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Epic Level Artistry: James Stowe

Feb 152013

Another middle of the month, another Epic Level Artistry! This month we are super lucky to have the amazing James Stowe. When James mentioned wanting to be interviewed for ELA, I will admit, I was floored. I was familiar with his work, Sidekick Quests, and being a gamer parent myself loved the aesthetic he brought, bringing in parent and kid alike while staying true to all the tropes and fun that is a part of rolling dice and kicking butts (or having your butt kicked…it depends on the game). He was awesome enough to make himself even more busy and answered some questions for us! Check it out!

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Sidekick Quests Mystery of the Moonstone by James Stowe

So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with art in games and RPGs.

My name is James Stowe. In the past I’ve been a professional fantasy illustrator with over 100 book credits for companies such as White Wolf Publishing, Fantasy Flight, WEG, Wizards of the Coast and Holistic Designs. Currently I am working on a webcomic called Sidekick Quests which is my attempt to merge my love of cartooning, gaming and playing with my kids.

What’s your favourite system to play? Is there a setting/system you love making art for in particular? What is it about this world/system that inspires you?
Right now I am playtesting the Sidekick Quests Roleplaying Game so I’m going to go the self-marketer route and say that is my favorite system to play right now. I also still play DND 4e pretty regularly and still enjoy it.

The bulk of my professional fantasy work was years ago when White Wolf’s World of Darkness was an active thing. I loved making artwork for those games. I was a regular artist on Changeling and would drop anything to work on those books again. I love the childlike wonder mixed with horror that Changeling presented.

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?
I am a Gamemaster. I love nothing more than running game, writing house rules and developing hundreds of years of history for game settings. A long running joke in one of my troops is that I once wrote an entire page of backstory for a bridge that the PCs crossed over in about 5 minutes of actual play time.

Being a GM definitely influences my work. Sidekick Quests is a comic about a troop of young adventurers in training being led by a narrative like GM. I am such a Gamemaster I’ve even inserted myself into my art.

Sidekick Quests Map by James Stowe

Do you find yourself more drawn to drawing locations or people? Do you have them fleshed out before you bring pencil to paper (to use an old idiom) or do the ideas and the image kind of grow side by side?
I love drawing people and monsters and things. If I had a choice I would just draw pin ups and character commissions all day. While drawing setting has never been something that comes naturally to me I do love drawing maps. I can loose myself for hours and hours in a overtly detailed map drawing.

I tend to be fairly spontaneous when I draw and I do so almost exclusively on a computer. I am a vector artist. I’d say 95% of my work is vector illustration made in Adobe Illustrator. I don’t sketch or make thumbnails generally. Most of that I do in my head. I just make a finished illustration and when I’m done I’m done.

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?
I should have read ahead. As I said I am primarily a vector artist. Most of my work is done in Adobe Illustrator. The entire Sidekick Quests comic is draw completely in Illustrator. When I am not working digitally in vector I like to work with watercolor or sharpie marker. In the good old days of professional fantasy illustrating I worked in acrylic or gouache (before the days of digital painting) or with Photoshop from photo reference.

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?
My day job I manage an art department and act as lead concept illustrator as the Creative Development Manager at the Lucks Company. After 8 to 10 hours doing that each day I probably put in another 2 or 3 hours each night drawing for Sidekick Quests, freelance work, commissions or personal projects. All total I probably draw 40 to 70 hours a week.

I am currently in two gaming troops. One that meets once a week on Sunday night and one that just finished meeting every other Thursday. I am also working on finishing up work on the Sidekick Quests Roleplaying Game and playtesting that as often as I can.

Sidekick Quests! A page out of the comic by James Stowe

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?
I love modern digital painting. When I look at some of the artwork that is being made now for the top tier companies I am astounded. When I first started out in the industry back in 1994 nothing like that was being made on a computer. Seeing how far digital art has come in just 20 years blows my mind. That being said I personally am really drawn to cartoony style work. I’ll pick up any game that features the artwork of John Kovalic. He is a real inspiration to me. There are a ton of other cartoonists out there who’s work I absolutely love too. Probably too many to reference here. I’d be here all night.

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?
Again, I really need to read ahead on these questions. Okay. I guess if there is going to be a whole question devoted to whose art do I like I might as well make a list. I am a founding member of the Cartoonists League of Absurd Washingtonians (or CLAW). The befezzed cartoonists that make up our ranks are a regular source of inspiration to me. There is Brian Patterson of D20Monkey. With out him I would never have started Sidekick Quests. When I was thinking about making a webcomic he was gracious enough to answer a lot of questions I had starting out. His comic and gaming art is fantastic too. Some other cartoonists/illustrators I admire are Lar Desouza, Dave Willis, Mark Stokes, Nathan Bulmer, Jeph Jacques, Mike Karhulik, Gary Cohn, Mark Monlux, Doug Tennapel, Tarol Hunt, Mark Brill, Kyle Ferrin, Mike Mitchell, Mary Cagel and Erica Moen. There are a lot more I could and should list and properly link to… but there are more questions to answer.

I’d like to think I am beyond emulating anyone at this point. I draw how I draw. I may take little techniques from other artists now and then but for the most part I am comfortable with my own ability and style.

Sidekick Quests Players Handbook by James Stowe. Seriously, how hilarious is that?

What tools do you use to make art? What tools/items do you need to game?
My primary tool is a Wacom tablet. I would likely be completely lost without one. I carry a Wacom stylus with me most places I go.

I am a lot more easy going with gaming paraphernalia. I don’t have lucky dice or anything like that. If anything I keep a sketch pad with me while I game. Usually by the end of a session there are tons of sketches in there.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?
My current project is Sidekick Quests. You can follow it in webcomic form at sidekickquests.com. It updates every Monday with blog posts throughout the week and a brand new fan influenced monster every Friday. Along with that I am actively developing the Sidekick Quests RPG. It is in beta testing right now and should be available for sale in PDF form this summer. I am also working with Daniel Solis and Lyndsay Peters on ‘Sidekick Quests the Card Game’ which is currently in closed beta testing. 2013 should be a huge year for Sidekick Quests and I am looking forward to spreading the word about it as much as I can.

Sidekick Quests Scout Character Sheet by James Stowe

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?
About a year and a half ago I created some custom DND character sheets for my son’s birthday party and then shared them on the internet. The reaction they got and the support I have felt since then has been really amazing. I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing today if it weren’t for those sheets. It is a project I still take great pride in. It has helped me meet great people, revitalized my love of cartooning and reintroduced me to the gaming community.

What would be a dream job/commission?
I know I am beginning to sound like a one trick pony but if I could work on the Sidekick Quests comic and RPG for the rest of my life as my career I’d be the happiest guy on Earth. That is my focus right now.

Do you have any plans to put the Sidekick Quests comic itself into a printed book?
My current plans for Sidekick Quests involve the release of the RPG. Initially it will be released as a series of PDFs. Eventually I hope to publish the comic as a collection after another storyline or two.

