Issue 8 Preliminary Art Request Thread

[calithena]

All of these can be considered springboards for the imagination. Please post here if you have questions about the entries (or, if you are an author, to make suggestions of your own).

- a soothsayer

a dungeon being inverted and dumping its contents all around the caster

- a wizard casting a spell which tears open the veil of reality (think ecthroi)

- any tricks or traps that strike your fancy from the "Random's Tricks 'n Traps Challenge Thread"

- something nautical fantasy themed (maybe someone has something lying around?)

- desert nomads

- psychotic giant weasels

- wererat cultists

There are more posted later in the thread now too...

[yesmar]

- a two headed troll

That two-headed troll is actually polymorphed into a giant cockroach during the time it is encountered. It might be interesting to see it laying dead on the ground. Fighting-men are wiping down their blades while a pair of thieves are trying to remove the glinting crown that the troll was wearing on its arm as an armband. Just an idea, mind you.

[calithena]

Or, a giant cockroach metamorphosizing into a two-headed troll.

Yesmar, why don't you describe the tomb entrance or a cool detail you'd like to see illustrated?

[yesmar]

Yesmar, why don't you describe the tomb entrance or a cool detail you'd like to see illustrated?

The tomb entrance with the camels Calithena mentioned looks roughly like this:

There's a largish statue broken up into pieces. Most of it has been reduced to rubble, but there's still a couple of recognizable pieces: a big leg, an arm, a head cracked in half-- that's what I mentioned in the text. Feel free to apply artistic license. There are 8 camels tethered up to these pieces, but you certainly don't have to show them all.

Just about 20 feet away is a rocky cliff, pierced by a dark cleft. Steps descend into the darkness-- this is the entrance to the tomb, which is fully underground.

That would make a fine picture, but there are some other interesting places:

1. A big cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites. The floor is littered with gnawed bones, offal, and filth. There are a bunch of ghouls and ghasts in here and they will be attacking you head on in a frenzy.

2. The 30' diameter footprint in the sand of an invisible tower. Maybe a thief is scaling it while the party looks on in wonder?

3. The wild, debauchery of a party with nomads in the dark hours. Wine and dancing girls abound. Everybody would be totally drunk. If nomads could be portrayed with a sinister edge, all the better.

Those are a couple of ideas off the top of my head...

[marjasall]

To start - I'll do the two Witches, the barbed devil pic, and your two-headed troll pic. Cool?

[ant]

For starters I'll take a look at the Tricks n Traps and see what takes my fancy.

[littlewars]

"Insectaur and/or a human with an enlarged, bald cranium, perhaps doing something together"

I think I already have one piece in the next ish, but I would really like to tackle this!

PM with some details maybe? Cal? Sniderman?

[labsenpai]

Regarding the "creature lineup" picture:
What is the chart of creatures meant to be contrasting/introducing for the reader? For example, differences in Class equipment, or available NPCs.
Second, about the "amazing place arrival":
Is the location specifically mentioned or is this more of an editorial piece?

[calithena]

I PMed marjasall and littlewars with more details.

Lee, you'd be perfect for that lineup picture if you've got time. It's an article about an alternate approach to giant and humanoid races that would include an option for using them as PCs. So I thought a picture of kobolds/orcs/fat trolls/various giant types in their skivvies a la various PHBs might be visually amusing.

The 'amazing places' article is based off of this blog post of Rients':

jrients.blogspot.com/2009/12/exploration.html

so really the interpretation is pretty open. Also a good one for you, if you have time and inclination. Thanks for your interest and let us know what appeals!

[kelvingreen]

I'm happy to contribute once more, although I have a number of other projects on the go (all thanks to Fight On! by the way, for which I'm very grateful), so I don't know how much I can do.

The penanggalan looks doable, if I can get some more information on "the lovely priestess Incantra". I might also be able to do the rat-cultists, if no one else wants to do it.

[calithena]

Thanks Kelvin!

Yes, it makes me very happy that at least some of you who contribute to FO! are getting actual paying work as a result of people seeing what you can do. I hope that keeps happening for more and more of our artists.

I will send you descriptions of the cultists and the penaggalan right now by email.

[labsenpai]

OK, one lineup and hex-ploration drawing will be submitted...our due date roughly?

[calithena]

ASAP? The giant one is earlier in the issue so it would be nice to have that one first.

