Campaign Materials - Art and Stuff

[artfulshrapnel]

Just figured I'd share some of the art I'd created for my current campaign, ion case they are of use to anyone. These are being used as handouts (it's being run over Roll20).

The first up is a coastal city (in my version Trader's Camp has grown into a larger town because of the influx of refugees and resistance fighters, but they're still just as harassed by pirates and the occasional Shadow forces raid).

Next is a cave, intended as coastal, but you could probably pass it off as being from a river. There are a few hints of ancient stoneworking for the observant player to pick out.

Last up is a necromantic ritual. In my game this is a sort of mashup of Izrador's sorcerers and the Plains of Penance, but with a different goal.

Enjoy, and if anyone has any ideas of things they'd love to see painted feel free to let me know. Each of these was only a couple hours, so I can usually find time to crank out one each week.

[Nifelhein]

Freaking awesome.

[Dain]

It's gorgeous indeed!
Be careful by proposing to draw on demand. I know people that would kill for such a demand

[arnon]

Very good stuff.

So... what's the story behind these?

[artfulshrapnel]

So I don't think my players will wander through here, but hey guys... if you're reading, stop.

(click to show/hide)

So I introduced this as a sort of sandbox-y game, started them off in the far south under relatively light control, and my players have been on a major world-roving adventure. They decided that they actually want to try and win the war, by uniting the Dwarves and Elves somehow, and rallying the support needed to turn things around on Izrador's forces. They have a few ideas, but are currently on a sort of diplomatic mission. After proving themselves near the Keep on the Cataracts, they've been entrusted with a precious cargo: scrolls and wands of Plant Growth to help the holdfasts hold out against famine, which the elves hope will help bolster the Dwarves and prove the value of an alliance.

Naturally all this random roving means they are hurting for a consistent villain they can deal with. It's just one Legate Underling/Orc Guy after another. So I'm working on establishing Vrolk, Master of the Eye as their primary antagonist. They obviously won't be confronting him directly anytime soon, but knowing that there's one guy causing a lot of their problems will make things very interesting.

Here they're landing in Asmadar with no crew and no goods to trade, trying to figure out how to get themselves to Landfall. I expect them to trade favors for a while, and they will almost certainly end up at that cave sooner or later. They'll have the chance to disrupt a major necromantic knowledge-gathering ritual, acquire a legacy item (the staff in that image) and learn of the new enemy they've made.

[Shagrat]

I think your drawings are awesome! What technique are you using?

[artfulshrapnel]

Thanks!

Technique varies between paintings. On the cliff and the green cube I'm using lots of assorted photo reference and a concept art style inspired by plein-air oil painting: sketch the layout, lay major values out in blocks, work quickly using large brushes and without any digital layers, then refine at the end to draw focus to the most interesting areas.

On the port landscape, it's actually using matte-painting paintover techniques that are pretty common in the concept art industry. Instead of an initial sketch you do basically a photo-collage and sketch in elements you can't get from a photo, sampling and duplicating things to get what you need. Then you paint over everything by sampling out colors and doing some creative adjustments, but rely on the underlying structure from the photos to make sure everything feels coherent. Is how you can get an entire painting with that much detail done in a couple hours.

I work primarily in Painter. I almost always spent a bit in Photoshop towards the end, usually to do value and contrast adjustments.

I'll try to take some in-progress shots on my next one and share them.

[Shagrat]

Do that! Will try to come up with something that there is not enough images of in midnight in the meantime

[Dirigible]

These are very nice. I especially like the first one; the splashes of colour are very evocative of tents or bright houses further inland.

[Fenris]

Very impressive I must say
wouldn't mind about doing a view of Baden's Bluff by the way (I don't think there's any that exist)

[artfulshrapnel]

So after a long break, my game has finally picked back up and I'm getting back into painting more scenes.

This one is from tonight's game (safe to post since the events are already in progress) wherein my players finish their daring night-time raid on Stormhold. They and a few dozen of young, angry militia from Trader's Camp snuck ashore under cover of darkness, unleashed a half-dozen animated skeletons (we have a party necromancer, btw) and a dozen raiders with torches into the town (central) then used it as a distraction to break into the fortress on the top right and smuggle out key information about ship movements and port strengths.

Baden's Bluff is coming up on my to-do list, as requested here.

[TwiceBorn]

Absolutely beautiful! Glad your campaign is rolling again… can't say the same for mine! I have been (re)reading some of my Midnight books recently -- had never read Forge of Fury, and have found it to be absolutely inspirational.

So here's another art wish list item, if/when you ever have the time… Steel Hill (and sprawl) seen from the east.

[arnon]

Oh, this is very nice indeed!

[artfulshrapnel]

Another week, another set of paintings.

First off some creatures that my payers will eventually run up against.

The first is a tracker/hunter creature sent after them by a certain eye-wielding lich that some of you may be able to name. Summoned from the shipwrecks outside Trader's Camp, this conglomeration of human, animal and sea creature corpses draped in kelp will scour the camp until it finds what the players have taken... and drags them back to the deep. In game it will have a number of attacks, a grapple, and a scent-based aura ability.

Next up is the man himself, my take anyways. Players probably won't see him for a while. He's going to be their archnemesis for a while, though he'd probably just describe them as "those guys who interrupted my assistant's research project and walked off with his valuable notes". Maybe someday they'll be elevated to the level of "serious threat".

Then an in-progress pioece of a giant desert creature I may not end up using.

Also a couple maps of the landfall region and a city map I made.

And last but not least, getting moving on Baden's Bluff, which is turning out to be trickier than I expected. What a complex city design!

[arnon]

Damn that's cool!

[TwiceBorn]

I concur… absolutely awesome and inspiring, artfulshrapnel!