Morrowind books interior illustrations recreation - A call to artists !

I thereby declare that this thread is now Robbinsmoth's. Please welcome your new overlord (me and my non-artistic mind can focus elsewhere).

Keep going!

Twisted Logic: cheers mate! I would have still considered full robe even if she hadn't been depicted with it elsewhere, but thankfully we have that in game precedence to stand on. Given the target audience and intent of the book, I will use the full robe. I too like the head on her; it has a touch of arrogance the others don't. These inkings will all be black and white. Essentially you validated all my first choices so thank you :P

Ratwolf: poor silt strider. It looks so cute (yes, I'm weird). I agree with robbinsmoth that it would be good as the kind of roughly drawn picture a bandit or explorer might carry. ie "the stash is behind the shell of the dead silt strider [picture]."

robbinsmoth: hell yes to collaboration and tut! Feel free to shoot that pic my way. Glad to hear you like Molag Bal and I hit the nail with Dunmeri style. I used the Dunmer shrine pictures as inspiration for these and almost all of the patterns came from a preexisting design.

Question: is Molag Bal noticeably female? Without any prior awareness, would you be able to recognise Bal as female? (This is open to everyone)

I support a visual style sheet. It would be useful to a lot of people. Imperials always gave me a Roman vibe. Adding on what you said about Dwemer, they might very well have found beauty in precision and functionality over ornate aesthetic designs (science and maths --> geometry, like you said). Argonian motifs could incorporate the Hist somehow, so that they can carry a part of the Hist (even just an image of them) wherever they go. I can get cracking on some Dunmer visuals and notes on style, with no objections.

I also drew a Numidium. Go figure.

Mysterious Akavir - Tsaesci 

Mysterious Akavir - Tang Mo

Mysterious Akavir - Ka'Po'Tun

@Ellagne

For what it counts, I love your Dunmeri Daedra pictures. They fit perfectly into the world of Morrowind. For the Azura picture, I like the topless one the most. It's more striking, and it's not really like the Dunmer are renowned for being prim and proper.

Sechrima: thanks so much! That's probably the highest praise someone could give me. With Azura, I think both versions have sound reasoning for their aesthetic choices. While I personally lean toward the full robed version, now that I think about it both designs are strong enough I don't really mind which version ends up in game. I think I'll ink both versions anyway and then we can come to debate round two :P Might talk to robbinsmoth and Dragomir and/or let the mods vote on it.

Topless Azura it is, then.

Is Skyrim's book system different to Morrowind's, then? I thought these had to have transparent backgrounds so they could be slapped onto the default page texture. We'd probably need a copy of Skyrim's book page and note texture so the backgrounds aren't wildly different from each other. And if we're designing the whole page, does that mean we'd have to design the layout of the entire book?

Thanks for the resources, robbin. These will definitely be useful.

Cheers robbin!

With the assistance of some tutorials and some messing around in CK I managed to get this:

Essentially what I did was make a folder called images in Data/textures/clutter/books/ and shove a png (not a tga) in there. In CK I duplicated Invocation of Azura and in the duplicate wrote this markup in the text field: <img src='img://textures/clutter/books/images/Illust_Ell_MolagBal.png' height='471' width='296'>

Would need someone with more CK expertise than myself to confirm that's the correct method, though :P

Tutorials here: http://www.rarityguide.com/articles/articles/1459/1/Skyrim-Creation-Kit-Tutorial-Part-7-How-to-make-a-book/Page1.html

And here: http://tesmods.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/adding-images-to-skyrim-books.html

[External image]

Ratwolf:Thank you, You can use it as you pleas :)

ratwolf those are tolkein dwarvish runes arent they? can u do daedric/aldermis etc

these look like modern/anglo saxon Futhark ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_script ). Dunno if it makes a lot of sense in Tamriel though. :/

I agree. The Nords use the standard Cyrodiilic alphabet (with extra letters). It's technically fanon, but I translated the poem into Hrafnir's Modern Nordic, if you want to use it:

The language can be found here: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/hrafnirs-languages-nordic

@robbin: haha, cheers mate, I'm proud of that Molag Bal. I'm with you on the font. It's not very Dunmeri at all. Making every page as an image allows for total control over the book's layout. What I found in CK was that you're limited to the commands. So I approve this idea!

