Luschek Illustration Blog: Harn Classics

Showing posts with label Harn Classics. Show all posts

Friday, July 12, 2019

Freaking Magic- Melderyn Cover

It has been a while since my last blog. I've been doing some work that I feel like talking about, so you may see a few more of these pop up.

Please be nice, as I need to get my writing chops back.
I wanna talk about the recent cover I just finished for the Kingdom of Melderyn.

Bringer of Storms on the shores of Melderyn
pen and ink, digital, Copyright © 2019, Richard Luschek and Columbia Games, Inc.

Years ago, Tom Dalgliesh at Columbia Games asked for new covers for all the Hârn Kingdom Modules. This was a big job and the idea kinda frightened me. I worried I was not good enough to pull this off. I procrastinated. A few HârnQuests came up that were new or updated kingdoms and they needed covers: Orbaal, Ivinia, Rogna and most recently Lokis. When forced into a corner, one at a time, I felt they were pretty successful. So, after this request from three years ago, I'm off an running on the rest.
The original kingdoms in the 80's all had cover images, mostly painted by Eric Hotz, but as Hârn moved to the binder model with constant expansion to the product, the images did not quite fit and a simple monochrome cover was used.

Almost makes you yawn doesn't it? Are you yawning?
My original plan was to use the inside, page one image on the cover. This idea worked with Kanday- after a lot of tweaking.
This time for Melderyn, I did a mock up with that image just to get a rough idea. You can see where it was a long panel and I had a lot to add to the top and bottom.

Melderyn cover rough layout

I decided there was a lot I didn't like about this image for the cover. The pose was boring, the hands were not great, the color is iffy, and the image does not pop. It needed more punch.
I like the idea, not the execution. The idea is based on the destruction of the Viking fleet at Cape Renda that is in the Hârnic histories. Though it could also be a new, similar event. The details of the story can be left up to the Game Master.

So, I was back to the drawing board. I did a rough sketch and then asked my neighbor to pose as the sorcerer. He came over, we got him dressed up in the approximate garb and I had him strike a bunch of poses. He really got into it and did a great job.

sketch and pose reference

I did a more detailed drawing and then inked over the pencils lines with Pigma Micron pens. I mostly used the small ones (005 and 01) as I like the fine lines and building up a tone slowly.

Bringer of Storms on the shores of Melderyn
pen and ink, Copyright © 2019, Richard Luschek and Columbia Games, Inc.

I knew I wanted lightning being summoned or at least the illusion of that. I got the idea that the lightning would be in a similar position as the magic user's right hand. Like he was directing the lightning, composing the storm. I played around in the mirror, moving my hand into a pose I thought looked lightningy.
I even played around with different colored lightning. Below you can see I started out drawing the blue lightning over his arm, following all the joints of the skeleton, enlarged it and moved it into position. I have labeled things to make it clear.

Lightning Arm

The white lightning looked better- a bit more subtle and the giant arm of lightning felt a bit too on-the-nose. A bit harsh honestly. I tried a few other things on this piece, like having the lead boat be on fire. Sometimes restraint works well too.
I did have fun on the standing stones- making up some magical type designs, including the Shek Pvar wheel at the top, and some map that could be a strange solar system or list of portals.

All the Hârn Kingdoms will have a similar treatment. Kanday is done, Rethem is started and I am finishing up a "redo" of the original Hotz painting from the 1984 Kaldor cover.
All should be done and available by Gen Con.

As to how these will be made available to customers with the old kingdoms, I do not know. You will be able to get them somehow.
This image will probably appear on some products in my new swag shop at Redbubble. Visit now to purchase all your Luschek Swag.

Post your thoughts below or on the many social media site this will show up on.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Totally Green HârnQuest

Everyone has certain moments in their career that stand out as special: the first paying job, your first cover, and the chance to illustrate a gangrenous leg.

