Edric, the griffin specialist, is the third option if you keep scrolling to the right after Orrin and Valeska. Like most of the Castle faction heroes, his design is simple and possibly boring if you are inclined to think that way. Or, if you're more like me, they're classic, timeless, and don't try too hard, which makes them rather attractive. I've always rather liked the Edric design, like many of the Castle heroes.
That said, I'm looking to update the portrait for almost every single hero in the game (I can only think of one that I can't find an alternative that's at least as good if not better) while keeping most of them familiar and recognizable, unless it was a design that I never liked very much to begin with. Which does apply to some of the more exotic and silly looking characters in some of the other factions.
That said, as I started going through the project, I started getting more bold and willing to make more changes. Especially as I saw more and more of the alternatives that people had come up with.
Again, I'm ignoring the Pack 01 and Pack 02 as they offer nothing useful this time around. The two Stable Diffusion collections both look absolutely terrible; like the game is nearly ten years older than it really is. They're also not an option. But, as you'll see below, I had another card up my sleeve for Edric.
The wildcard collection often looks pretty good, but since I recognize where much of the art came from (and because it often doesn't fit the look of Heroes 3) I mostly don't use them either. StrikerX's portrait isn't right; a white hood isn't like a chain mail coif at all. Vallex and dtnmang are both very good, as normal, but a little stylistically different, so not really preferred unless there aren't better options.
Charles is actually another hero from a mod for Heroes 3. He's a knight character from the VCMI mod Tides of War. Because Tides of War is not (and as far as I know will not) ever be added to the regular game like Horn of the Abyss was, it offers me an opportunity to loot it's assets. Charles is very similar in design intent to Edric with the obvious exception that he's white and has a beard rather than black and beardless. He's also got that kind of Ivanhoe era King Richard look to him. I really like his image. He's one of my favorite heroes that I can't use. (I really wish Tides of War and Neutral Heroes would get implemented into the HotA expansion, but I don't think that they will.)
I also notice that all of the alternative Edrics are white, not black. Given that there weren't any black men in the Middle Ages of Europe, which is what the Castle faction is kinda sorta representing (until the ridiculous Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie had Morgan Freeman become a completely new character added to the mix that has no folkloric background), that's probably appropriate. It actually makes them more coherent.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the Charles portraits are for Edric than his regular one. I was on the fence between the Original and the ensrick Edric portraits, considering how similar they were, but once I made the decision to switch to Charles, the enricks one is even better; its' always possible that someone will watch a playthrough of my game with the original Charles and get confused, after all. Although as with the Edric pictures, I'm not 100% sure that I prefer the ensrick to the originals. The originals are really quite good.
WINNER: Charles the ensrick version to replace Edric's portrait.
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