I was thinking instead of the vanilla fancy first letter at the opening paragraph I could make some fancy Daedric letters to use instead, given Dunmer make extensive use of the Daedric alphabet. I can also make the Dunmeri graphics, borders, etc.

Do you have any ideas for font? Dali is my first thought, but I'd have to check if it can be used for a public project.

@ratwolf: that note is great!

Anyone want some original poetry for any of the lore or anything? SquallyDaBeanz suggested I ask here. Here is an example of one of my poems. They're really easy to make. Or I could add some descriptions for things.  

Witness the home of the Dread King Under The Mountain once jungled. Of ash and blight and howling night, let it chill the bones with fright. Of curse and steel and storms of red, warp the bones, enslave the flesh. Grow your demons, destroy the heathens, so commands the Sixth House head. Let the racers fly afar, spread the bane of Nerevar, loose the nix hounds upon the foreign, guide the rats from every warren, let the sleepers walk the day, show the dreamers the true way, unshackle the dark decay, smother Nirn in corprus and blaze. Thunder out from Koghorun, Red Mountain which blots the sun. Drain the land and starve it black, destroy the Imperial, drive them back. Siphon the heart of foolish Lorkhan, build Numidium once again, walk once more Akulakhan! In the depths where he fell, awoken now, ring the bells, no Mannimarco, no Underking, Jagar Tharn or Tribunal thieves! Rise and crush the Nerevarine! Rise master, shake off your sleep! Arise Dagoth Ur, sow and reap!

Ted95

Anyone want some original poetry for any of the lore or anything? SquallyDaBeanz suggested I ask here. Here is an example of one of my poems. They're really easy to make. Or I could add some descriptions for things.  

Witness the home of the Dread King Under The Mountain once jungled. Of ash and blight and howling night, let it chill the bones with fright. Of curse and steel and storms of red, warp the bones, enslave the flesh. Grow your demons, destroy the heathens, so commands the Sixth House head. Let the racers fly afar, spread the bane of Nerevar, loose the nix hounds upon the foreign, guide the rats from every warren, let the sleepers walk the day, show the dreamers the true way, unshackle the dark decay, smother Nirn in corprus and blaze. Thunder out from Koghorun, Red Mountain which blots the sun. Drain the land and starve it black, destroy the Imperial, drive them back. Siphon the heart of foolish Lorkhan, build Numidium once again, walk once more Akulakhan! In the depths where he fell, awoken now, ring the bells, no Mannimarco, no Underking, Jagar Tharn or Tribunal thieves! Rise and crush the Nerevarine! Rise master, shake off your sleep! Arise Dagoth Ur, sow and reap!

In general, I like it! However, there are a couple little things:

• The Red Mountain is not and was never jungled. If you were trying to reference the "Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes", when you wrote that, the quote "CHIM. Those who know it can reshape the land. Witness the home of the Red King Once Jungled." it is referring to Cyrodiil and Tiber Septim, not Morrowind.
• Instead of talking about "[covering] Nird in corpus and blaze", the Sixth House would more likely talk about returning to the old ways or driving the mongrel races from this holy land.
• The Sixth House wants the Nerevarine to join them. Unless the poem is only available to read after Ilunibi (Sixth House Base Quest), this wouldn't make much sense in the story.
• This has nothing to do with the text itself, but you may want to fix the formatting on here so that it's easier to transcribe. :)

