Saturday 25 April 2020

Bestiary Illustrations

Just a short note to say that I'm still here, scratching away at bestiary illustrations!

This block, above, shows:

  • Dream Eater
  • The God Unmnoving
  • Leádstæf Werewolf
  • Shrine Babies
  • Heilian Gorgon
  • Sand Sprites
  • Whip Scorpion
  • Ghost Selk

I have one last one to complete before I can finalize the PDF and order my test print from DriveThruRPG.

For whatever reason, I found some of these so intimidating to even start that I found myself occasionally blocked. I did find something to help: adding a column to my tracking spreadsheet to represent how much effort I thought each piece would be.

Size is one factor, because of all those little shading lines (particularly if there's a lot of darkness, or light gradients on a stone wall), but humanoid figures (and especially faces) are tricky. This helped me keep going, as I could pick off an "easy" one from my list at times when I didn't feel so on the ball.


What makes me laugh in retrospect is that I was way off on many of them. Once I get going, I sometimes turn a simple concept into something tricky (for me) to execute. The chart-topping "Ghost Selk" was so hard because I wanted both a compelling concept, and I had originally planned to do a close-in portrait.

In hindsight, the toughest one was probably the Sand Sprites, because it does have a portrait, required some perspective fiddling to get the well looking right, and is a full-page illustration with lots of shadow.

I'm about to do that with the Hungry Spirit picture, the last one remaining—I had thought it would be some hazy ghostly outlines, but I have something a bit more ambitious in mind now that I'm right at the finish line!

5 comments:

  1. These look awesome! I look forward to your PDF when you release it into the wild.

    You are blessed with a powerful intersection of talent and great taste.

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  2. These look very nice. When do you anticipate publishing it? What game system will it be for?

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    1. I hope to do the last drawing today, then order a test copy. As soon as that's checked, I'll launch. That is likely a few weeks away, plus postal uncertainties.

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  3. Just discovered you from one of your isometric tutorial videos. I’ve sucked at drawing my whole life, any chance you will record yourself drawing a figure or portrait?

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    1. I wish I had something useful to teach, but figures and portraits are freaking hard. My favourite resources have been:
      * Andrew Loomis' figure drawing books
      * 'Classic Human Anatomy' by Winslow, which really helps understand musculature
      * Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery by Burne Hogarth, which is an incredible resource for the principles involved in how fabric looks.

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