RPG Art 2

So interior art is something that you either love doing or you toil through it. I usually love the work but with recent arthritis developments in my drawing hand, I can feel the toil coming on. I have to say I can become engrossed in the interior art or I can really struggle if the writer is vague in their descriptions. Some of the most fun interior art, for me, was working on Paul Wolfe's Tomb of Curses. He has a wacky imagination and I really felt I could cut loose on some of his ideas. My favourite piece from that book is called Sacrifice to Qo and I just fell in love with that part of the adventure. I drew about 3 thumbnail sketches before I settled on the following:

The original piece is on A3 bristol board but I used digital brushes to add a lot of additional cross hatching and light effects. I find it more economical in terms of time doing the main inking on paper then moving to digital for pictures with large dark areas. The perspective is such that the editors could place the piece as a portrait or landscape and it still works at the extreme angle.

I was lucky enough to get some work on the Wicked North Games' D6 Steampunk Western: Westward. Basically the editor listed the art he needed completed and the rate he offered for each piece. I would have loved to have done more work on this book but it was very competitive. I did get my first couple of preferences but my favourite is a piece called Ghosting. Ghosting in the game is assassinating an unwary opponent before they are able to defend themself. Since it was a western I had to make my 'ghoster' Clint Eastwood but I gave him a steampunk hand.

Initially sketched in pencil then scanned into my PC for digital paints. A few Clint Eastwood reference shots for character and Ta Dah!

The last piece I'll post today is an interior piece from Angels, Daemons and Beings Between. I really enjoyed this piece but my son recently pointed out I had actually just drawn Ice King from Adventure Time. I hadn't actually seen an episode till long after this piece was completed but I can't help laugh at the similarities. This is King Halgaz Bekur, or as my son insists, Ice King:

 In my next blogg, I'll focus a little more on some older work as well as an update on Claeridge Pass and Curse of Mistwood.

RPG Art 1

One of the most enjoyable things I've been doing over the past couple of years is doing commissioned art for RPG products. More than cover art, I've had the awesome opportunity to work on some excellent RPG material for interior art as well.

Whilst I'm busy writing some new adventures, I thought I'd reflect on some of the commissioned RPG art I've completed and maybe look at some interior work as well, in later posts.

I love digital painting. When I have the inspiration, I can spend a lot of time painting away at my workstation. I like digital painting more than traditional pencils and inks these days, although many of the digital paintings start as pencil on paper.

For DCC, I was commissioned to work on the ill-fated Angels, Daemons and Beings Between as an interior artist but I loved the project so much I took on the cover art too. Based on an interior piece for the patron, Hecate, this is what I came up with:

The book is really a great product. With Daniel Bishop and Paul Wolfe as the writers, I really thought this book was a winner. Distribution and communication issues has marred this product but I still think the book is lightning in a bottle.

Since this was crowd funded, there were a whole lot of promises that made the final execution of the product difficult. I'm not going into the unfulfilled orders or anything like that I just want to look at the covers that I was proud to contribute.

Paul wrote an adventure with Sean called Tomb of Curses. Using a rough draft of the adventure with some ideas about the content, I came up with the following:

Daniel wrote The Revelation of Mulmo, a huge adventure that I have been enjoying reading on the DCC Play-by-post. Here is the cover for that one:

I'll be talking more on RPG art in the next blog. I'll share some work I did on Westward, a steampunk, wild west RPG from Wicked North Games.

Feel free to leave some comments below!