[labsenpai]

Chk your inbox for giant picture done today... ;D

[jensen]

Jan 15, 2010 13:54:44 GMT -6 yesmar said:

- a two headed troll

That two-headed troll is actually polymorphed into a giant cockroach during the time it is encountered.

Gregor Scragsa, we barely knew ye.

[jensen]

Jan 15, 2010 19:51:56 GMT -6 littlewars said:

"Insectaur and/or a human with an enlarged, bald cranium, perhaps doing something together"

I think I already have one piece in the next ish, but I would really like to tackle this!

I am glad someone else scooped up this little bad boy and ran with it, coz I would have done terribly inappropriate things with it...

'Is that your cranium, or are you just happy to see me?'

[jensen]

Jan 15, 2010 11:47:59 GMT -6 calithena said:

- any tricks or traps that strike your fancy from the "Random's Tricks 'n Traps Challenge Thread"

- something nautical fantasy themed (maybe someone has something lying around?)

I'm not going to call dibs on anything, in case I run of out time to follow up on my promises (again . However, since these pieces sound fairly open-ended and free-for-all, I might make a stab at them.

I am mightily tempted by the giant angry weasels, though...

[labsenpai]

"Amazing" location drawing submitted...plenty of time to draw in the Winter

[calithena]

Thanks for all the volunteering so far, and we definitely are still looking for more, so don't be afraid to step up!

Here are a few more I found:

A great post-apocalyptic storm, ravaging the countryside (and maybe causing bizarre mutations, or however you want to do it)

Something with adventurers getting taken for money (maybe something along the lines of Caravaggio’s The Fortune Teller, re-done in a fantasy idiom?)

A six-inch-long ivory beetle plunging its mandibles into an adventurer’s forearm

Evening in the wastelands: vultures circling overhead, an apparition manifests

A pillar covered with slimy eyes – some have been scraped off by an adventurer and are turning into killer frogs

A stuccoed passage that looks like the sky, and in fact turns into the sky itself as adventurers walk along it

A procession of skeletal undead monks with skeletal asses’ heads

A person flying through the air on a giant moth wearing a circlet of platinum with a pair of jacinths inset at the front and two sizable moth wings inlaid with mother of pearl


I think now that except for what James M. needs for his Darkness Beneath level these are most of the requests for issue 8. I will go back through and delete the ones that have already been claimed/done. Thank you all so much for your help!

[marjasall]

I'll do the beetle, the pillar w/eyes, and the skeletal procession.

[jensen]

I've sent you a nautical, or rather, piratical piece, and I'll go for the Fortune Teller touching an adventurer for money (in the nicest possible sense), and a coupla wererat cultists.

[calithena]

Rock! Thanks guys. I got that pic, Jensen, and I'll look out for the other ones.

Any other takers? ;D

[kesher]

I gots the moth and, well, moth-rider...

[calithena]

Thanks Kesher! I'll put you down for it!

[kesher]

Oh, hey, what is this moth-rider, exactly? Mage, warrior, something else? Any particular trappings, besides the circlet, I should include?

[calithena]

Email sent!

[kelvingreen]

I just wanted to drop in to say that I am still intending to do the two images I bagsied. The penanggalan has been sketched out, and should be done quite quickly, now all the difficult laying-out has been done. I haven't started on the rat-cultists yet, so if someone else wants them, then go ahead, but otherwise, I'll get to them next.

Anyway, just an update.

[calithena]

Great, Kelvin! Keep going!

Littlewars, if you're out there, how are the Insectaur and Mastermind going?

[calithena]

Still a couple of these not in progress I could use:

- wizard casting a spell tearing the veil of reality open, or a spell which animates a statue, or inverting a dungeon, etc. (just one of these would be great)

- trap pics (I know a couple people were looking at those, any developments?)

- the postapocalyptic radiation storm (in a grim or humorous style, whatever floats your boat!)

- a 'gaming' picture with ideas rising (in thought bubbles?) from dice that have come up with some result or other

- whatever we wind up needing for JamesM's dungeon level (obviously can't respond to that without more details)

Any help is deeply appreciated! Thanks!

[marjasall]

FYI, cal, I am the tail end of the "witches" illustration.

That's probably the last one that I'll be able to squeeze into issue #8 (due to other projects).