Luschek Illustration Blog: Reworked

Showing posts with label Reworked. Show all posts

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Making It Rain

Twighlight Rain, Marby Keep, pen and ink-digital color
Copyright © 2016, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

I got a chance to update some illustrations for the latest HarnQuest. If you game with Harn, and are not signed up for the subscription, do it now! What's wrong with you?

The first article was Marby, a minor port in the Kingdom of Orbaal on Hârn's northern coast. The old illustration by Hotz is pretty nice, but I decided for a different view and I usually prefer a view that players would actually see when approaching the place. The birds-eye views are nice for an overview, but not very realistic unless you are looking down from a cliff or the back of a giant bird.

I believe this is the first wooden keep I've drawn, which is surprising. During my research I was looking at some historic reconstructions of old Russian wooden walled towns and they had these narrow slots rather than crenelations. That made the most sense to me in this situation. The old illustration did not really show this stuff, but its a distant view so I assumed it's there in spirit.


Hotz Marby Illustration , Copyright © 1992, Columbia Games, Inc. and Eric Hotz

As usual I made a quick Google Sketchup model of the place so I could pick the view. Here is a swing around animation of the place.

The other article was Geshtei, the capital of Gerium Province and a stronghold of the Gerium Legion, sits on the Thard River along the western border of the Thardic Republic. The old version, done almost 30 years ago, had a view and illustration I thought would be cool to just expand upon. Despite what I said above and birds-eye views, I did a higher view. It just looked too cool, so don't give me any crap about it.
I had a bit more room to play with so I expanded the view and showed what is around around the castle. The two outer walls added some interest and power to the castle.
Here is the old illustration.

Of course I made another model which got a bit more involved than it needed to be, but I had two locations on the map to illustrate for the article so Ill use that as an excuse.

Again, it's a testament to Hotz- on how he got these illustrations so damn accurate without this program. I'm not sure how he did it. I need a model, either digital or physical, to get this proportions and perspective to work out.
I settled on a view and did the illustration.

Geshtei Keep, pen and ink-digital color
Copyright © 2016, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

For the illustration of the Magistrate Borisir Wytel, I based him off a famous character in American politics. He popped into my head when I read the description.

Magistrate Borisir Wytel, pen and ink
Copyright © 2016, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

Can you guess who it is? Can you?

Hmm, I wonder who?
Please do not discuss politics in the comment section or I will delete this entire blog. I mean it!

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Barbarian Charge vs Barbarian Sneak

I was asked by Columbia Games to update a cover for one of their publications- Barbarians of Hârn. They wanted something featuring a lone warrior- something with a bit more action.
One of my big goals for this years production running up to the next Gen Con is get nice covers done for all the Kingdoms and the major cities. I think Hârn needs covers that will help sell the product to a new fan base. This was a good way to get the ball rolling on the cover situation for new products and to fancy up the current product like.
The original cover was done by Eric Hotz, the illustrator who set the gritty visual tone for Hârn and is one of the reasons I was drawn to this fantasy world in the first place.

The original cover is 30 years old (that does not seem possible!) and was due for an update. There is something quaint about this cover but I always thought the barbarians looked more like shy, fat Dwarves.
I decided to compose my cover after one of my favorite Hotz covers- Nasty Brutish and Short.

Imagine your players being attacked from the right by goblins when suddenly a barbarian tribesman charges out of the woods on your left.
I started with some very rough sketches to get approval.

I did about 10 or so, some on horses, but thought a closeup of the barbarian would be more interesting.
I chose the Equani tribesmen known for their rough facial branding and collecting of scalps.
After posing myself for some very manly reference photos (which you will never see), I started sketching it out. I had a sword initially but the axe is just too bad ass.

I tweaked it a bit, printed it out on 11x14 card-stock then coated the drawing with amber shellac. The oils in the paint will eat the paper, something is needed to protect the drawing.

I just started in painting in oil, working towards the big look of value and color on that first day.

Each day I refined the drawing, bringing it into focus.

