Hello,
I apologize in advance if this thread is inconvenient or rude in any way, since I've registered just to post this.

First of all, of course, I want to thank the creators of DLV and BB for making such a monumental mod. I have started playing it some time ago and while I can speak mostly favorably of it, there's an issue that has been repulsing me from playing any Eastern European faction or even Byzantium.
I'm sorry I have to say it here, but these custom portraits are mostly terrible, and absolutely unfitting with the rest of the game portraits. Now some might say that it's a completely minor issue since it doesn't affect the gameplay - which is great - but for me, the "feeling" of a factions is as vital as everything else. And, sadly, the atmosphere brought to these factions with these portraits is bizarre at best.
Nearly all have the feeling of a bunch of forest-dwelling brutes, standing aside from the rest of factions not only through the artstyle but also the sheer concept. The portraits seem dark, dirty, greasy and out of place. They're simply ugly and are unnecessiraly shared by a few - gradually different - factions, while the rest of the world retains a consecutive style. To elaborate:

1. The most obvious issue to me is, as I've said and can't stress enough, the inconsistence of these portraits with the rest of the artstyle in the game. Either leave all the vanilla-esque faces as they were in the game or mark everyone with this gritty look. The second choice would still not excuse keeping them all the same for the Latin-sphere and Catholic since 180 years (as of the DLV start time) Poland, a pagan Lithuania and a Rus, distant from the Latin Roman sphere of incluence. Thus, I suggest the first option. The vanilla portrait set did way more justice to any of these factions.

2. The priests - this is what hit me first. With this set, a potential Pope (!) - a Catholic Cardinal from either Poland or Hungary - gets the same look of some random giant moustache guy, and somehow shares them with Eastern Orthodox priests (??). When we zoom at the map we see the same model as with all other Catholic factions, so why the sudden difference? How can this cheesy farmer be a representation of a Cardinal, or even a Byzantine patriarch?

3. While the spies are mostly okay, if we forget the eye-cutting style difference, one of the custom diplomat portraits is just ridicolous. It's some sort of a dreadlock-sporting random man who must have just crawled out of a cage. I'm not sure if this portrait is possible to "roll" for any other faction than Lithuania, but let's be honest... This is degrading even for a pagan country. Would anyone send this man to a royal court as an ambassador while everyone else looks fancy and professional?


4. While some of the portraits look appropiate for a Rus Chieftain - with all the nasal, Norse-styled visors and helmets - and might just pass as a "noble", most of the leader and family faces are square-jawed, bald grunts with enormous potato noses. I really don't see how they can be a represantation of, let's say, a Catholic king on a Western-wide crusade. Even the face of the starting Byzantine Kaisar just doesn't look royal and noble enough. These don't seem like people with any dose of authority or nobility - compared to the vanilla-faced leaders they seem like random mercs at best. I mean...

...how and why did this king become the grunt on the right?


All in all, I can understand the motivation for implementing these custom portraits, but I surely cannot understand the terrible choice of them, why only a few factions lost the vanilla portraits and why did it have to be those few different culturally factions that must share them. Why someone bothered?
As a player I'd suggest to just remove these portraits at all - the vanilla ones were sufficient, and seeing how every other faction retained the vanilla faces I see no point in keeping these. I can't see how anyone thought they would be a good idea. I'm sorry for the people who must have put a lot of work to have them happen - but they're just ugly, unnecessary and unfitting.