A spot of fantasy art... (larger download than the average thread)

Hodgson · August 11, 2008, 05:23:47 PM

Arise ye corrupted and neglected thread! Cast off your rainment of sod and er...hat of turf! Glut no more the bellies of worms! Arise and live again!

Yes its that time of the month again when I have something to show that I figure the goodly denizens of therpgsite.com might enjoy. Like a needy hobo stealing an attention pie from your design forum window, only the hobo is a flesh eating zombie and the pie is YOUR HEAD!

Chasm Fighters:

Cheers!

Aos · August 11, 2008, 05:44:51 PM

That kicks ass.

Narf the Mouse · August 11, 2008, 06:15:56 PM

I am in awe.

Hodgson · August 14, 2008, 04:05:28 PM

Hey thanks guys!

Ok, just received confirmation that I am allowed to post this! Here's the cover for HeroQuest 2.0.

Aos · August 14, 2008, 08:55:40 PM

Again, awesome.
Is that digital or paint?

John Morrow · August 14, 2008, 10:35:02 PM

The thing that I really like about this art is that much of it shows adventuring parties doing adventuring party things. That, to me, is one of the hallmarks of great RPG art.

Hodgson · August 15, 2008, 04:09:38 AM

Quote from: Aos;235477Again, awesome.
Is that digital or paint?

Thanks! Its all digital. There's a couple of programs that really simulate real paint quite well (to a degree). The best known is probably Painter, but I've really switched on to ArtRage2 recently. It does some fantastic oil paint - here's a close up of a section:

It still amazes me!

Quote from: John MorrowThe thing that I really like about this art is that much of it shows adventuring parties doing adventuring party things. That, to me, is one of the hallmarks of great RPG art.

I think its really important. A lot of cover art I see on games doesn't necessarily reflect what you can actually do in the game, or would be likely to do. And that can become a problem if the image is really exciting or sparks ideas, but not things you can do with the game. Or else the situation/image presented isn't keyed into an understanding of exciting moments of game activity.

Of course there is a balance to be struck and room for many different approaches. But I think actually (oddly?) "Adventurers doing adventuring" is really quite under-represented in rpg art. Doing my best to correct that one painting at a time!

HeroQuest 2 is multigenre, with Glorantha stripped right out, and presented with a number of other suggested settings. Doing a cover for such a game is notoriously difficult (witness Gurps 4E, BRP, Jags) and we thought long and hard about how to tackle this one.

The setting of the image was something I designed separately to the rest of the it, just to get it right and hopefully have some appreciable depth to it. Usually I would just formulate the whole thing together, but for this one the background place was worked up to quite a high degree separately. I love the idea of this crumbling but vast bridge made of red sandstone. Overtones of Peake, Moorcock and Banks - a kind of singularity setting with nowhere else but this huge bridge. Probably dominated by the black robed priests, and their hideous robot minions (or enemies?). Who probably have monkey brains stowed in their chest sections that control them. (Wizard of Oz?)

Our adventurers drawn from across the universes have probably been flung into the midst of this Byzantine world, much to their disgust (Moorcock - The Vanishing Tower?) in search of some Macguffin. Its all gone horribly wrong (as it always does as part of an rpg scenario) and now they have to fight their way out. Meanwhile the Magesterium zeppelin is closing in to finish it all off!

I really wanted to show on of those "Oh crap! We're fighting two groups now. We really messed this up didn't we?"

But also importantly that's just one version of the story - there's no official version.

Rob Lang · August 22, 2008, 05:06:47 AM

Inspirational stuff, hodge. Makes me want to pick up the tablet and leave the 3D alone for awhile.

Do you have a deviantArt account? I'd like to stay abreast of your works.

Hodgson · August 24, 2008, 09:05:41 AM

I do indeed:http://jonhodgson.deviantart.com/

Hodgson · October 01, 2008, 11:25:44 AM

Oh no here he comes again with a picture!

I saw this one previewed over at Mongoose's site, so I thought I would show it here too. The cover for the forthcoming Dragon Warriors Bestiary:

You can see a bigger version over on my LJ.

Cheers for dropping by!

Hodgson · October 15, 2008, 02:34:52 AM

Hey guys! Here's the next cover for Dragon Warriors. This one is for a book of scenarios called Sleeping Gods. This one gathers all the adventures from the original releases, and adds a bridging section so that they make sense as one continuous campaign:

(c)2008 Jon Hodgson and Magnum Opus Press

Cheers!

Rob Lang · October 15, 2008, 08:00:30 AM

Hodge, another fab piece of work. I always admire the details in your work. In this one, I particularly like the gentle celtic shapes at the hem of the spectre's cloak. Also the standing stone, right hand side near the door looks a bit like a toothy grinning face to me. But that's probably just me. it normally is.

Great work, sir! A triumph.

Narf the Mouse · October 15, 2008, 08:52:21 PM

Upside is, it's moody and atmospheric. Downside is, it looks like a painting, not real.

Rob Lang · October 16, 2008, 09:59:48 AM

I prefer the painted style. It leaves a little to the imagination and conveys feeling much better than art that strives for reality. Obviously, this is coming from someone who has been doing just that for years! If I could paint like Hodge, I would. A lot.

Venosha · October 16, 2008, 04:15:19 PM

I have looked at this thread many times and I must say you have a beautiful talent Hodge. My favorite so far is the green dragon piece just before this one, but I love this one as well. Thank you for posting your artwork, and I can't wait to see more in the future.