I recently got to cross that dream off my list. To top it all off I got to draw that leg being sawn off. The research I did for this was not something I did whilst snacking. Some nasty stuff. In this image are some medicines used, bandages, Hârnic healing herbs and a pot for cauterizing the stump. As much as I love this time period, I am so glad I was not born in the medieval times.
The last HârnQuest had a lot of fun images. I got to come up some cool new images and revisit a few old images for updating.
Sometimes my ideas get rejected and I have to rework or even redo. Not very often, but this one was a definite redo. A religious symbol for the Balm of Joy order which specializes in birthing babies suggested some sort of fertility symbol. My first attempt maybe was a bit "too literal". Enough said.
I thought I could do the same think in a more rustic and natural way with a simple twig bound into a fertility symbol. It gets the point across, is subtle and has a nice handmade look. So the one on the right made it into the article.

Daughters of St. Eaclid, Silver necklace

Daughters of St. Eaclid, Twig
Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

For the Misyn article I got to illustrate some of Hârns more freaky landscapes, specifically karst landscapes, or areas where the soluble stone are eroded and washed away.
There were some cool real-world places to use for inspiration.

This images show the beauty and the dangers of the area. Misyn is frequented by pilgrims on their way to visit holy sites. I added the arrow to point out a third and possibly unseen pilgrim who was not so lucky. His deadness is subtly illustrated by me via use of a skeleton.
I did a pen and ink, scanned the drawing in to Photoshop, I added some photo textures to get the thing started. I then selected the spires of stone, filled that with a fade of tones that I could then paint across to give a misty look. I erased the pen lines on the distant areas to help the front stand out (though I wish I had done a better job as some lines still show and flatten the image out too much).
The nice thing about working in photoshop is I can leave all the various objects on separate layers that can be reworked, colored, resized and moved around. I can select the individual layers and paint without affecting the other areas.

One of the original images from the old article was illustrated close to 30 years ago. The article was much smaller so the image was pretty generic. I always loved this image as it gave a realistic portrayal of the areas geology. I basically redrew the same shape and mood, but made it more specific and left room for color. I also did a lot of research into this type of landscape. Some very cool stuff.

I decided to introduce specific sites from the article, like the needles of Nyr, the pilgrims rock, and Hoag's Gullet.
Next I drew a pilgrims map. I decided it would be something sold at town to pilgrims for the trip. Medieval knowledge of geography, throw in less than trustworthy individuals looking to profit off the eager travelers. I figure these maps are going to be close to useless. It does seem useful, with indications of religious sites and possible dangers, even representing gargun attack areas.Nice looking map, though you may likely end up looking like the dead pilgrim in the image above.

Again, I do a pen and ink of the image, color the line work and lay it over a scan of real parchment. With a bit of push and pull, it looks like the lines were drawn right on the old leather sheet. I left off any text as I figure most are illiterate anyway. Kind of wished I had put this map in the hand of the skeleton, but I ran out of time.

I also illustrated the updated Jarin article.

Again, thoughts or questions on the art in the recent articles are welcome. If you don't yet own these articles, well, you should be ashamed of yourself!

Monday, March 10, 2014

Adding Jazz Hands to an Illustration

Reworking some old art of my own is often a very wonderful experience when I get the chance- especially when I get paid to do it.
On the upcoming HârnQuest I one of the articles I had to rework was Taztos.

"Taztos is a fort maintained by the Ramala Legion of the Thardic Republic. It sits on the Salt Route that links the western Hârnic realms with the kingdoms of the east."

The next HârnQuest will include:

Kelestia (10 pages)
Fort Taztos (12pp)
Gardiren #10 - Jug Inn (6pp)
Cherafir D5 - Clothier (2pp)
Shiran E14 - Bull Ring Tavern (2pp)

The early draft had the original art done by Eric Hotz. I thought of redoing it, but I like this one. I had to color it anyway, so I thought I would just tweak it a bit to give it a bit of a dynamic layout.
It does feel a bit sacrilegious to rework art done by another artist, but being a fan of Hotz, I do what I can to show respect to the original. Basically, I use the Hippocratic Oath when working on old Harn art.
Here is my final treatment.

