Working on a Cover Illustration

[Gamer Printshop]

Hey guys! I'm working on another Kaidan product cover design.

For the month of October, I've gotten Steve Russell of Rite Publishing to agree with me that we need a Kaidan release for the Halloween Season, as a free PDF download - chock full of Kaidan ads. Just to get more people looking a Kaidan. Jonathan McAnulty, my lead designer created two one-shot adventures he demo'ed at Origins: Frozen Wind and The Tolling of Tears. Since the second one is more an investigation adventure, while Frozen Wind is much more intense in horror, we decided that it should be that one. Since Jonathan ran it, he didn't need a spectacular cover design - he did need a map and I created it for him. With a modicum of additional art pieces that fit the theme.

Well as a free download, it meant I didn't have a budget for additional art which only leaves whatever I got, anything the works from public domain or anything new that I create myself. Wanted a specific image in mind only meant I had to do it myself. I dug around online looking for a wintry mountain valley image, an armored samurai from behind view, and a temple. The illustration uses Xara Xtreme Pro, my app of choice for maps and illustration. I imported the images, then slow 'mouse drew' the linework then used an eyedropper tool to select colors from within the photo itself as object color fills, sometimes giving linear gradations and edge feathering. After my first version, I exported it as 300 dpi TIF file, imported to Photoshop and darkened the image - I wanted more of a night time perspective, which my initial color selection were too bright.

Finally, I found a photo of my Japanese cousin, Kumi and used her eyes to represent the female villain of the adventure looking down from above - she is supposed to be a Yuki-onna (snow woman).

Once I create a couple more interior pieces, I will do a quick spell check of the adventure itself, do my standard Kaidan page layout, throw in some Kaidan ads, and get this released soon.

Already got a mistake though - it says for 3rd level adventurers. Its supposed to be for a party of 5th level characters (PFRPG).

Here's my current concept work of the cover illustration...

GP

[Ghostman]

A nice illustration in the making, but I think it needs some work. The eyes are a very good addition though, they really add some creepy atmosphere to the picture.

The temple looks disproportionately large compared to the valley. There is also a weird perspective effect here, as the samurai appears to be standing roughly at level with the point-of-view, whilst the temple facade seems to be angled in a way that suggests the building is situated on higher ground compared to the POV - yet the samurai is positioned in such way relative to the temple that you'd expect him to be standing on higher ground.

It might be useful to adjust the elements with the help of an imaginary horizon line. Of course, one cannot actually see the horizon on this picture due to the mountains, but the rules of perspective should apply all the same anyway. If you intend for the point-of-view to be on level with the samurai (as if seen through the eyes of someone of equal height standing behind him) then the horizon line should cross the samurai's eyes. If you'd rather have the POV set higher, then the horizon line would also be positioned higher than the samurai's eyes.

Once you know where the horizon is, you can position the temple relative to it. Should the temple be on level ground with the POV, the horizon line would be somewhat up from the ground-floor (accounting for the elevation of the floor above actual ground level, of corse). If you'd want the POV to be looking up toward the temple (as the angling of the facade seems to suggest) then the entire structure could be placed above the horizon line.

[Gamer Printshop]

Yeah, its definitely a work in progress.

Well the temple filling the crevasse was intentional. The temple complex takes up the entire width of the chasm - there already exists a map that is close to what is viewed here. While it might it might be a tad big, I think I'm going to keep it.

I realized that the illustration did not meet the premise of the adventure title - there is no visible wind. So I decided I needed to do a couple things.

1. You'll notice I placed both falling and hard blowing snow in an implied spiral blowing towards the temple. Also placing the subtle misted snow highlighting the blowing spiral.

2. Of course missing in this update is the samurai. I plan to have his legs sunken in deep in the snow struggling to move forward, a hand holding his hat, (though I may replace it with a traditional samurai helmet). Perhaps a walking stick in one hand. The loose strips of cloth on his armor will be blowing with the wind. This I'll do tomorrow, but is a tougher fix. Though the experience creating the first one gives me insight on getting it right. Since I'm redoing the samurai anyway, I will try to get the right perspective with the samurai rather than changing the building.

Plus I can always use another samurai illustration for elsewhere in Kaidan, so that first samurai design won't go to waste - we're working on a samurai book at this time, so I've got a place for it.

I also vectorized the eyes, while a cool addition, I used a photo image and it shows in not being consistent with the rest of the design - I think it's better now. They even look more menacing...

GP

[Ghostman]

The snow is definitely doing wonders for the atmosphere, as is the deeper bluish coloration. How about some icicles hanging from the eaves of the temple? A skeletal tree to the left might also make a nice addition, but could end up hogging too much space once the samurai is added.