When you’re not making art or gaming, what are you doing?
You mean there is something other than making art and gaming? I guess I try to play with my kids as much as I can while they are both still at an age where they think that is the coolest thing to do. On the rarest of occasions I go out with my loving and patient wife.

Ciber-Cow from Fiendish Fanmade Fridays on Sidekick Quest! by James Stowe!

Sidekick Quests is awesome because it bridges that age gap, ushering kids into RPGs while obviously appealing to adult gamers who are in on the jokes. How have your kids inspired you in gaming and in drawing?

You know both of my kids are a huge inspiration. Sidekick Quests wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for my son’s early interest Dungeons and Dragons. One of the ongoing elements of Sidekick Quests is a feature I run once a week called Fiendish Fan-Made Fridays where I invite kids to create their own monsters to help populate the Sidekick Quests’ setting. My my son and daughter have made several. I could run the feature for weeks just on their submissions alone.

Do your kids draw?
My daughter is quite an artist. She loves drawing, coloring and crafts. She is currently teaching herself sewing. Neither my wife or I sew… she wants to do it and is motivated to teach herself. She has always been that way. My son is more of a writer than an artist. He can’t wait until he is a regular Dungeon Master.

Another page out of Sidekick Quests by James Stowe

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?
For people trying to hire artists look for someone that is responsive, clear in their communication and open to direction and feedback. As an art director and creative manager that is what I hope for in freelance artists.

To freelancers I say always keep at it. I had to show an art director at White Wolf a new portfolio piece once a day for two weeks before he finally gave me an assignment just so I’d quit sending him artwork. And work at it. You really need to love what you do. Fantasy illustration is not an career path that will make you rich… but the people and experiences you forge along the way and the games you get to be a part of will be more than worth it.

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Be sure to check out Sidekick Quests every Monday; in addition you can also ‘like’ SkQ on Facebook. If you like James’ art you can check out his art blog or his Facebook. He posted some really neat Valentine’s Day cards there, so be sure to like it for updates! In addition James is on Twitter where he talk about RPGs and art. I want to take the time to thank James for participating in ELA! Hope you all enjoyed this installment; happy gaming!

Epic Level Artistry: Kirsten Brown

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Jan 312013

Do you have dark dreams you wish you could bring to paper? Prefer RPGs where players aren’t so much fighting to save the world so much as maintain their sanity? Does the idea of sharp teeth, tentacles and realities far stranger and less merciful than our own make you want to pick up your dice? If so, check out Kirsten Brown, our latest artist on Epic Level Artistry.

I met Kirsten originally online through some friends and have been a fan of her art work for a long while. Dark imagery, symbols and magic are a common theme in her art. Kirsten illustrated an installment of Reality Makes the Best Fantasy last year and in addition to illustrating she also creates wands and does other crafts. Let’s see what Kirsten had to say about making art and playing RPGs.

***Note: Some of the art in this installment of ELA is NSFW (contains nudity and blood/gore). You have been warned.***

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Maw by Kirsten Brown

So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with art in games and RPGs.

Hm. It’s kind of haphazard. I played a lot of videogames as a kid, renting from the little rental store with discrimination. I’d try anything that looked cool. I remember running into the first Final Fantasy that made it to the states, and the first time I rented it (there would be repeats), it still had the poster with all the monster designs on it, and that was almost as fascinating as the game itself.

If we’re talking non-Nintendo-based gaming, I had a lot of tabletop and ccg things before I knew what they were for, most of them for the art. I was eleven or twelve, head-over-ass obsessed with dragons, and my best friend had given me a Dragonlance novel for my birthday. I had no idea it was based on a lets-pretend game with dice and some rules, or I’d have hunted down someone to play with as if I were an entire pack of dogs after bacon. Instead, I picked up issues of Dragon Magazine when I could, for the posters. I acquired a massive stack of M:TG cards, especially for someone who never played once. I collected most of the Changeling: The Dreaming corebooks when I was in high school, pretty much for the express purpose of wallowing in the artwork and worldbuilding in them.

When I went to college for illustration (98-02, to thoroughly date myself) gaming art seemed to be regarded by my instructors as a kind of baffling bastard sibling to book-cover art, something akin to comics, and thus a less than a worthwhile goal for an art career. They wouldn’t touch trying to point me towards any of the things I would have cheerfully given my left arm to do for the rest of my life, which is funny, because that’s also around when I found my first gaming group. Which kind of leads to the next question, so I’ll stop this particular yammering here?

High Priest by Kirsten Brown

What’s your favourite system to play? Is there a setting/system you love making art for in particular? What is it about this world/system that inspires you?

Shadowrun, for both. Other than one really ill-fated attempt at joining a Vampire LARP when I was a bitty high-school goth, wherein my character was hung for actually possessing a sense of humour, it was my first. I started on 3rd edition, back in college. That group fell apart for various personal reasons before I could get too into it, but it was appealing because it fit the mythology of my life, then. I’d started hanging out with a bunch of hackers, and had also fallen face-first into cyberpunk as a genre. William Gibson was a visionary, Ghost in the Shell, a revelation. There was an aesthetic to all of it that drew me, all this arcane technology, but unpolished and approachable and darkly funny like most sci-fi I could think of patently was not.

It was years until the a housemate situation I lived in presented me with an opportunity to try it out again, and I found out 4th edition is even more fun! The world as a whole is appealing because of the juxtapositions it has going for it, and how cleverly they’re applied. There’s gravity in its portrayal of poverty and corporate rule, the magical and environmental ruin of their version of Earth, but it’s still got room for some hilariously gonzo things to happen because these people you’re playing aren’t some kind of epic, mythic hero. They’re everyday assholes with talents who, for whatever reason, decide to apply them differently than others to the problem of dealing with life in a really weird place. It’s amazing how many terrible, hilarious situations a group can get into with that very basic trope and your GM at the wheel.

I’ve played and liked the worlds for Legend of Five Rings and Eclipse Phase, too. The rest of my group weren’t so fond of them, so neither lasted long, which is too bad. The Void mage I put together for the former was a lot of fun, though I think we play way too fast and loose for that world. As for the latter, I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to play as an uplifted squid on a space colony.

Bottom Lake by Kirsten Brown

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?

I’ve never GMed, and actually don’t think I’d be very good at it. I write, sometimes, and plotting for that has taught me two very important things about myself; I am a) a poor planner, editing and messing with things in very disparate parts of the story as I go, and b) a massive detail and control freak. Players messing with where I think they should be heading would drive me completely insane.

People and creatures. I’ll start with a concept, see if I can ping a personality for them (and even critters have a demeanor), then build details around that. Settings make me shamefully lazy, and that’s a bad habit I’ve been trying to bribe, work or otherwise flog out of myself for a long time.

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?