Below is the original by Eric Hotz as it was in the original Hârn publication in 1987- The year I graduated from High School.

I did not change it too much. I imagine if you did not see them side by side you would not even notice I had done anything.
I thought it would benefit from a better angle. The original is a bit static and straight up and down and looked a bit "peace symbol" like. The river bank was too much like what you might find in a manicured theme park. So I roughed that up a bit as well.

One other issue was that the keep and the plans did not exactly jive, so I had to make a few adjustments so it more accurately matched the maps. I was a bit tricky keeping all the parts in the right place. I had to cut the art into pieces, skew the background and then place all the parts back in the new background. A few things needed to be added and adjusted, but basically it has the flavor of the original.
This is waiting for review by CGI and should be shipping fairly soon.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

And Thine Suckuth Less

I got kind of a lucky break being asked to do art for Columbia Games way before I was really ready. My initial offerings were barely passable, but I learned tons while getting paid to do so. Early on I felt so luck to be part of publishing for a game I had started playing when I was 13, I pretty much just shut up and did the work to the best of my ability.

A few projects I have worked on have been around enough that they are now due for an upgrade. I wont name them all, as I am not sure when I will get to them, but one that particularly made me cringe has been Kanday. Much of the art in that publication was done for other jobs that never saw the light, were already old, and kind of got forced into inappropriate spots. As you know CGI has been updating and expanding the product line with new color products. This gives us a chance to revisit old work and continue to improve the quality. Again with excellent editing and layout by Brent we have a wonderfully updated Kanday. It is not completely laid out yet, but will be available soon.
The download is available now on RPG Now.

Below is the image I am replacing. There are are a few things wrong with the following image. I liked idea, so I basically redid it. It is more appropriate to the kingdom of Kanday and has a bit more energy and life. The orc shown in the image are not much of a threat in Kanday. I figured a soldier from Rethem would me more accurate. Thankfully I have gotten a bit better in the 13 or so years since I did this image.

I recently purchased a used Cintiq from a friend (technically- I haven't paid yet, but I probably will).

It has taken some getting used to. Already I cant believe I have not been using this all along. I think it is calibrated better than my monitor, so that has been a help as well.

In the end for Kanday, I colored 5 of the images, updated, fixed or redrew 20 of my old illustrations. I started with the King. The old image did not seem very kingly in addition to being kind of weak overall. The trick was to redraw him, get the same likeness yet improve upon the old illustration. This one did get colored too, but I just wanted to post the B&W versions.

I have never liked realistic images of dead characters in times before the invention of the camera. It is just too anachronistic. The only way they would be known visually is through painting or sculpture. I love medieval painting. I of course based this off of medieval icons- maybe too much. I even used some gold leaf texture in the background and painted the image over this. I have been trying to put more appropriate medieval art in Harn publications.

A few of the images were a bit miss placed. One image showed a man that looked about 30 years too young. So I aged him and put him in more appropriate clothing.

This one had a bit of text that indicated the Baron is suffering from wasting disease, yet the image showed a robust individual. So, some tweaking remedied this.

Some of the images were just plain terrible in every way.This was not just a weak image, he looked like a commoner. I reworked this one the most of any and am much happier with it.

I can now page through Kanday Kingdom without crying in embarrassment.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Shield painters Unite!

Just a quick peak into a day in my life. Here's a photo of a typical afternoon writing my blog, shown in a cafe just pouring my heart out to all my readers. My squire is getting pretty good at taking photos don't you think?

After having to catch up a bit after the 4 days at Gen Con I finally got the latest HarnQuest finished (can you believe I honestly thought I would get some drawing done while I was there?).
I was very happy with how it turned out. My deadline was end of August and I proudly sent off my last illustration at 11:45p.m. on August 31st. So, technically I made my deadline. Right?

