[Mini-Mod] Retouched Mongolian Eyes (Females)

[ahhheygao]

The Mongolian Portrait Pack is probably my favorite portrait pack other than the African one, but it has always greatly bothered me how almost half of the eyes looked glaringly awkward, especially the ones with high eye elevation (and by eyes, I refer to the entire eye section, including surrounding features such as eyebrows). Today, I've finally got motivated enough to do something about it, and I might as well share it to anyone who feels the same way I do.

This Retouched Mongolian Eyes mini-mod seeks to correct most of the glaring issues I've had with the original eyes, including but not limited to: inconsistent or awkward eye elevation/position; detailed dark brow bone shadows do not show up well and mix up with the eyebrows; eyebrows are too light or appear a bit too far apart from the nose; absence of slight eyeshadow causes some of the eyelids too light, making the eyes look smaller than they already are; overly exaggerated frowning eyebrows; eye spacing slightly too far apart, etc. Major changes like eye spacing or elevation are made for all ages, while most of the more "cosmetic" changes are only for the young adult... I don't really care much about the appearance of characters past middle-age.

Some of you might've already made similar observations and felt the same way, but for the rest of you who never noticed any issues, here's a side-by-side comparison of the two looks:

If you like what you see, here's the download link:

Version 2 (4/10/14): View attachment MongolianEyes_v2.zip

Version 1 (12/18/13): View attachment Mongolian_Eyes_v1.zip

Constructive feedback, suggestions, and comments are welcomed.

This mini-mod obviously requires the Mongolian Portrait Pack DLC. This mini-mod only changes four dds image files, so it should not be affected by future patches and DLCs. This mini-mod is compatible with any mod that does not modify the female Mongolian eyes or alter the facial structures for female Mongolians. Even if there's a conflict, you can always try loading this mini-mod last by specifying the load order in your settings.txt file within CK2's mod directory.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I'm sure some of you might actually prefer the original look. With that in mind, I chose not to declare this a "beautification" mod. In return, please show some courtesy/restraint by NOT bothering me with pointless posts about how you don't have any problems with the original look or even prefer the original look.

 

[Chevaresqye]

NOOOOOO!!!! You ruined the Asian beauty, now I cannot tell who is who anymore I'm goona fall in love with all of them :wub:

 

[ahhheygao]

NOOOOOO!!!! You ruined the Asian beauty, now I cannot tell who is who anymore I'm goona fall in love with all of them :wub:

Haha, to be fair, I did purposely use the same facial features for all of these examples, for the sake of a "fair" comparison. Now, ladies with these eye sets can stand out less because you can't identify them as "that one with eyes all the way up her forehead" or "the one with craaazy eyebrows" anymore!

 

[cybrxkhan]

Hmm. Not bad.

Now I will defy your OP and say I didn't have problems with the original look, but that was because I didn't even realize it had these issues in the first place (well, not consciously, unconsciously I think I had a nagging feeling there was something off). They do definitely look less weird with the new ones, anyhow. I would look to see more comparison pics, though!

 

[Heatth]

Nicely done! Like cybrxkhan I didn't notice the issue on my own, but, side by side like this, your version certainly looks better.

Btw, cybrxkhan, how does this mini-mod works with yours? Since you only use vanilla features, it should be fine, right? But does it effects all the other cultures who use mongolian faces as well?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Nicely done! Like cybrxkhan I didn't notice the issue on my own, but, side by side like this, your version certainly looks better.

Btw, cybrxkhan, how does this mini-mod works with yours? Since you only use vanilla features, it should be fine, right? But does it effects all the other cultures who use mongolian faces as well?

Yeah, should be fine. It would affect other portrait sets using the Mongolian faces, but currently there are only two in VIET/CPR, the Siberiangfx for the Samoyeds and the Centralasiangfx used for a few of VIET's cultures (such as the Uighurs). The steppe portraits use an entirely different group of art files, so there shouldn't be conflict with those.


Anyhow, ahhheygao, I'd be interested in integrated this into CPR/VIET in the future if you don't mind.

 

[ahhheygao]

Now I will defy your OP and say I didn't have problems with the original look, but that was because I didn't even realize it had these issues in the first place (well, not consciously, unconsciously I think I had a nagging feeling there was something off). They do definitely look less weird with the new ones, anyhow.

Nicely done! Like cybrxkhan I didn't notice the issue on my own, but, side by side like this, your version certainly looks better.

Some of the ones I retouched did stick out like a sore thumb to me at first sight (especially the eye elevation ones), but others went largely unnoticed/ignored until I got frustrated trying to create attractive female Asian characters in the Ruler Creator.

I would look to see more comparison pics, though!

Heh, what more do you want to see? Out of the 13 sets of eyes for the Mongolian females, these six sets that I've shown are the only ones I had issues with; the remaining seven were fine and left untouched, so there's nothing more to see!

Anyhow, ahhheygao, I'd be interested in integrated this into CPR/VIET in the future if you don't mind.

By all means, go for it!

 

[ahhheygao]

I've decided to make the eyebrows slightly darker for all of them, and for a few sets I made some minor adjustments to the glabella/nasion of the nose.

View attachment MongolianEyes_v2.zip