New Classic Harn- More Calories- Same Great Taste

Thought I would post a Harn Classic update I was pretty happy with.
The December Hârn Classics I had to update were as followed:

• Nurisel Castle
• Gelimo Chantry
• Qualdris Castle

Using the art from the old, out of print articles, each of which was a black and white image by Eric Hotz,  I was trusted to update and color all the art. Some needed parts added or adjusted to fit the new layout, but mostly I am just coloring them in. I occasionally add my own twist- like adding a flag with the castle heraldry and a few birds as was done for Nurisel.
The Qualdris Castle was drawn from a high view point and I thought it would be nice to add a wispy bit of background to it. Using the map as reference, I did my best to make up what I thought would be a good looking background. Using some photographic reference and a few laid in textures, I was able to rough out the distant landscape. Some of the image had to be cropped out in the document, so I thought I would post the whole thing. I like early or late day scenes so I can get some contrast and interesting lighting.

Qualdris Castle, by Eric Hotz, Colored by Richard LuschekCopyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

Below is the original illustration by Eric Hotz.

Qualdris Castle, by Eric Hotz, Copyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

Characters in Silhouette

A client for whom I  had recently drawn a few characters in his game saw the intro image I did for the Night People article.
The image was a silhouette with a colored back ground. He asked me to do a scene of the Knight, his squire and a pack animal  traveling through a cold and wintery scene late in the evening.

For these images I generally do a pencil sketch on drawing paper, draw the outline in pen and ink- filling in the big areas with a sharpie marker. I scan the work into photoshop. As is usually needed, I can select individual areas and move the shapes around to position them better in the space. The pen on paper can be a bit hairy so I clean it up digitally in photoshop going back and forth between digital brush and eraser. I have digital brushes that do a pretty good job of looking like pen and ink.

Sir Fulke and Squire, pen and ink and digital.
Copyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc., Richard Luschek

I then create a layer under the line art and paint the color under it. All the color is done in photoshop. I drop in some textures and collected images to layer it up for a deeper look.