Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves are not Elven - Tel-quessir feed back ;)

I was not a fan of the BG2 portrait art. I found the color palettes garish and the figures rather poorly drawn. I would typically substitute the BG1 portrait art for Jaheira and for all the continuation companion characters who carried over into BG2. It just had better art direction and better shops for my taste.

As a Half-Elf I thought the BG1 Jaheira portrait felt more appropriate, and left more open to interpretation.


I'd also use the Icewind Dale portraits, since I found them more appealing. There is a redux of basically every BG1 NPC in IWD1. The MB peeps who did the artwork basically made it to work with BG too and assumed they'd be interchangeable. For a Half-Elf I always liked this one from IWD. Even though she's decked out more like a mage than a fighter druid, sometimes Jaheria would sport that look, mainly if I wanted a little green in the portrait lineup, since it looked a bit like the BG1 portrait. Like it was her regular gear when she's not out helping nature take the life she gave, but just sort of hanging out and watching the plants grow...


Or like this if she was just going for the plate and club clobberfest since it matched the avatar pretty well and clubs looked like maces anyway in BG2 lol


Still I think that Elves should have more looks available than just the LOTR rendition. Adding Elf ears to human heads is relatively simple. Creating a unique template for Elves called "Ancient" or "Traditional" or "Classic" I'm sure would find many fans. BG1 did not go that direction, but BG1 also had custom portraits, so you could make Xan look more like this...


than this...

Or get an Aerie going more like...


Weirdly, IWD seemed to make their Half Elves a bit more Elven than the Elves, similar to what we see in BG3. Hehe can't win em all. But they could do better I think in BG3, offering more variety in both directions.