[LordVreeg]

I agree that some icicles would add, and I really feel like, even for a mood piece, the building looks dropped into the spot.  Maybe it is just me.

[Superfluous Crow]

I am no expert on artwork, but I'd agree that the building does look a little "dropped-in" on closer inspection. Especially the left side looks like it is pasted on top of the cliff instead of giving the more desirable impression that the building is resting inside the ravine. For a quick fix you could probably do a rock or snowdrift obscuring the corner.
I think the floating eyes lack some distance from the mountains compared to the first picture. The left eye looks a little odd because the lower edge runs almost parallel to the mountain summit.
Maybe a hint of a buried path running to the temple entrance would help? Also, having the temple be situated lower than the watching samurai would work wonders (I hope).
On a minor note, I love the snow on the samurai's hat!

[Ghostman]

On a minor note, I love the snow on the samurai's hat!

Now that you drew my attention to that, I can't help but think that it looks like Mt. Fuji.

[beejazz]

Part of what makes the building looked "dropped in" might be the hard black all the way down. Reflected light from the snow tends to illuminate everything. Additionally, atmospheric perspective would be pretty heavy in the falling snow. At the very least, letting the black fade from blue at the bottom might help.

[Gamer Printshop]

OK, I did some more work on this - I think I'm done (I still might place some icesickles hanging from the eaves of the temple), I put some more snow over the corners of the temple to lessen it's dropped in feeling.

I've just done the samurai - and I think it's much better. The pennants hanging off his walking staff/spear shows off the hard wind.

What do you think, now?

GP

[Ghostman]

The temple seems to fit in with it's surroundings much better now. And the eyes are far more menacing! The samurai looks partially transparent though, is that intentional? Also his hand grasping the pole is kinda blurred, while the pennants hanging off it appear very sharply.

[Superfluous Crow]

Not to sound overly critical (as I said, I know next to nothing about art), but the size of the samurai seems disproportionate to the landscape, the lower half of the staff is definitely transparent, and the pennants do look very sharp as mentioned above. As far as the eyes go the epicanthic is more pronounced on the left (there is kind of this weird hole on the left side of the right eye?) and the lower eyelid is more pronounced on the right eye (the left eye's pupil/iris actually appears to meld with the sky in an odd manner). I actually liked the first set of eyes the best.
The sky looks more like night than just cloudy now, but maybe that is intentional? Always presumed the glowing circle was the sun. I feel like it worked better when the eyes were on each side of the sun/moon/thing, but that is not essential.
The temple looks good now!

(again, don't read too much into the above. Still amazing work, wouldn't be able to do anything close to this myself...)

[Gamer Printshop]

The blowing snow in at the front that curls down to the ground is in front of the samurai - I wanted to depict the snow misted wind as somewhat 'solid' - so the bottom of the samurai I made transparent to simulate that. I fixed the blurred effect on the staff - one idea that didn't work. The publisher didn't care for the moon at top center asking me to move it slightly to the right. The eyes are a problematic, I tried to a number of things that detracted from their look, I may or may not change them - the first set of eyes was an altered photo and does not belong in the image. Since the rest is vector, I had to go with the second way for consistency.

Anyway thanks for the comments. I am doing page layout and may need some more illustrations, so I really don't have the time to keep on tweaking this one. It's better than the first and so I'll leave it at that.

[Ninja D!]

It looks very nice as is. Great for a free product.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Actually, I kind of prefer the more understated eyes in the first two versions. For me, they kind of jump out too much in the last one, even though the warrior looks better in that one.

[Gamer Printshop]

I can agree to the replacement samurai, and while I don't disagree with the eyes. The first set was a photo in a mask selection with some edge feathering. Whether it looks better or not, it's not consistent with the rest of the image in my mind, as it is a photo and everything else are vector shapes. Also the first set of eyes just stares forward, not looking down at the approaching samurai - which I think is where her focus should be. Anyway, it works well enough.

This adventure will be released next Thursday, as a free PDF download - Rite Publishing will begin pimping it on Monday.

I still need to work on the art for the upcoming Way of the Samurai supplement, that is currently being written by Jonathan McAnulty and Will Cardell is designing the samurai archetypes, as well as a gunslinger archetype (teppo bushi). So I need to get working on that - it will come with a map too, so I'll need to work on that as well. I still have to create the map for the sooner to be released Way of the Yakuza supplement.

For a December release, Trevor H. Gulliver is working on 30 Haunts for Kaidan - basically creating 30 haunts - using the Haunt mechanic from the Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide, which will include both haunted places and object haunts with an especially oriental flair. I need to work on art for that too.

So lots of work yet to do, I can't continously tweak the art already created - I'll never keep up with the production schedule if I do.