Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerer's Runegraver

We are deep into our second week for the AS&SH kickstarter for the 2nd edition of the game. Only 18 days to go, and it is funded beyond the first 8 stretch goals, and less than $300.00 away from $50,000 which means +Jeff Talanian can commission more artwork for the already busting at the seems book!

For those of you thinking that this second edition is going to be a different game, it is not. In the infamous words of +David Prata it is the same game; 

The hardcover Second Edition includes new classes, spells, monsters, and magic items. Errata have been incorporated, and ambiguities clarified, but no substantive rules changes have been made. This Second Edition is not a wholly new game to be learnt; it remains fully compatible with the AS&SH original edition boxed set.

As I have said before, this book will add a ton of new artwork, by Charles Lang, Val Semeiks, Russ Nicholson, Jonathon Bingham, Daisy Bingham, Jason Sholtis, Peter Mullen, Glynn Seal, Logan Talanian and yours truly. 

While those of you who have already pledged have seen this, perhaps some of you have not. Here is a new sub-class for the game; the Runegraver. 

"Runegraver: a mystic warrior who carves runic spells on bone, metal, stone, and wood"

This started off as a few rough sketches, some of which can be seen here.

The rest of the process is detailed here. 

First the beginnings of the full sized rough. 

Here I have detailed the rungraver, and a few of the critters. Even this will change as I try and pack as many of those beetle into the scene. 


Starting the inking process. I nearly always start out with the face, especially if I have it the way I like it, as in this illustration. These wont be finished inks, just light weight inking at this stage. 


I really strove to get a feel for depth in this one, and as I started detailing the tomb, and several other items, this was beginning to show through. I also have roughed in his hands, and most of his shoulders, and some of his waist area. The perspective here, really hides the majority of his body, and that is a critical thing that has to happen in order to show it from this sort of angle. Never worry about losing part of the figure's body, unless you are drawing straight on, you never see all parts of the figures body. 

Ouch, he may have cut himself here. 


Oh, the creepy crawlies are coming in now. Again, I didn't worry about not seeing every little bit of the bugs, I knew that most of their bodies and legs would be hidden by the outcropping of rock that he is perched upon. All of the line work for the tiles on the floor is almost complete here. I like all of the little details, the brick, the tiles, the tight runic carvings in the tomb, it is what keeps me interested. It's a lot of work, but with the music going it goes by pretty quickly. 

I have to admit I started to itch at this point in the drawing, bugs just tend to do that to me. 


Opps, this view is angled wrong, but I think you can see the progress that is being made here anyway. Just the beginnings of the beetle in the lower left corner (lower right in the final), ready to pounce on our Runegraver before he finishes his incantation. 

From the previous image to this one, I have filled in the final bits of floor, it is imperative when working in ink, that everything that is in the foreground is done first. Once ink is on paper (Bristol), there is no going back. So once I got the beetles on the edge of the cliff done, I was able to fill in the details below. 


This is the final progress shot I took, for the most part everything is fleshed in. All the beetles are there, in various stages of completion, and the stone stairs are being engulfed by the horde. In the final you can see that I added some more carvings to the floor area  under the Runegraver, and finished this whole thing up with my grey wash. Incidentally this was the last piece I did with Prismacolor markers. 

Which spell is he casting? I will refer you to this website, and see if you can figure it out!

I have switched my technique to actual ink washing now, it is more like painting, I can get a variety of hues, mixing it myself and the brush I use is a Pentel Waterbrush so it is easy to dilute as I go. I will have to detail that process in a future blog-post. 

For now I think that has wet your appetites, now go out and pledge your support for the kickstarter. 

Thanks for looking, comments always welcome.