I will do a few posts about a few of the illustrations I did for this very Laranian HarnQuest.
It contains Order of Hyvrik (Larani), Order of the Checkered Shield, Dyrisa Laranian Temple, and an updated Classic article Chyrefal Castle.

This was a fun HQ for me as I have always liked the Laranians. The articles did a good job of giving these guys some depth, with in-fighting and religious differences. It made them more believable and realistic.
One of my favorite pieces was in the Checkered Shield article.
I did a few versions that I thought I would show for fun, before settling on the final one.

There was some discussion about whether or not the shield should have the full heraldry of the order, or just be a checkered shield. While I tend to fight for what ever looks best, I think the end result made the most sense.
At first I drew a version with the full chapter symbol- which shows Mendiz- the red winged lion with the shield.

While technically that is the chapter's symbol, they are called the Checkered Shield. We decided that while this symbol is the badge and may be sewn on the tunic of some or all the knights, the shield, like the name, should just be checkered. Hotz had set this as canon on the Dead Winter cover years ago. I also did a look around on the web and found some fanon articles that showed the same opinion. So, the simple shield was used on the opening page.
Of course photoshop makes it very easy to make these changes and experiment with different looks. Something about the idea of a battle field full of checkered shields that just seemed more bad ass to me.
I suppose both work as long as the Agrikan is cast into the Pits!

1994 Plymouth Voyager with Harnic Shields

Of course the other reason for the decision was that I had just painted some some shields for decoration for the Gen Con booth and I was not going to change it.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Thay- Now Get to Mapping!

I just finished the illustration for the upcoming Columbia Games article on Thay. Should ship in a few weeks.
"Thay is a seaport at the mouth of the Horka River in the mainland part of the Kingdom of Melderyn."
We were all getting tired of the same old distant castle view across the river that often appear in these articles. Rob, one of the writers, suggested a view past two major buildings looking towards the castle. I also thought an early morning scene of the town waking up with workers walking to their respective jobs would be interesting.

I find it pretty tough to illustrate a believable scene that matches the maps, without some sort of physical reference. I select a portion of the map that will be in the view, create a jpeg that can be imported into Sketchup. I always make sure I include the map scale so I can enlarge the map image to the scale in Sketchup- To do this I just make a block that is 50 ft (you can type in exact dimensions), and then enlarge the map until the scale matches.

I do a rough layout, using some smaller models I have already built and saved- like castle walls, towers and a few medieval looking houses. Then I tackle the fancier buildings. If I can find a real world reference I will model off of that. Often in the Sketchup Warehouse, you can find a model that has already been built which is close to your needs. I will load that model into the image and place it on the map. Harnic building are usually smaller than those on Earth. So I usually have to scale them down, and often need to reduce the height. The temple on the right of the image, is based off a real-world Greek orthodox church. I was using it for a Peoni temple, which are described as simple in design, so I had to alter and delete a lot of the fancy parts off the original model. I push and pull the model until it fits the map. Then I can basically walk around in the model looking for the best view.

Rough sketchup view

Here is the view I selected. I now can use this image to draw from. I approximate the drawing from this image of the model and then use a lot of artistic license to make the image interesting. Moving window and doors and changing some proportions and even placement, but at least now I know what will and will not work. In all honesty, it is not so much about exact accuracy and slavish following of the map, but making sure I will create a pleasing image that gives the feeling of a living breathing city. A cold computer model does not do that.
I thought I would post a few other views to tease out some fanon map projects. Hint, Hint!
If anyone wants to mess around with these, feel free to email me and I will send you the Sketchup model.
It would be awesome to see a few maps done for the Palace of Kerpyne and the Peoni Temple.

I have been busy, also color art for The Silver Way, Menekod, Dyrisa, Telumar, Lia Kavair, and Dunir.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

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:

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.

Below is the original illustration by Eric Hotz.