I'm well aware of the verse regarding Tiber Septim and Cyrodiil (Red King once Jungled), hence why I altered it. Keep in mind Dagoth Ur literally wanted to spread Corprus and death across all of Tamriel after driving out the foreigners, he says so himself in the game using Corprus, Blight, and Akulakhan. Also? Dagoth Ur is bat***t insane! On one hand, he wants Nerevar to join him. But every choice you can make has the same result: killing Dagoth Ur in the end. Dagoth Ur has multiple personality disorder to the extreme. He can't get his facts right, even if you agree to join him, he refuses and attempts to kill you. Red Mountain may never have been "jungled", but Vvardenfell itself was. All the Foyadas and Ashlands used to be like the grazelands. Well, until Red Mountain started erupting and the wars between the Dwemer, Sixth House, and Dagoth Ur's influence itself happened.

@Ted95: we can definitely get poetry in game. Making new books is thankfully within my CK skill level.

Keep in mind Dagoth Ur literally wanted to spread Corprus and death across all of Tamriel after driving out the foreigners, he says so himself in the game using Corprus, Blight, and Akulakhan.

This is true. TL's suggestion of 'returning to the old ways' could also work; I'm on the fence on this one. Either could work.

agoth Ur is bat***t insane! On one hand, he wants Nerevar to join him. But every choice you can make has the same result: killing Dagoth Ur in the end. Dagoth Ur has multiple personality disorder to the extreme. He can't get his facts right, even if you agree to join him, he refuses and attempts to kill you.

I think not being able to join Dagoth Ur was more a gameplay limitation than anything else. Pulling a complete 180 and joining the dark side ala KotOR or Darkspawn Chronicles was beyond the scope and purpose of Morrowind's plot. He is batshit insane, but given how long Sixth House lackeys go on about the Nerevarine joining Dagoth Ur, it's not an easy point to dismiss. By lore, it would have been totally plausible to join Dagoth Ur. By gameplay? Nope.

Speaking of poetry, I tried my hand at some Ashlander poetry a long time ago. As far as I can tell, Ashlander poetry doesn't have a poetic meter or any rhyme scheme. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Consider these WIP.

Sweet winds, sing to me of your secrets

I find I am not yet satisfied

Teach me to cherish this gift

A plentiful harvest is sweet on my lips/Wastes will scorch me, but to the tribe I look

My sweat and toil repaid in comfort.

Line four is the weakest, I think. There aren't many plentiful harvests in the Ashlands, I'd wager.

The fire raining from Red Mountain

Cannot match the fire in our eyes and hearts

With the moon-and-star's coming

The unmourned house shall fall

To his star-blessed hand

The weak, the foolish, the scoffers

Shall be corrected and righted

Velothi restored and our path guided aright.

We're definitely starting to branch out from book art :P

I've started drawing some ideas for borders and other book graphics. Intricacy is not my forte though. Mostly these are for IoA but most could be reused elsewhere.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/hkzbb693nb144ad/Molag%20Bal%20Book%20Graphics.png

http://www.mediafire.com/view/clozn3cw1cd2y6v/Azura%20Book%20Graphics.png

http://www.mediafire.com/view/5w5j99f6bqa4gby/Boethiah%20Book%20Graphics.png

http://www.mediafire.com/view/nn5pq5t77zb53r5/Tribunal%20Book%20Graphics.png

Edit: forgot to thank robbinsmoth for those resource images linked in the OP! They have been invaluable in designing my book graphics. So thanks, robbin :)

Fun fact, the developers wanted to give an option to join Dagoth Ur, but it was scrapped because they ran out of development time.

Also: what the Sixth House plans on doing is largely irrelevant in propaganda. In dialogue they always spike respectfully and honorably, fully believing that what they do is right and just. The way you phrase the "corpus and blaze" line is very dark and full of rage. The cultists see corpus as a divine blessing, not a curse; a true sleeper would be reverant and joyous when talking about it, not spiteful and angry.

Like I said before, I really love the poem; I'm not trying to attack you in any way shape or form. I just want to keep everything as lore accurate as possible, which is why I tried giving you some constructive feedback.