Mostly digital these days. Sometimes I’ll trace my own scanned drawings on paper as a base for a finish. Ballpoint sketching is a longtime love, and doing that sort of translation is a big help in improving my digital sketching. I do occasionally try to convince myself I can paint, like Old Masters’ type painting. I have a small set of oils around for that particular brand of self-hatred. Everyone else seems to like the results, but I usually end up just wanting to set the canvases on fire or getting really impatient.

Bright Water by Kirsten Brown

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?

Shadowrun is on Sundays, usually for about five hours. There’s a lot of general hanging out and BS-ing to it, as none of us have the greatest attention spans, and we’re all friends first, some of whom don’t see each other often outside of this.

God, art? I don’t even know. GIMP stays open when I boot my computer in the morning, thanks to hibernation mode, and I’ve always got something open. I have been trying to make this my living for years, to varying levels of success and with the help of a very patient partner who keeps me from ending up a vagrant living out of a shopping cart and drawing on walls with cat feces. I’m almost always doing something.

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?

I’m really happy that so many people are chasing some really appalling tropes in regards to the portrayal of women in gaming and comic art into the light of day, all the little things that, were I a slightly different and less contrary person, would have read loudly as ‘THIS IS NOT FOR YOU’.

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?

To a point, liking and influences are inseparable. If something really grabs my face, I’m instantly trying to find the largest, highest-res version of it that I can find so I can break down brushstrokes, tablet strokes, textures and layering to see how it was made. But! I’ll at least stick to people whose work I’ve learned from or who I think have actually helped inform my style instead of being relegated to the ‘Hey, that’s neat!’ pile. I’m fond of detail, clarity, a sense of movement, clever use of negative space, and symbolic elements.

In no particular order; HR Giger. Salvador Dali. Boris Vallejo. James Jean. Botticelli. Waterhouse. Alphonse Mucha. Sam Kieth. Jhonen Vasquez. Yoshitaka Amano. The manga team CLAMP. Jenna Chew. Tim Bradstreet. Chynna Clugston-Major. Android Jones. Dave McKean.

Gate and Key by Kirsten Brown

What tools do you use to make art? What tools/items do you need to game?

For the digital end of things, I use GIMP 2.8.0 under Linux, and a poor, battered little Wacom Graphire I picked up used five or six years ago, the thing is apparently built like a tank. For sketching, I like plain ballpoint pens and printer paper or Moleskine sketchbooks.
As for gaming, dice are obvious. I also need the books for whatever we’re doing at hand because I’m crap at remembering the rules and any numbers not on my character sheet. I also need something to do when it’s not my turn, because combat takes forever, or if it’s a particularly not-my-character-heavy session. Lately, that’s consisted of bringing my netbook along and screwing around with network tools like wireshark until I understand what they do, because I’m an autodidactic masochist. And coffee or tea, I consume both in probably alarming amounts.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?

The biggest gaming-related project I’ve done was Shadowrift. A friend of mine owns the studio behind it, and it was an educational, if harrowing, experience. Halfway through, I was offered twice the workload I’d initially been offered. Of course I took it, so I found myself with two dozen pieces due in two months. At some point I started calling it the Art Deathmarch.

Frost Mage by Kirsten Brown

There was talk of an expansion for Shadowrift, but only talk thus far. I’m also working on a comic for a friend’s script, planning out some nasty-fun retelling of faery tales and myths with someone else. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about the really fun possibility, yet.

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?

A lot of my favourite stuff recently has been fanart. Some would say sadly, but for a while for me it was this big taboo thing. Art school taught me not to draw characters I don’t own. Thing is, it’s nowhere near the big deal it’s made out to be, and it’s a good way to introduce people to you and your work. I’ve been having a lot of fun drawing stuff from a webcomic, Homestuck; it’s got very loose designs for a huge number of distinct characters, and a completely batshit sense of humour. I plugged some of the characters into a take on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, between some paying jobs that were nowhere near as silly. Also, Rubyquest; it’s this cutely-crudely drawn and thoroughly creepy little comic that unfolded through question and answer sessions on 4chan, of all places. I doodled all the characters to break in a new Moleskine, and ended up dropping that in GIMP because I wanted to colour it.

There’s also a thing I did of a sort of mermaid, playing with bioluminescence, that I’m really fond of. There might be a story in it, I’m not sure, I just have a lot of fun playing with light and dark and glowing things.

Fish Bitch 2 by Kirsten Brown

What would be a dream job/commission?

Free rein over all the art in a Technomancer’s guide, or a Shadowrun tarot, maybe. Designing monsters for something like Deadspace. Illustrating the next Caitlin R. Kiernan short fiction collection or book cover. Being asked to contribute to an Invisibles artbook. Mercreature smut.

When you’re not making art or gaming, what are you doing?

Cramming Linux into my face. Pulling apart dead laptops and learning my way around. Reading. Writing. Watching cartoons. Gardening. Working out. Cooking. Chasing my cat around the apartment. Screwing around on the internet.

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?

To those hiring? In this kind of job climate, and with the kind of value people seem to ascribe to art these days? Thanks are due.

Rubyquest by Kirsten Brown

And to those looking for work, especially the ones who want to do this full time, get very, very good at managing your own time. Being your own boss sounds really great until you turn around, find yourself three projects deep and with no idea where you left off of any of them because you decided to put things off for a bit and reread Drowtales instead (a thing that has happened to me, it was not pretty). And cutting corners is never a good idea.

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If you like Kirsten’s art, you can find more of it on her portfolio (some images NSFW) and in her Etsy shop; I want to thank Kirsten for taking the time to share with us! I hope you enjoyed this installment of Epic Level Artistry. Keep on gaming and drawing!

Epic Level Artistry: Jeremy Kostiew

Epic Level Artistry 1 Response »

Dec 152012

Another Epic Level Artistry here at Troll in the Corner! This month we have only one artist, but what an artist! Jeremy Kostiew is an an artist and graphic designer whose work you might be familiar with if you listen to any of our podcasts such as IndieTalks or Geek Explicitly. He was awesome enough to answer some questions, talk a bit about about the importance of logos and why as an artist you should have a cat. Let’s read what he had to say!

Portrait of the Artist as a…I have no idea. by Jeremy Kostiew

You do a lot of logos. What do you think a logo should do and what questions do you ask yourself before you dive in and design them?
First and foremost, a logo should make the client happy. It doesn’t matter what I think is a good design goal if the person I’m designing for doesn’t like it. I like to see the client’s logo- and art-related history before I start. What did they have done for their last logo? Do they favor a color or depth of saturation? Is there a style of font they tend to use? Are there other common elements?

Then I start thinking about the medium. Clean lines and vectors? That’ll put me knee-deep in Illustrator and Flash. Details and textures? Photoshop! Something 3D? SketchUp!

And then I have to consider the time I’ve got to complete it. A day? A week? Nebulous? Without a proper deadline I drag my feet like an extra in Dawn of the Dead.

Do you think logos have a place in-game? We all know branding is important in real life but how can people use logos to enhance their settings and adventures?
I certainly do!