Once the painting progresses problems start to emerge and you discover things you just don't like. I did not like the back arm and totally repainted it removing the leather guard. The sketched in brands were starting to take on a gross dimensional look.

After I fixed the back arm, the one in the front started to look terrible. Looking in the mirror, I found a pose I liked better and I took some new reference shots.

A bit more tweaking and I was basically done. I ended up adding a purple glaze over the whole figure to darken him down and give him a more swarthy look.
I shot a high-res photo of the painting. A bit of photoshop cleanup and it was ready for the title- which ended up covering more than I had hoped.
The cover was printed and added as a wrap around to the books in the warehouse. The interior text is all the same, so if this is already part of your collection, but you'd like to update with the new cover, contact Columbia Games for purchase.

The framed original painting is available for sale as well. Contact me if you are interested. If you have young children, this would look great hanging at the foot of their bed.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Cover Babe

I think we can all agree that Hârn has been in need of the stereotypical high-fantasy, hot chain-mail clad babe on a cover a long time. Well, I have finally made all your dreams come true -Sort of.

There has never been a Bestiary for Harn. We have a lot of separate beast articles but there has never been a starter product or a binder to hold them. I will admit the selection of articles in the current starter bundle needs work and will probably change (for one, Garguns are not in the bundle), but we got one ready for GenCon and sold all we had.
I wanted this cover to be similar to the HarnWorld and HarnDex covers. So I started with that as a base.
Of course a Bestiary needs a dragon on the front so I thought a St. George and the Dragon type image would be cool. I decided to not be sexist and go with a female knight. A knight from the Order of the Crimson Dancer located at Quimen in Orbaal was the obvious choice. I like the idea of an Agrikan being a hero of the story.

As these things tend to develop and change as I work them up, here is a very early version of the cover. I initially had a more typical, knight saving a damsel in distress thing going on but decided it would be more Agrikan like if the knight used a slave tied to a tree as bait for the heroic hunting of the beast. I imagine that slave will be abused and burned at the stake in celebration of the kill.
The HarnDex cover did have some beasts already though it needed some adjustments. The Kuboran warrior need to be changed, I tried adding a bear in that spot but thought it would be more cool to make the Kuboran undead. The Aklash was added in the top with the stinking breath decorating the corner. I adjusted the castle to look a bit more like Quimen and changed the shield to a generic Agrikan symbol.
I tend to shy away from true accuracy in these medieval manuscript images and make sure the image is pleasing and decorative. I find the mistakes and odd interpretations in medieval manuscripts fascinating.
On my To-Do list is to get all the beasts colored, at least the first page of every article. I did 10 for this release, including the Yelgri and the Old Ones.

It is not up yet, but for those of you who have all the articles already, the covers for this and the barbarians covers should be available for sale from Columbia Games soon. Or you could just ask for one now.

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.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Moving Brick and Mortar

For the recent HarnQuest release for Columbia Games, I had to color a very old illustration of Kiban. I believe this was first published in the original HarnView in 1983. Wow, 30 years ago!
Here is the original image as it appeared then.

I had to color the image and update it for the recent expansion of this Harnic Castle. The original is by Eric Hotz and I believe the inspiration is taken from a real world castle in England called Bodiam Castle.
Along the way, a map was drawn for the fictional Harnic version. As I started updating the image, I realized that the mapped castle and the image did not quite match up. So I started tweaking it. Also I thought some of the castle above looked a bit like a building in ruins rather than a living breathing fortress.

If you compare you can see, towers were moved and adjusted. The tops of the castle were cleaned up, and a lot of the windows had to be shifted around to match the floor plans in the article. Once everyone agreed on the adjustments I started in on color. I try to use digital coloring like water colors, doing washes over the line work- well, technically in photoshop, the color is done under the line layer.

I usually erase any lines in the sky and just paint the clouds in. After I was done one of the writers pointed out that the front window was still wrong. It was not one big single window on the floor plan, but two smaller ones.
The same eagle eyed writer also commented that on the map the bar of land in front of the castle was mostly stone and would not have grass on it. I of course ignored this comment as we all know rocks in a stream can and will accumulate silt and allow river plants to grow at the edges of the rocks- So Shut The Hell Up!

