Ultima AI Pieces

This is concept art for a set of pieces to use with Robert Abbott's game Ultima. Since the rules are already described on the linked page, I will not describe them in full here. The main thing distinguishing Ultima from Chess is that most pieces capture differently than they move. Five of the pieces in Ultima move as a Queen, but each has a different power of capture, or a different power than capture. The Pawns also move and capture differently than in Chess, though they move as Rooks. The King is the only piece that moves the same in both games.

I got the idea for this set after depicting the Long Leaper as a ballerina for the Long Leaper page. The main idea is to represent every piece that can move as a Queen as a woman and to represent other pieces as men. Since the Long Leaper in particular worked best by showing the full body, I decided to make them all figurine pieces. While I initially started working on these as monochrome pieces, I liked the results I got when some pieces had more color, and I decided to make them all painted pieces. To keep each side looking distinct from the other, I made the white pieces light-haired white people in light clothing, and I made the black pieces dark-haired black people in dark clothing.

Although I used AI to make these images, AI did not conceive of how the pieces should be portrayed, and I produced several images of each piece before picking which one I would use. While I did have to make some compromises between what I wanted and what I could get, there was still a lot of work involved in getting the results of the AI closer to what I wanted. I made all of these images with Ideogram while I have a paid subscription that lets me produce many more images than the free plan does. Since I made each image individually, and using AI limits the precision I can give to some details, I did not focus on the height of each piece or on making the bases uniform. If anyone made an actual set based on this concept art, then it would be important to attend to these details.

Pieces

The King

The King is an older man with a beard, wearing a crown and robe over a business suit. The White King's hair is white, and the Black King's is gray.

The Coordinator

The Coordinator is a secretary speaking on a cell phone. I'm not sure what's in her other hand, since the AI added it without me specifying it.

The Immobilizer

The Immobilizer is a painter of portraits, because a model is supposed to stand still while being painted.

The Long Leaper

The Long Leaper is a ballerina, who is portrayed as ending a long leap by landing on the base. In a real life production, this piece would probably be more liable to break. Either it could be redesigned, or stronger materials could be used at key points.

The Chameleon

The Chameleon is an actress holding up a dramatic mask, because it is otherwise too hard for a still figure to convey the idea of being an actress. As an actress, she can act like other pieces.

The Withdrawer

The Withdrawer is a withdrawn older woman, an old maid or wallflower. It was because the Black Withdrawer looked more mature than other pieces that I got the idea to also make the White one older. Also, because this piece starts beside the King, it felt fitting to make her closer in age to the King.

The Pincer Pawn

Since the Pincer Pawn does not move as a Queen, it gets represented as a man. This man is younger than the King and clean-shaven.

Last revised by Fergus Duniho.