White Wolf has always punctuated the insular nature of its character-types with symbols: Clan, tribe, Tradition, Sept — they’re all represented by some pretty fantastic logos. There isn’t a Vampire: the Masquerade player alive who couldn’t pull the Toreador rose from out of the infinite depth of rose clipart you get with Google Image Search.

Then you have Dungeons & Dragons, which has remarkable depictions of its gods’ iconography. How many Forgotten Realms paladins have had the upraised hand of Torm on a holy symbol around their neck? How many thieves have kissed the coin of Tymora before a risky task?
And Shadowrun! How many riggers have stared longingly at a personal assault drone branded with the Ares Macrotechnology logo?

Be it a secret society, a heroic team of superfriends, or an evil megacorp I think solid, evocative heraldry is one of the better ways to flavor a group without direct interaction. It can be a calling card, a warning, a mark of ownership. And having something actually marked with an in-game sigil can turn a simple, printed letter into the highlight of a session.

So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with art in games and RPGs.
I got started doing actual game art when I bothered Machine Age Production‘s David Hill on Twitter. He posted a logo for his reincarnation-and-romance adventure game Amaranthine, and I had some critiques. Eventually, I bothered him so much that he just sent me the files, and I made my corrections. And I’ve never stopped bugging him! Eventually, he and his partner Filamena Young began pointing me out to their friends, and I became confident enough in my developing style to bother everyone else in the world.

Farewell to Fear Intro Image by Jeremy Kostiew

Recently, I’ve done some fanart for White Wolf’s Exalted that’s far outside my usual artistic comfort zone. The art in those books is what makes me want to be a roleplaying game artist. UDON, Kiyo, Spencer, Melissa Uran – they’re favorites of mine, and why I strive to improve. It’s my long-term goal to have art in an Exalted book.

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?
Defintiely play. I like GMing now and again, particularly if I’m introducing someone to a game I love, but being a player is where my heart is. Being a player lets me doodle at the table, so it directly affects my art!

Do you find yourself more drawn to drawing locations or people? Do you have them fleshed out before you bring pencil to paper (to use an old idiom) or do the ideas and the image kind of grow side by side?
Actually, I tend to draw objects more than anything else! And I generally have a vague idea before I put anything down, but it almost never ends up as I first imagined it. I do really like drawing locations (mostly in 3D), but my people are almost never satisfactory. I’m working on that any chance I get.

Werewolf by Jeremy Kostiew

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?
Digital. Ctrl+Z is the only reason my blood pressure isn’t through the roof. I’m pretty well versed in a large suite of digital stuff, though. Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, SketchUp, Corel Painter, AutoCAD. I’ll use a more traditional medium every now and again, but I hate eraser lines!

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?
Art is pretty much a part time job’s worth of hours in my week, with occasional overtime. Gaming is another part time job! Between my day job, art and gaming, I probably don’t sleep as much as I should. When the weather’s cool, I try to make up for that lack of naptime by curling up in the backseat of my car during my lunch hour.

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?
In the past few years I’ve seen a number of artists from online communities like DeviantArt make it big, and that’s amazing. Seeing an artist I dig go from a few dozen views a month to featured in an UDON tribute? That’s the best, most-exciting thing in the world.
There’s also been a push for more appropriate cheesecake in RPG art. Whether that’s gender/skintone/bodytype equitable cheesecake, or forgoing ‘sexy badass’ when ‘badass’ alone makes more sense, I’m happy to see the hobby taking steps to expand its artistic horizons. While I adore beautifully drawn cheesecake, there’s already a lot of it out there for me. It’s pretty amazing to see genre art realize this, and work toward making games even more inclusive.

STAF by Jeremy Kostiew

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?
Oh, jeez. Where to start? There are the titans of traditional genre art, RK Post, BROM, Boris Vallejo, Julia Bell, etc etc etc… My comic art talent-crushes: Mike Mignola, Long Vo, Jim Zub, and Alex Ross. There are my personal RPG-art heroes: Melissa Uran, Ron Spencer, Steve Prescott, Kiyo, DiTerlizzi. Then there are the little guys who SHOULD be big: Jenna Fowler, Susan Knowles, Amy Clare Learmonth, Jared von Hindman, Timm Henson. I’m probably missing a dozen more names! There are too many people that inspire me to do art.

What tools do you use to make art? What tools/items do you need to game?
For art? MSPaint, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, SketchUp. Sometimes a Wacom. Not frequently. And a small mouse for my HUGE HANDS. For gaming? FUDGE dice. A good, small mouse. Lots of D10s and the occasional D20. Oh! And a nice, warm coat for winter LARPing.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?
I’ve got a huge number of Machine Age Productions’ logos, some interior art and the cover to their recently released Farewell to Fear. It’s tremendous fun to work with as passionate about gaming as David and Filamena, and I leap at the chance every time they need something drawn. I did the company logo for ENnie Award-winning RPG design badasses VSCA Publishing, and that was sort of a dream. I love their Hollowpoint. Left of the Moon Games, Magpie Games, Play Attention Games. A kindly handful of indie RPG developers have been kind enough to feature my work on their products/brands. I’ve also had the pleasure of doing a number of logos for the Troll in the Corner Podcast network!

Right now I’m working on stuff for Play Attention Games and TrolliTC’s own Wargaming Recon!

Wardogs of Atlantis by Jeremy Kostiew

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?
I have a character I’ve been doodling since high school. It’s my version of the Mothman urban legend, set in a fictional Hong Kong, with more than a few nods to John Woo movies. But my favorite current piece are either the cover for Nathanael Cole’s Motobushido, or the Indie Talks logo. I love that microphone!

What would be a dream job/commission?
Anything for White Wolf! They’ve fostered the largest number of games I’ve been a part of, including LARPs and tabletop, and almost every contemporary artist I love has done work for them in some manner. Exalted is the title I’d specifically love to work on.

When you’re not making art or gaming, what are you doing?
I’m generally doing design work for the solar industry, or cruising Google+ like an internet shark. I also have a fondness for wine that I’m trying to cultivate – and being so close to the Napa Valley it isn’t terribly hard!

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?
Bug David Hill and Filamena Young until they question the worth of your friendship! But seriously, never stop asking for work. And have a portfolio that isn’t hosted DeviantArt. If you DO require DA to be your sole place of artistic hosting CHECK YOUR MESSAGES EVERYDAY. And do art a lot. And have a cat to pet furiously when you’re turned down. Feline fur absorbs rejection-tears with amazing efficiency.

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I have a cat for the exact same reason.

I want to thank Jeremy and all the other amazing artists that helped kick of Epic Level Artistry this year! I hope you all enjoyed seeing their art and reading their answers and advice and maybe got inspired to draw a bit yourself. Thank you all for reading and hope to being you even more great fantasy, sci fi and RPG art in 2013. Cheers!

