Does Character Artist 3 Support Face Masks?

I'm wanting to make some masked Renaissance era characters - preferably masks like those worn in the Italian peninsula during festive occasions. From the CA3 product description page and all of the example videos I've viewed, there's no mention or showing of a face masks feature. So I'm wondering if such masks are in fact a feature that's available in CA3?

Comments

  • There is a very basic eye-mask available as a single varicolor symbol from the original Character Artist vector set in CA3, but this hasn't been included in the new artwork for the usual, more detailed CA3 style. There are some eye-mask style helmets in the new-normal CA3 symbols, but of course those are at least full head coverings as well as with the eye mask, so I think they would need quite a bit of extra work to disguise their military origins and give them a look of something more Italian Renaissance, unfortunately. The vector mask is essentially a rectangle with two eye-holes and an indentation to fit the bridge of the nose, very much like the classic "Zorro"-style mask.

    The vector artwork available in CA3 still from the older program version has the advantage that being a simpler style, it's a lot easier to draw your own additions, or even to amend the existing symbols to something closer to what you need. I've done this quite a lot myself, and as a not-really artist, it's actually not that hard to do in small pieces (something like adding or adjusting a feature on a weapon hilt or a staff head, for instance).
  • Couldn't there be a way to add a face to a diorama template ?
  • Sorry Jim, you've lost me. Do you mean Dioramas 3? I think kronovan's query related only to Character Artist 3 - that is, RPG character images, rather than print-and-use actual masks.

    If you're suggesting using elements for drawing faces in CA3 to construct a mask instead, that might be possible, but would need a fair bit of drawing work to achieve, I suspect. The typical Italian Renaissance style masks seem to cover just the region from eyebrows to top lip at most (I'm no expert, but the online images suggest this at least), and I don't think CA3 will let you draw just part of a face using symbols. So, you'd have to do it with drawing tools, which is where the problems I mentioned regarding getting the drawing style to look right in my earlier posting stems from. It's much easier to do that in the vector style than the current-standard CA3 hand-drawn look, of course.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    edited June 2019
    There are a lot of images of such masks available, for example through an internet image search. Quite a lot of images showing the mask from straight ahead, and the mask only. With some light editing, these could be edited and used in CA3.
  • Using a Dioramas 3 template to draw a mask. I haven't used dioramas, but it does allow tabs to connect sides.

    Import a png of the face/mask into Dioramas and work with it by tracing over the imported png/bmp.
  • Thanks Jim. I don't have Dioramas 3, so hadn't thought of something like this.

    Shame there's not a suitable non-vector mask symbol already in CA3 though, given the original query here.
  • You're welcome. I'm not saying it will work. But it could be worth a try.
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