elves, as the default Manga looking D&D race now. The D&D race that has the more alien and otherworldly facial features, the very long ears and glowing eyes, that one might associate with traditional Elves as depicted by artists from Japan or South Korea or China. It's possible they might change course on it, but I think the Wizards art direction has settled on Elves as looking more or less like Humans, just with somewhat pointed ears and slightly sharper jaw lines, so I wouldn't expect much more on that front these days. Though they have changed this before many times so who knows.

Here's a Tiefling from Li Xiao Feng I almost posted earlier, as a counterpoint to the Drow Druid idea. Since we also haven't really seen many examples of Tiefling druids or rangers. This one gave off a bit of an underdark vibe to me as well.


The Viconia portrait from BG2, while it was certainly one of the best portraits in that game, was still pretty poorly drawn by objective standards. All the BG2 portraits were like photoshop'd paintovers from photographs I'd think and there are lots of minor issues carrying over from where the artists decided to change certain proportions. In such cases it is fruitful to flip the image as if looking at it in a mirror, where it becomes much easier to see where the symmetry problems are. Her diadem for example is off center, and her left eye, left nostril, and the whole left side of her face has a somewhat different curvature going on than the right. Her lips are slightly off alignment too relative to the rest of the facial features. The sweep of her hair and the cowl of her hood is correcting for some of this, but there's still some wonk going on there. I suspect the face was made more narrow than the original reference, which is why her eyes seem to be sitting on different planes and at different angles, in addition to one eye being much more almond shaped than the other. If you cover one side of her face with your thumb (either side, doesn't matter) you can see that it's almost like two different faces. If you squint it looks fine.



Viconia's BG2 portrait still looks much better than the Jaheira or Aerie portraits in BG2, which both have way more issues going on. But again, I'm kinda picky hehe. I think many people who prefer a more manga look for elves, might actually prefer the BG2 Jaheira or Aerie portraits, simply because they look more otherworldly. Or perhaps it's a preference for the Zelda look over the Galadriel look when it comes to elves? But I tend to just see the anatomical issues. I think its simpler to draw a more alien looking elf face than it is to draw a convincing human face, since strange proportions can then be excused as a mark of style. But asymmetries stand out to me regardless, whatever elven look one might like best hehe.

ps. Its probably kinda unfair to single out Viconia there, since the images were meant to display at a very small size.



I believe they were even smaller still, and BG would upscale them for the final display too, so with enough lost detail via scaling what I mentioned before doesn't really matter and the image totally carries. These days, with the wider monitors and everyone running at higher resolutions, the large size image wouldn't cut it for me. Although I bet if it was painted in a traditional medium, even at a very small scale on canvas, that Viconia painting I posted above would probably go to auction at like a million dollars, just from the cultural resonance alone hehe. So what do I know. At the time it was meant as what, like 60 pixels on the longest size? 8 bit bmp lol. I mean they got the job done for what they were asked to do, but these days and for Minthara I'd want more.

Dynaheir in BG1, Mazzy Fentan in BG2 & Minthara in BG3. Jennifer Hale has undergone an amazing alignment shift!

But, yes, I really like her as a VA, and much preferred playing her female Commander Shepherd in Mass Effect rather than Mark Meer's male counterpart.

Oh! I loved Mark Meer! One of the few games where I preferred the male VA (that and male Eivor in Ass Creed Vahalla). But that is not meant to dismiss Jennifer Hale. She is indeed a brilliant VA.

Quality-wise MM is very good, but subjectively I preferred JH. One of the problems with full VA ( and why I am happy to have a non-voiced protagonist ) is that no matter how good the VA, they do not always "fit" your sense of how the protagonist should sound.

Choosing a voice is actually the first thing I settle on in a fully-voiced game, rather than the gender. Unfortunately, not all games have a voice I like ( or any meaningful choice ), which is when I would prefer an option for a non-voiced protagonist.

The Tieflings look so good; especially their skin.

I had no idea Minthara was Jen Hale!!! That is awesome.

Even more so, then, they need to give her a bigger part. 😌

Yeah I mean, she always delivers and its a point of connection with the previous titles.

Bastila Shan and Satele Shan Old Republic Jedi connects to boot!

I mean are we really gonna leave her hanging here with a lame outfit? I certainly hope not hehe.

I'm pretty positive they used a model to scan the head and not the voice actress. She's been a total chameleon and always has a totally different face.
Black threads, still my request.

Big props, like way up, for the new set of armor! That is the mean steel I was hoping for! Proper Drow now hehe

Well done!

But Leather??? Patch notes say ring mail to leather. She's a cleric, though. I mean, it's a better look, but why not half plate or at the very least scalemail or breastplate? Why they like making her so weak?

Thanks to the Larian team for listening to us!

In patch 6, Mintara looks perfect: armor, makeup and hair are good.

I can't believe you guys did it. Congrats

So i finaly get to her ...
And i must say that hair looks much better in person, than in screenshots ... also her shield, and armor are just amazing, and
So ...
Even tho i had my doubts, i must say that like this she is perfect. :3

What AC is the armor?

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