Epic Level Artistry: Ryan Rhodes

Epic Level Artistry, Role Playing Games No Responses »

Oct 152012

It’s the middle of the month and time for another installment of Epic Level Artistry! This time we are stoked to have Ryan Rhodes, illustrator, graphic artist and RPG player. From science fiction, fantasy, western and/or steampunk, Ryan is able to lend his style to many different genres and infuses life and humor in many of his images. Check it out!

Merman by Ryan Rhodes

So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with art in games and RPGs.
I joined the Star Wars Artists’ Guild in 2002, shortly after it got its first official site. I was a community member, then, not an artist. I think I was only 15. I was drawing, but I was pretty shit at it. I wanted more than anything to be a guild member and draw people’s characters, but my application was denied twice. I had some personal correspondence with Daniel Falconer (who did concept art for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films), and he gave me a lot of advice. I tried emulating what I saw him and some other artists like Khairul Hisham doing at the time, started experimenting with ink, and built a really novice portfolio. That was enough to get me in the guild. Since then, I’ve done a ton of Star Wars RPG art. I’ve done a lot for free, through the site, and a fair share of private commissions. At some point I branched from Star Wars and started playing other games like D&D, and I started doing art for those games, too. About two years ago I started getting regular paid work for small-time RPG content publishers.

What’s your favourite system to play? Is there a setting/system you love making art for in particular? What is it about this world/system that inspires you?
My favorite system is actually Marvel’s diceless RPG system. I’m not sure how many people play that or even remember it, but I thought it was brilliant. I really liked the Cortex system for Serenity RPG, and Decipher’s LOTR. But of course I play a lot of Star Wars. And recently, a lot of Pathfinder. That’s my favorite at the moment.

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?
I’ve spent a lot more time GMing than playing. I didn’t necessarily choose to, but it’s worked out that way. And once people decide you’re good at something, you’re generally stuck with it. I love GMing, but I love having a break once in a while to play, too. I think when I’m playing (rather than GMing) I do a lot more art for my home game. I think being a player frees me up to be creative in other areas. Being a GM can be pretty taxing.

Do you find yourself more drawn to drawing locations or people? Do you have them fleshed out before you bring pencil to paper (to use an old idiom) or do the ideas and the image kind of grow side by side?
I almost exclusively draw characters. I’ve been playing around with more scenes and landscapes lately, integrating these things together. But characters are definitely my milieu. For me, the concept and the image definitely grow together on the paper. It’s very rare that I get a really clear mental image of what I’m going to draw before I draw it, and it’s usually wrong.

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?
I’ve been doing digital illustration for several years now, which is the avenue I went down trying to find perfect ink lines. The computer gives me a level of control I really like. I can be a real perfectionist with my lines if I want. But I still love sketching on paper from time to time, mostly to unwind. Sometimes I really like that the real ink lines on paper are kind of messy and noisy and misbehave.

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?
I think I spend at least six hours a week drawing. I tend to sit down and draw for about 2 to 4 hours at a time, and I almost always do a piece from start to finish in one sitting. I haven’t gamed much in the last few years. My friends and I have slowly been moving away for school and work, and it’s been hard to find time to get together. I gamed almost nonstop over the summer while my little brothers were staying at my house. All they wanted to do was play Pathfinder every day.

Cosmic Frog Jam by Ryan Rhodes

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?
One thing I notice about character art, especially in Pathfinder, is that the characters are totally laden with gear, which I find aesthetically shitty, and totally hilarious and appropriate from a gaming perspective. I still like the sketchy character portraits from D&D 3.5, and I think the character art from Decipher’s LOTR really hit on that style. I think it really works for fantasy, which is funny because I’ve been doing a lot of fantasy art lately, and my style is like the antithesis of that! I remember noticing some art in a style more or less similar to mine in some of the later Star Wars Saga Edition books. I think it really works for sci-fi.

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?
My first love was for R.K. Post, and I still really like his stuff. I think a major influence was Daniel Falconer, more than any other. I had been trying to emulate his pen and marker style for years. Grant Gould is also a major influence; I love his brush pen lines and digital colors. But I think I was also influenced by traditional artists like Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, Privat Livemont, and others.

What tools do you use to make art? What tools/items do you need to game?
I draw with an Intuos tablet and Photoshop CS4. I also draw on paper at times with pigma microns and brush pen. I have a nice sepia set I really love.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?
I did some work for a steampunk space western RPG called Westward, published by Wicked North, and contributed to a couple resources by VonSchlick including a superhero and a horror gallery. Lately I’ve been working for Purple Duck Games, doing fantasy art for various projects. Lots and lots of character and monster art. I’ve really been enjoying the work with Mark Gedak, at Purple Duck. I feel like he has a good handle on my abilities and gives me stuff I really enjoy.

Self Portrait by Ryan Rhodes

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?
I’m pretty proud of a character portrait I did for myself, of a character I played in a Pathfinder game two years ago. He was sort of my take on Merman, from Masters of the Universe. I have a few Star Wars pieces that I think are pretty killer, and a couple fantasy pieces that turned out way better than I anticipated.

What would be a dream job/commission?
A dream job for me would be to collaborate with someone really motivated and knowledgeable on a big project, like creating our own sci-fi RPG. I’d also love to work on a big illustration project, maybe like a storybook or something. That would be challenging, but worthwhile.

When you’re not making art or gaming, what are you doing?
I’m working on my MA in linguistics right now, so I do a lot of research and conduct experiments occasionally. I do a lot of reading, and I play a lot of board games with my girlfriend. She’s not into d20, so we’ve been trying to find a game system she and I can both enjoy.

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?
For people looking to hire artists, I think I’d say don’t over-specify your wants. You never know when an artist might surprise you with something you didn’t even realize you wanted. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone else’s input on your vision. To artists, I would say try to be outgoing. This is my biggest hurdle. I’ve been lucky that other artists have opened up to me, because I don’t really put myself out there enough. I owe a lot to the artists that do!

Your ‘Context Free Comics’ are really funny. Are those posted anywhere or do you just do them as the mood strikes you?
I post them here: http://contextfreecomics.blogspot.com/. But I should warn you, I haven’t updated in 7 months. Maybe if my other work slows down, I’ll get back to the comics. I know my girlfriend has plenty of ideas!

Regarding your graphic design pieces, when you’re designing for an organization or an event, what do you take into consideration first? How do you decide on fonts/images? What comes first when you’re composing the design? How is it different from illustration?
All the graphic design work I’ve done has been pro bono, either for an organization I belong to, or as a favor for friends and family. Sometimes they have very specific wants, which can make the job a lot easier. Otherwise, I try to find the core message and use that to guide the aesthetic. Like everything else I do, this is a monkey-throwing-darts kind of process, where I try lots and lots of different angles until I find something that resonates. I never studied this stuff in school, so it’s a very intuitive process.