I wonder how the plot would progress after joining Dagoth Ur? Heh, Azura sure would be pissed. Kill Vivec if he isn't already dead, use Hortator status to compromise the Great Houses and help sleepers inflitrate into the ranks. Put ash statues under everyone's beds!

IMO your feedback has been fair, Twisted.

Well, just give me any topic or thing, literally anything. And I'll make good poetry about it. Someone suggested something about drunk Argonians in the Bards thread. And I made a poem about it, within 60 seconds. It just comes naturally to me.

Ashland poetry, huh? Let's see what I can come up with here for a bit.

"Amidst the sands of time, buried in the ties that bind... Our savior lost to us... Our neighbors doth betrayed to us... Carried among the night sky, come every dawn and dusk... Our Lady promises the return to what once was... 

Our ancestors kept their creed... But Nerevar was felled by greed... And upon this land there grew a seed... A Devil to add to our grief...

In the mountain where he hides... A rock doth beat to his chide... What the Three cannot realize... Our doom has come from forced lies...

A temple with a foundation of sorrow... False prophets preach happy tomorrows... But all is lost to Morrowind... Till Indoril Nerevar returns again...

Outcasted, harmed, and shunned... A seeming eternity, smothered by Red Mountain... The gates have been opened, war has begun... Azura sends her long lost sun...

And so the Three cast down, will be... And the Fourth hiding will clash with He... An end to Lorkhan's suffering... As for our own... We will be free... 

Azura carries to us the Nerevarine..."

The Chimer were cursed into Dunmer for betraying Azura before. I assume this time if it happened again, they would go to night school only to be marked "absent".

Ravanna

DavidS

http://vikings.phillipmartin.info/vikings_alphabet.gif

Allso @Ravanna  if you can give me an alphabet of that language I can properly do something

No backrond: http://sharenxs.com/photos/2014/01/24/52e2d9b872401/tn-pome%20Norska.png?1390598592

Also here is me trying to read it, In some kind of dramatic style

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8yca0dlzsmkknlw/Pome.wav

Ellagne

@ratwolf: that note is great!

Thanke you 

Wow, cool! I honestly didn't think you guys liked it. :P

Quick note: the last two lines of the poem are one sentence: "Grima gude ej bryla meja ohofsk beit." Which translates as "The cruel gods do not listen to my pitiful pleas." (I had to take a bit of poetic license with the translation due to the currently limited lexicon.)

I have also attached a file with the pronunciation as explained to me by the language's creator. Speaking of which, he would like to feature your poem and my translation as a sample text of the language but needs your permission for the English version.

http://m.soundcloud.com/twistedlojik/nord-poem

Sorry for crappy quality, I haven't edited it and just took a single take on my tablet's internal mic.

Ellagne, your second in command lol. Go forth and manage

Lol, sure thing!

@robbinsmoth: thanks robbin! I found it difficult to maintain a balance between intricacy and the blocky tribal style of Dunmer art. I'm going to try to mock up the first few pages of IoA and get them in game as a WIP for the dev video. I was going to hand ink them but you're right, vector art would likely be the best route. I'll try getting Illustrator, but for the moment I'll probably end up making do with a free vector art program for linux or something. What I found with the Daedra inks is that starting with a size of roughly 2000x2600 300ppi and shrinking the finished product down to 296x471 pixellated the image.

Custom fonts would be great. I'm going to trawl for free fonts that can be used in public projects (at least as placeholders), but having a couple of our own fonts (if there's time to make them) would sidestep licencing worries and tailor them to our needs.

@Ted95: great Ashlander poem! "The gates have been opened, war has begun/Azura sends her long lost sun" are my favourite lines. Just perfect. You and I could make another book of Ashlander poetry :P

@Ratwolf: looking good!

@all: will our additional content (this is aimed at additional books and literature not art) be a part of vanilla Skywind or as an optional add on? I can imagine some Morrowind purists might get a bit touchy about original works being added. Just speculating here, though. Also, I've found a few fantastic pieces written by fans in other places, like on r/teslore, that would fit seamlessly into Skywind. could we (I) reach out to some of these people to ask permission to add their works to Skywind? It's a low priority, of course, but something to consider.

