Talisman - The City expansion pack (and other stuff)

It's a good thing there are no laws against bloggers who don't get to update their blogs as often as they should. Otherwise, I'd be serving a lot of time in jail!

Well, first things first. This is meant to be an art blog so I better post some artworks. Ladies and gentlemen, I present two more card illustrations I made for Talisman - The City expansion.

Sellsword

City Guard

These images have been up on my DeviantArt gallery for a quite a while. What I haven't uploaded anywhere else are progress shots. The ones I did for City Guard are more... varied. Yup. Varied! So those are the ones I chose to include in this post. Here goes:

The art director Mr. Mike Linnemann chose the third one and I felt glad he did because it is the most dynamic of the three compositions. You'd notice that the final artwork is a much closer view of the guards. That was one of the several revisions I needed to do. Now here's the funny thing. Among the many revisions, having to crop the image (despite being the easiest change to make), was the one almost objected to. I really wanted to show more of the background. I mean, I'm pretty confident I can do it in a way that I can keep the viewer focused on the characters. Then I found out how small Talisman cards are! So... Cropping - 1, me - 0.

Here's the rest of the process.

I would describe their initial costume design as something of a cross between 15th century Spanish armor and the guardia civil. I was shooting for a somewhat desaturated painting.

What's posted here as the third WIP shot was actually my first final pass of this particular card. At this point, Mike said it didn't look Talisman enough. It looked more like Warhammer which is not a good thing since those are two very different games. So I was asked to change the details of the armor, add more color (as in make it a little livelier), make some foreshortening corrections especially on the weapons, and add some glowing gems to "fantasy up" the picture. The next image is the last WIP shot I submitted before I gave Mike the final final.

This particular card currently holds the distinction of having taken more time to complete that any other FFG commission I've taken. Given how many times I've had to revise it, I was afraid they'd never contact me again but it turned out to be quite the opposite. It really counts when you are able to provide what your clients need when they need it. So now I don't feel bad about having iterated as much because in the end, I was able to provide what they needed for The City expansion and I was able to do so without messing up their schedule.

But wait! There's more! Icing on top of the cake! I got my complimentary copy. Pics below. :)

I love doing freelance work!

*****

I know, I know, it's already mid-year and this is my first blog entry for the year 2013! My blog is horrendously outdated! I have a lot more to talk about. I actually (self) published an art book this earlier year. It's in full-color. Then I got me a new daytime gig. I also began working on another card game. I went to ToyCon 2013 last Saturday and I saw Man of Steel with my girlfriend, Dee.

But it's already 3am so... Until the next post guys and gals! :)