The first thing is always the imagery. I find the image I want to convey, and I fit everything else into that, hopefully in a way that flows well. In illustration, I have to think about how to highlight a character within the parameters of the medium, so I have to decide what they’re wearing, what they’re holding, how they’re poised, in a way that reveals something about them. In graphic design, there are similar principles, but applied to the arrangement of image and information.

Your bio says you’re a linguist. What languages do you speak/have you studied? Do you ever incorporate this into gaming?
Well, I’m not a polyglot, but I think every linguist knows something about a huge number of languages, even if we don’t speak them. Right now I’m working on a local language called Chukchansi (a Yokuts language of Central California). Their tribe recently donated a lot of money to our linguistics department for a language revitalization project.

As far as incorporating this into gaming, I think it has definitely aided our ability to make up alien languages on the spot. My friends and I have fun ad-libbing alien dialogue during our Star Wars games, and I think having studied so many languages, and having a general linguistic curiosity plays into that. I actually spent hours in front of the TV with a notepad during middle school trying to decipher the alien languages of Star Wars. I found out later that there’s nothing to decipher, and they’re all nonsense. I should have invested my time in Klingon…

Please drop a fresh beat for us.

Fresh Beet by Ryan Rhodes. HA!

So there you have it! If you dig what you see here you can find Ryan’s portfolio or check out his dA. Thanks to Ryan for taking the time out for answering our questions; happy gaming!

Epic Level Artistry: Devin Night

Epic Level Artistry, Interview, Role Playing Games 2 Responses »

Sep 302012

Welcome back to Epic Level Artistry, where we get to hear from the artists that illustrate the RPGs we know and love. For our second installment we have Devin Night, a designer, illustrator, teacher and family man out of the Midwest. In addition to designing crafts and weapons for your characters to drive and wield, he also creates overhead tokens, a really awesome tool GMs can bring to the gaming table or gaming screen. Devin was awesome enough to take the time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about his art and gaming career. Check it out!

Displacer Beast by Devin Night

How did you get into making overhead tokens? I learned about their existence through the Tabletop Forge Kickstarter and honestly, they’re very cool.

Thanks. I started making tokens shortly into using Fantasy Grounds. It came with a base set of letter tokens for marking character position on a map. Once I realized they were .png files I made some really simple orc tokens. They were crude but as I kept working on the tokens over the years the style has matured and the tokens look better.

Between producing such great work at a high volume and having a family, how do you manage to keep from going insane?
It would be hard to prove that I’m not. Creating is what keeps me sane, I love making stuff, any kind of stuff, from the tokens, to illustrations, game pieces and also shelves. There just isn’t enough shelving designed to hold board games, or art supplies or miniatures. Custom shelving is what I do whenever I need to make something with power tools. But the bottom line is that creating things keeps me feeling good about myself. Also I’d like to mention that my wife is very supportive and my girls are totally awesome.

Do you have time to illustrate your own characters for campaigns you’re in?
I will sometimes sketch things from my games, but I haven’t really had time to do that for the past couple years. I’ve been working on so many projects over the course of the past couple years that when I have downtime I think about doing more… but I usually just end up relaxing instead. Being creative all the time can be very draining. I used to illustrate everyone’s characters. Now I make tokens to represent them in game.

What’s your favorite Classico pasta sauce? (you don’t have to actually answer this one, I just saw the images in your portfolio and thought I’d ask)
I did a bunch of work for Classico right out of college making mock-up boards for a lot of their products and possible product ideas. It paid well and was a great experience, sadly I have ever only had one flavor, which I can’t remember.

What’s your favourite system to play? Is there a setting/system you love making art for in particular? What is it about this world/system that inspires you?
I have been playing DnD for 30 years. I have dabbled in other systems and own a ton of boardgames. Just recently I decided I needed a break from DnD and I have a really yearning for some sic-fi. So once I get the current batch of tokens done I plan on making a set of tokens that are space/sci-fi in nature. Throw in some robots and aliens and I may have a whole new line of tokens.

Old Temple by Devin Night

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?
I actually prefer to DM. I love the story telling aspect and I think I love getting the players to work with me to advance the story. When I GM I’m ore likely to make the maps, handouts and tokens needed to make the game feel more cohesive.

Do you find yourself more drawn to drawing locations or people? Do you have them fleshed out before you bring pencil to paper (to use an old idiom) or do the ideas and the image kind of grow side by side?
I love locations, I could have easily been an architect if my math skills weren’t so horrible. Even though I do a lot of character drawings I feel like I need to improve a lot in that area. I don’t draw as many places as I would like to either. I think it’s just a matter of not having the time to get to all the things I want to do. I like places with history where the people changed the place and where the place changed the people. When I make maps I try think about how a natural environment becomes the home of a group of people, and then how that group of people would change the place to suit their needs.

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?
I work almost entirely digitally now. I used to hand draw everything then color it digitally. Now I do all my rough sketching on paper… I think it’s still the best way to conceptualize. However once I have a rough sketch I go right to re-drawing and coloring on the computer.

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?
I spend about 4-6 hours a day making art. I would spend about 10-12 if I didn’t have other things that I needed to do. Like eating, moving around, and taking care of the girls. Now that the girls are in school I’m getting more time to focus on work but I would still love to add about three more hours to the day. I just recently broke up with my gaming group, well more like took a break. We have played regularly every Tuesday night for over five years. It’s fun but right now my heart is just into creating art, and the 3-4 hours we were playing just seemed to keep me away from doing it. I still like to fit in a couple hours or an evening when I can to play board games with friends or family.

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?
I’ve always been a closet Anime lover. I like very stylized and clean art. But there is just amazing art everywhere you look and on any given day I’ll see something that just makes me want to try and push my own work that much further. There isn’t much I don’t like except maybe bad art :) that includes some of my own past work.

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?
The list of great artists worth trying to emulate would be a long one. It would also change depending on what project I wanted to work on. I really like Wayne Reynolds and Steve Prescott as far as illustrators go. Full disclosure, Steve and I are pretty good friends who graduated from CCAD together with several other talented people. It was freshman year that I decided to go into design as a direct result of seeing how good Steve was. I figured if I couldn’t compete with him and some of the other guys I would get more computer classes in. Back then Computer classes were reserved for Design majors and getting to use them was easier in the Design track. I have several pieces of Steve’s art hanging up around me and it keeps me pushing to get better at what I do. Fortunately I found a niche making overhead token art that not too many people seem interested in doing.

What tools do you use to make art? What tools/items do you need to game?
Mechanical pencil and paper to get started. Then a 27 inch iMac and Wacom Tablet running Photoshop and Illustrator to make the digital art. Sometimes I will open up Carrara to do quick 3d models of the things I need to draw, or given the time use 3d modeling to complete an illustration. Virtual gaming has really changed the way I play games, though I still buy tons of board games and recently invested a small amount into making my own dungeons using Hirst Arts Castle molds. Making three-dimensional representations of dungeons to play games on just seems so cool. Also the girls will really like it when it’s done.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?
I don’t know for sure when this will be posted, but I’ll guess that my Kickstarter has finished and I’m making 200+ tokens of monsters. I’m also making 30 custom character tokens for the Tabletop Forge Kickstarter. I help Rite Publishing with their monthly ezine Pathways doing the layout for the covers. I’m working on maps for the En Publishing Zeitgist campaign and did 12 ship maps for the Naval Warfare Kickstarter. I work a lot with small publishers and indie game developers as well. I just got asked to help with a very cool project, but it’s in the early stages and I can’t talk about it yet.