I can see that working just fine. Even if TwistedLogic critiques me now and then. He can't be all bad, even for a Salarian. ;)

Ted95

I can see that working just fine. Even if TwistedLogic critiques me now and then. He can't be all bad, even for a Salarian. ;)

You know it's out of love. <3

:P

robbinsmoth

@ted95 & Twistedlogic:

While i dont know much about the history/lore of morrowind, i can definitely appreciate the effort you guys are putting in. Written history is a MUST if you ask me, as it certaintly adds that next level of richness to Morrowind. I'm not sure if Dragomir has tasked you two with anything, but i would like to steal you guys to write stuff/ become our morrowind scholars.

I don't know about Ted, but I'm not connected to  anyone in any sort of official way. I joined before remembering that I have no technical skills that could help the project, so I elected to help using what I do have: a rather extensive knowledge of lore, though not so extensive as Lady N. So if she says I'm Wrong, chances are that I am. :P

I have no idea who Lady N is. Therefore this provides proof of my lore prowess, as if I don't know who it is, it's probably not Canon. XD Also, TwistedLogic, I do have some technical skills. I am the creator of the Skyrim Crash Compendium on the Skyrim Nexus, I made a Jyggalag Follower mod for Oblivion, and I Navmeshed the entirety of Tureynulal for the project here. If there's something I don't know about the Elder Scrolls, I research it until I do.

I had an idea for the lyrics for the songs on the bards thread to be added as books/scrolls in game (with permission of course). Probably should have brought the idea up here before I made an offer to the lyric writers on the bard thread though...

Hey, everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I have completed the book list, which now contains every book, note, and journal in Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, and the Official Entertainers Plug-In. If you would like, I can provide links in the sheet for the various documents.

can u use this in an alchemy book?

There really isn't one. If you or someone else wants to write one, though, it would be pretty cool. We could use some of the cool stuff in the flora thread as well. Could be called something like "A Botanist's Guide to Vvardenfell". 

In fact, if I find the time, I might write it, if you don't.

Hey guys, I love what I am seeing!!! If I may suggest to any with photoshop, there are brushes called faux finish brushes which work wonders for making pages and picture on those pages look older. If not, If anyone wants me too I can if I get the pictures in JPEG of PSD. Keep it up!

Ravanna

can u use this in an alchemy book?

Ajiir was writing about the flora of Morrowind, so it is plausible she already got some of it done without the neavaraines help.  This would be perfect for a book she wrote

im takeing a crack at my favorate book from Morrowind "The Doors of the Spirit"

I got that for a cover (door.png) so far im going for a very dark very voodo type vibe with this one. I dont know might switch it up

and the other file is just what im messing around with for the spine of the book

Ravanna's sketches would be a great addition in an alchemy book, or Ajira's report as Yours Truly said, or even a recipe book.

@Denevir: that Firmament has great accompanying pictures. It definitely has possibilities! If there's time/inclination, perhaps having the Imperial version floating around in their settlements and the Dunmeri version available from Dunmer settlements and vendors. another example of the division between Cyrodiil and Morrowind. And that Azura pic is pretty funny :P That's her alright.

@Yours Truly: thanks for the brushes tip. I'm currently using Gimp, not Photoshop, and improvising to create a worn effect with what brushes I already have. Currently I'm still tinkering with pages and layout but when they're done I can send a few your way if you'd like and see what you can do.

@ckstxjimmy: I don't know if custom covers can be implemented, but I'm no expert in CK. I'll have to ask somebody. What program did you use to make these? The font on d2 could be more polished and I don't think it quite fits with the vodoo vibe you're aiming for.

Cool, happy to help, and happy I can contribute

@Your Truly: No problem! I have no ETA on when things will be ready for you, but most likely not any time soon.