Hello again,
this update will be both taking a look into what is to come as well as what has been until this point.
First of all let me start out with an update on the currently worked on dwarven portrait set. As I have already mentioned before, this one is of a much bigger scale than the previous portraits, due to it having distinct male and female versions, multiple faces, hairstyles and beards, clothing per job and sex - you get the idea.
There have been various delays we had no control over, but now we are finally on track again with all sketches finished to line out the entire goal.
It is a big project, but it will also fill multiple spots. This is a little bit of a retcon, since they will replace the former vanilla portraits, but at the same time also a little bit of a lore expansion atleast for my headcanon for the time being. They will replace the standard purifier Broken Clock species (currently cat mammalian) as well as the Sadrell (humanoids) from the Orphan Gate event. At the same time they are also meant to be the canonical species for the Ancestors' Grudge origin (though of course you are free to play that one with any other portrait as you wish).
Since there already is existing lore of a previous spacefaring empire of these dwarves (the ancestors) who fought against the vazurans in the past - while it is being left ambigious if they fought the vazurans during their galactic conquest or later during the time of their banishment to the pocket dimension when they started raiding. What is clear though is that the dwarves lost and their empire was shattered and destroyed. Not all survivors were on their homeworld though. One tribe fled into an extragalactic cluster, barring its only entrance behind them - the Sadrell. Another one in their desperation took to dangerous technologies to prevent their impending doom - the Ringbuilders of the Broken Clock system.
As dwarves usually work under the FAFO motto, dig too deep etc., this makes these two factions a very good fit in my opinion.
The Sadrell can appear in two forms. Either as a standard empire or as a machine assimilator. In the latter timeline they went too far into cybernetics and AI and were taken over by their own creation. For those there is a little gimmick planned for the portrait. If pops with this species portrait live in a machine assimilator empire they will get a borgified look.
For the Broken Clock Ringbuilders, depending on the timeline they either survived or created one of the three other Broken Clock species (tentacle molluscoids, robots and rocks) which eventually overtook them. In all cases though they researched deeply into temporal science which is the reason for their system's space-time phenomenon. To rephrase the common theme: dwarves usually bring their doom upon themselves, but I still love them.
I could throw in countless of individual pictures of the sketches, but this would be a lot of scolling for you. Instead I'll add a small version of the overview here as well as a link to the full sized version so you can zoom in and look at each individual piece there.
Link to full sized version: https://postimg.cc/wyPVL1cd
Ok with this out of the way, let us go to the numbers:
faces: 3 male, 3 female
skin colors: 3
hairstyles: female - 10 styles x 5 colors -> 50 variations
male - 6 hairs x 6 beards x 5 colors -> 180 variations
clothing: 18
Ok, so much about the current project, but I think it is time to provide an overview of everything, that has been done so far with all the donations we have very gratefully received.
First of all, at this point in time the collective sum of all donations is 1380 € - let me again thank everyone for their generous support over the years!
Now let us see what has been done with this money as well as our personal contribution.
These are the projects paid for by Caligula and myself (prices are in dollar since those payments went via derega's buymeacoffee account back then which used that currency)
80 $ Neochadamus paragon
130 $ Orila species + hologram paragon
140 $ Vazurans species
100 $ Orila expansion (synthetic ascension holograms + robots)
= 450 $
Also let us not forget the Shroud God portrait with its multiple stages derega created for our Modjam player crisis group project Theophany and allowed us to use in MEM free of charge.
From here start the projects funded with the donation money.
50 $ ~ 42 € Chadorian expansion (Species set based on the Neochadamus paragon portrait)
80 $ ~ 68 € Human Trailer Emperor
After that payments where done via paypal so I have exact values for what was paid in €
190 € Orila cybernetic variations + Broken Clock 1 molluscoid
145 € Broken Clock 2 - machine
145 € Broken Clock 3 - lithoid
90 € Foxkin Paragon
230 € Dwarves 1 - artwork
~150 € Dwarves 2 - estimated for animations
= 1060 €
This means with roughly 300 € left and calculating based on the latest paragon, we should be good for another three, of which two have already been decided on, which will be Voggo the Great (paragon gained from a digsite) and Master Runesmith Dranir (a dwarven paragon, meant to be found on Dranir's Rest, guaranteed for the Ancestors' Grudge origin, but possible to find for anyone, if there is no empire with that origin in the game).
If there is a specific leader from our mod which you think should get a special portrait or there is something else you'd wish to see in the future, please let me know. I'm always open for suggestions.
With this I'll conclude this update and see you next time!