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?
Usually the last piece of work I managed to finish. Like most artists I’m pretty critical of my own work so I’m never really satisfied with things when I look back on them. Most of the work that gets posted to my blog makes me happy at the time I put it up there.

What would be a dream job/commission?
I’ve always wanted to run a hobby shop, one with really big tables for open play and lots of sunlight. I’d also really enjoy working for most major board game companies like Fantasy Flight, my job description would have to include walking around and dipping my fingers into every game and every aspect of those games. From rules, to art, layout, game design and mini visualization. I wouldn’t be happy with just dealing with one tiny aspect of any part.

When you’re not making art or gaming, what are you doing?
If I’m not making art or gaming I’m thinking about it. Sometimes when i have no choice about working I will visualize myself working through a project and make a step by step outline of how to approach a project. When I do get back into the chair the majority of the work is done, I just then need to perform the action of doing it. This summer I spent a lot of time running around with the girls, swimming, biking, and a little camping.

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?
Look around, there are a ton of great artists, and they are easier than ever to track down and work with. I have worked with more people that I have never met than people who I have ever spent time with. Hang out forums where they post their work. You can get a good picture of an artist by their posted work and how they handle themselves publicly. If you are an artist trying to get exposure.. do your work, do a lot of it, share it with others. Don’t expect to make a ton of money early on, but don’t give it away either. Art is job and even if it is fun, it’s still work. Once you get a job do your best to fulfill the needs of the client in a timely manner and keep communications open.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Devin’s tokens and art you can check out Devinnight’s Token Blog and his portfolio at Immortal Nights. With so many great projects he’s working on, I’m so glad he took the time out to talk to us; hope you enjoyed reading about his experiences and seeing the great art he’s bringing to the RPG world!

Are you an artist interested in being interviewed for Epic Level Artistry? Send an email to trisj at backthatelfup dot com with a bit about yourself and a link to your portfolio. We’ve got a few slots left for this year and will be starting up again in 2013. Happy drawing!

Epic Level Artistry: Amy Clare Learmonth

Epic Level Artistry, Interview No Responses »

Sep 152012

Welcome to Epic Level Artistry, where we showcase the talent and inspirations of artist who play RPGs, make art for RPGs and make art inspired by RPGs. Our very first artist is Amy Clare Learmonth aka Amika Sterling, an illustrator, gamer and student who resides in our neighbor to the north. I first came across Amika’s work through Twitter and was blown away by her cityscapes and figures, both cyberpunk and fantasy. Amika has a distinctive style she can adapt to many genres of work and uses a color palette that sets her work apart from many other artists (though I’ve seen some work she’s done in black and white and wow. Also amazing). She is also an avid player of video games, with her most recent foray being Fallout: New Vegas which she is kind of obsessed with despite having/because she beat it twice. Luckily, I got a hold of her before she delved into her game.

So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with art in games and RPGs.
My name is Amy Clare, I’m currently in my second year of art university as an illustrator and I go by Amika when I’m working. I’ve been drawing pretty much since I was a toddler and when I turned eleven I started teaching myself to draw digitally using a crappy mouse and MS Paint. At thirteen I got my first tablet and a copy of Photoshop Elements for Christmas and I basically spent all my free time between DeviantArt, roleplaying on IRC, and drawing. I’ve always been into video games as well, and my first experience with RPGs were the video game variety. My gaming habit has hugely influenced my work.

What’s your favourite system to play? Is there a setting/system you love making art for in particular? What is it about this world/system that inspires you?

I’m pretty flexible on settings; I’ll play anything and enjoy it. I tend to gravitate towards colourful science fiction settings (I got bored with dark sci fi when I realized its core audience was teenagers pretending they know how adult worlds function; when everyone’s playing The Darkest / The Most Coy character it’s pretty boring). I get inspiration for drawings from the games I play once in awhile, but it’s the story and characters that inspire the art and not the setting or system.

red caps

Do you prefer to GM or play as a PC? Do you find this affects your art?
I enjoy both roles; I always have a ton of fun running campaigns for my friends, and I pride myself on my ability to both create really engaging worlds and fit them around the players (rather than making them fit themselves to my setting). Other times I just really like making a character and experience someone else’s setting. I don’t think my preferences affect my art at all.

Do you find yourself more drawn to drawing locations or people? Do you have them fleshed out before you bring pencil to paper (to use an old idiom) or do the ideas and the image kind of grow side by side?
Lately I’ve been trying not to favour one or the other between locations or people. For fun I like to draw single characters but as I get more and more into illustration I’m trying to do both at the same time. I’ll usually have an vague idea inspired by something before I decide to draw, but sometimes I’ll find it changing if I come up with a better idea during the process. I try not to tie myself too rigidly to a single process when I’m not doing a series so as not to pigeonhole myself.

What’s your preferred medium to work with? Do you work digitally, on paper or some mix?
The medium always depends on what I’m trying to portray. Usually that means I end up doing lineart in pencil and pen and then colouring digitally, but I also work with acrylic paint, coloured pencils, charcoal, chalk, quill and ink, and watercolours.

ocean queen

How much time would you say you spend in a week making art? How much time in a week would you say you spend gaming?
It really depends on my mood, schedule, and whether or not I’m in school. I always spend a greater proportion of my time drawing than gaming, though, because it’s my vocation. Playing games is fun, but it’s still just a hobby.

Are there any trends, either genre-wise or technique-wise that you’re seeing in RPG/game art that you’re enjoying now? Is there anything you want to see more of or things you don’t like?
Not that I can think of. As I’m often writing about on my tumblr and twitter accounts, I’d always like to see more relatable female characters that are made for women to project onto rather than for male players to ogle.

Whose art do you like the most? Whose art would you say has influenced you or do you try to emulate?
Off the top of my head, Jamie Hewlett, Lois van Baarle, Frank Stockton, Imperial Boy, Rose Besch, Patricio Betteo, Ein Lee. There’s probably more, but that’s a good start.