But in order to try to appease I offered this image as a possible solution. The knight covered the window and takes care of the grass.

This image was rejected for some reason by Tom at Columbia Games as being "inaccurate".

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Staying in the Lines.

Recently I was asked to update some art for the Harn classics- Old articles, some over 20 years old. We are getting them back in print with updated layout, maps and some new art.
One of the recent classic on a wilderness settlement called Kustan had a great image by Eric Hotz. His art was one of the things that first attracted me to Harn. The work by Hotz had a wonderfully gritty look, was realistic, not just in execution, but in believability. His warriors were not typical fantasy game fair, they looked like real people. The beasts had a quirky simplicity that felt more medieval than sci fi. When I started illustrating I did my best to emulate the work of Hotz and he is still a big influence on how I illustrate Harn.

CGI is trying to update the Harn line with more color, so we thought it would be a great idea to use the old Hotz image, but it would need to be colored.
Using a high res scan of the image I opened it into photoshop and colored the image digitally. I am starting to get a handle on working digitally. Part of it has to do with settling on a few digital brushes that I like and doing my best to work in a similar fashion to how I work traditionally. I do enjoy working with layers, but most of my mistakes involved me not saving enough and in the proper fashion, or mismanaging my layers.I usually am painting pretty directly with as few layers as I can manage.

So here is my colored version. The lines in the sky were to much with the color, so I erased them and tried to replicate the design in color. Select areas of the line layer were erased if it hide too much of the color.
I did my best to keep it simple as the budget did not allow me a lot of time to work on this. Also after I was done we realized the image did not fit the new layout as well and had to be cropped at the top. It affected the design so I just selected the clouds and squashed them down a bit. I was pretty happy with the final image. Though unlike B&W one never knows for sure how it will look printed.
Hope the fans like the updated image. I also hope Hotz is happy with my work on his fine image.

Now that I think of it, this type of tastefully done skull arrangement would look great at the end of our driveway. Would probably work great at keeping the solicitors away.

Monday, June 20, 2011

ILME

I am about to start work on a rewritten and reworked article on a Harnic meredragons. I have never been thrilled with any of the past pictorial representations of these creatures.
The article has been much improved and expanded upon, so I am trying to do the same for the illustrations.
These creatures are most easily described as intelligent talking dinosaurs, so I thought I should at least learn how to draw the real world exstint creatures. Using a some books I started studying and sketching dinosaurs.
Here are some of the more successful ones:

Then I tried my hand at the creature called Ilme trying to follow the old illos and descriptions, but making improvements. I am still not done, but getting close. Let me know if you have any comments- especially you Harn Fans.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Updating a drawing.

I was recently asked for a small illustration to advertise someone's Harn game session at a convention- Des-Con 2011. It would go in the convention catalog. They are running the adventure 100 Bushels of Rye.
I did not to any of the illustrations for that adventure, those were all done wonderfully by Eric Hotz.

I did to an illustration of one of the characters in the adventure- Sheriff Maldan Harabor. I thought of sending the image I did for the Olokand article, but decided to just do an updated version of it. I really like this illustration, but it was a bit clunky. It was a done almost 10 years ago and I thought it needed an update. I often cringe at some of my early illustration work and hope I keep improving so I can cringe at the stuff I am doing now- but it is a problem if there is an opportunity to reuse art. I often end up reworking it.


Copyright © 2010, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

I thought I would just touch up the face of Maldan showing him without the hat on, a more relaxed I am going to take over the throne kind of look.
So here was my first image reworked in photoshop. I was able to sculpt his head out a bit more and give it more form.

Here he is without the hat and without hair. I got a few complaints from some of the Harn writers that his dad is not bald so he should not be. I don't think genetics works that way, but I thought about it and threw on a full head of hair. It was also suggested he looked too much like a Klingon.

Feel free to save these images to use in your game if you like. Let me know which one you like better- I still prefer the bald one.