What projects have you worked on in the past? Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or have in the queue?
My first ~official paid project~ was doing illustrations for the Valley of Ten Crescents series! Since then I’ve been commissioned to do a handful of illustrations for print media as well as designs and assets for the Nak the Crunkodile flash game. At the moment I’m casually consulting with an indie studio’s art department while they put together their first game, but I’m trying to keep my schedule more or less clear and relaxed until school starts. I do a pretty good impression of a terrible slacker student, but I actually take it pretty seriously.

snow castle v2

Are there any pieces you’re particularly proud of? A favourite character you managed to pin down or something really funny/touching/dramatic you captured?
I’m in a really volatile and developmental stage in my art career, so usually my favourite piece happens to be whatever I did last. Which is this: http://amika-sterling.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5c7s07

What would be a dream job/commission?
I’d really like to collaborate on an illustration project with any of the artists I admire, even just on an art trade or something like that. This sounds silly, but I also think it’d be really cool if I were allowed to design clothing items for Dirty Lynx on Second Life.

cityscapes

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to find artists to hire? To artists trying to get their work out there?
Let artists do their jobs. I’ve had to fire a total of four clients because they had super specific images in mind and I could tell by first or second contact that they weren’t hiring me to do an illustration, they were hiring me to read their minds and execute the image they had in their head. I won’t go through an author’s book/article/whatever and tell them how they should rewrite it; they should show the same courtesy with my illustrations.

To artists trying to get their work out there, don’t be shy about contacting people you admire and being proactive about networking. Obviously don’t be annoying and don’t grill them, but most artists will be totally stoked that you’re interested in what they do with their life. Don’t be shy about submitting to magazines or publications as well, because the worst that could possibly happen is you don’t get published and everything carries on as normal, and you never know if you’re publishable until you try.

How important do you think it is for artists to be present on social media?
It can help you get established, for sure — all the paid work I’ve done so far, barring gallery shows, has been commissioned through the internet because of my social media presence. At the moment, I’m sure it would still be just as easy to get an agent or contact newspapers and magazines and get established that way but over the next several years as more and more of our media moves to digital format it’ll be that much more important for artists to be present on social media. It’s already expected that artists will have their own websites; that’s only a step away from getting a Twitter or a Tumblr or something.

When can I play Nak-Nak? Seriously.
You can play it right now! My favourite site to use for flash games is probably Kongregate.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Amika’s work, reading her thoughts on video games and art or commissioning her you can check out her deviantArt page, her tumblr or follow her on Twitter at @amikasterling.

Are you an artist interested in being interviewed for Epic Level Artistry? If so, drop us a line at trisj at backthatelfup dot com for more info!

Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Art!

Reality Makes The Best Fantasy 1 Response »

Aug 312012

Merlin: They totally got my beard ALL wrong. >:(

Sister Karia pulled back the riffler from the stone, standing back. She was almost done. Sweat dripped down her neck and back in what felt like streams but her hands were dry, the tools sure in her hands. The statue stood before the priestess, chunks and shards of white marble littering the floor around the goddess.

It wasn’t the Goddess of course. Just a representation of her, carved into white marble. Sister Karia had travelled to the Ayilkin Barony to pick out the piece of marble to be used, touched the great white slabs excavated from the earth. When she laid her hand upon the piece of marble just brought up the day before, she knew it was the one. Carefully they had loaded the block onto a cart and she and the other priestesses had brought it back to the Temple of Holy Mystery and set it up in her workshop.

For the better part of the season Karia had worked on the sculpture, alternating between her duties to the younger students, teaching them the history of the representation of the Goddess in the Valley. A few icons and sculptures had been brought from Haran when the church had split all those generations ago but most of the representations of the Goddess in the Valley were made here, with the Valley’s fiber, wood, stone and metal. Karia had studied and researched the evolution of the Sacred Daughter in the art of the Holy Family and how it it had changed during the War of the Four Sects, the changes in the instruments used at the altar, the differences in how the Goddess was represented. No longer was a small, jeweled cup used to represent her at the table, but a large chalice or bowl, carved in alabaster, silver or marble, all by itself.

Sister Karia had made chalices as a younger priestess but now she felt called to make the statues that graced the temples. This was her third, and easily her best. The folds in her garments looked like they would sway in the breeze if someone opened the door and the veil the Blessed Mother wore over her wavy hair looked sheer, though it was made of the same material as the rest of the statue. The Goddess’ serene face gazed down at an angle Karia knew would have her looking over the congregation once it was set up in the temple. The hands seemed warm and inviting. Sister Pia of Tyeskin was sending the cloth that would be draped over the carefully crafted hands, dark fabric embroidered with sacred symbols, lines of holy text. And then the stone goddess would be set up in the temple.

But for now she was here and she seemed so…alive. Karia stepped back and stared up at what her hands had just made, her heart swelling with emotion. For a breath, Kiala felt as if the Goddess herself was standing in her workshop with her, smiling mysteriously at her. Karia placed both her hands over her heart and thanked the Goddess for the opportunity to bring Her beauty into the world and to her people.

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Art.

It’s such a short word in many languages. Yet it’s such a big idea.

New Column at Troll in the Corner: Epic Level Artistry!

Role Playing Games No Responses »

Aug 312012

Merlin Fanart. Just kidding.

If you’re like me, the first thing you do when you get your hands on a new RPG book is flip through it to look at the art. Unless it’s a digital book in which case I scroll through to look at the art. When I first started playing MtG, I loved looking at the images. My favorite RPG artist is probably Tony DiTerlizzi, specifically his work in the Planescapes book.

RPG art makes the world and the characters. As visual creatures, it piques our interests and pulls us in, gets our gears turning and inspires us. Visual cues tell us about the kind of culture the character comes from, the type of person the character is. An illustration of a wide, sweeping plain dotted with buffalo implies a very different campaign than the backdrop of an alien ocean, complete with glowing fish and cephalopod-like denizens. Before you’ve even statted your character, ideas start rolling in your head.

Some people are good at getting those images from their heads onto paper or pixels. From the friend who offers to draw your character around the gaming table to the artist at busy game corporations fleshing out archetypal classes and races, these people help breathe life into the worlds we all explore together.

It was out of this appreciation I decided to start Epic Level Artistry. Epic Level Artistry’s mission is to show off the skill and enthusiasm of those artists among us who use their training and talent to bring people and places to our eyes. Some of them work for gaming companies. Some work for themselves. Some specialize in logos, character design. Others are cartographers of the fantastic. Others still make comics influenced by games they’ve played in the past or still play to this day.

Twice a month, on the 15th and the last day of the month Troll in the Corner will have an interview with an artist, complete with examples of their work. We’ll ask them what projects they’ve worked on, their favourite settings to play in, artists they admire, the last time they gamed, what kind of training they’ve had and more! I’ve already got Amy Clare Learmonth and Devin Knight slotted for September and some other really amazing artists have gotten in touch with me. I can’t wait to share their art and insights with you all.

Some of you might be thinking, hey! I am artist? REALLY? Well then, email me at trisj at backthatelfup dot com with a brief intro and some links to your portfolio and we’ll get you in!

I’m really stoked to get this going and I hope you enjoy it as well. Keep your eyes peeled on September 15th for Amy Clare Learmonth and September 30th for Devin Knight. After that, who knows? I’ll have my eyes peeled for more great creators and bring them to you here at Troll in the Corner.

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