Zeitgeist Illos
I finished the illo job yesterday! At the slight cost of some sanity and partial vision loss from overworking (and looking at too many pictures of mummies). :p
I don't know how I managed to rush it to the last minute again. I had started early and had made good headway, but then during these last two weeks all sorts of things were cropping up or I was too tired after work. So here I was painting frantically from Friday evening till Sunday at 9pm to catch yesterday's deadline.
I know I paid far more attention to them than the payment merited, but I can't bring myself to do half-assed work. It's got my name on it!
Anyhow, here they are, along with the descriptions. Mind you, I'm not allowed to post them anywhere before the publishing house issues the adventure they're for, so this is only to show to my friends here at LJ. So please don't share! :)) Edit: I got the green light to post them ahead of time, so this entry goes public now. :)
1. Dr. Xambria
Meredith, Archaeologist and Adventurer. Xambria is a key character in the adventure. The first illo should present her as an ally. She's a redhead (we're trying to go with a subtle theme of red/orange highlights in the art). For a reference, maybe have her look like Karen Gillan from Doctor Who. She’s a cute-looking archaeologist, but with an explorer’s physique. Red hair up, glasses, and some sort of utilitarian clothes. Maybe a vest that sort of resembles Indiana Jones’s jacket, with a backpack that has a miner’s pick tucked into it. Perhaps a belt with a couple pouches on her hips, to get the point across that she’s intelligent and well-equipped.
What is key is that she doesn’t have any exposed skin below her chin, so she’s probably wearing either long gloves and a long-sleeved undershirt, or maybe something like a skin-tight cat-suit under her vest/jacket/etc. The background would be something brightly-lit and academic, like a library, garden, or just a window. ( -> So I slapped the National Library of Athens as a background. :D)
3. Path to the Ruins. A rainy gray swamp, with a barely visible ziggurat in the distant background. Bits of lush greenery in the foreground, progressively faded out into the distance because of thick underground and the rain. A tree in the foreground has a bright orange-gold cloth tied around the trunk. About twenty feet beyond it another tree has a similar cloth tied around it. More and more of those markers go off into the background, marking a barely visible train through the marsh, toward the entrance to the ziggurat.
7. Marsh Mummy. Interior of the ziggurat, illuminated by torchlight, a mummified figure hangs from the wall. A spear trap has popped out of the wall and impaled the figure in the back, and it slumps forward, hanging from the spear. Beneath its gray wrappings is sticky dark flesh. Moss growing on the cracked stone walls hangs and conceals it a bit, but a golden necklace flashes brightly in the torchlight.
Thoughts, crits? They're finished and sent already, but I can use the feedback for future projects. :)
Edit: Published: http://www.enworld.org/ap/zeitgeist.html
My work is in the third chapter, Digging for Lies.
I don't know how I managed to rush it to the last minute again. I had started early and had made good headway, but then during these last two weeks all sorts of things were cropping up or I was too tired after work. So here I was painting frantically from Friday evening till Sunday at 9pm to catch yesterday's deadline.
I know I paid far more attention to them than the payment merited, but I can't bring myself to do half-assed work. It's got my name on it!
Anyhow, here they are, along with the descriptions. Mind you, I'm not allowed to post them anywhere before the publishing house issues the adventure they're for, so this is only to show to my friends here at LJ. So please don't share! :)) Edit: I got the green light to post them ahead of time, so this entry goes public now. :)
1. Dr. Xambria
Meredith, Archaeologist and Adventurer. Xambria is a key character in the adventure. The first illo should present her as an ally. She's a redhead (we're trying to go with a subtle theme of red/orange highlights in the art). For a reference, maybe have her look like Karen Gillan from Doctor Who. She’s a cute-looking archaeologist, but with an explorer’s physique. Red hair up, glasses, and some sort of utilitarian clothes. Maybe a vest that sort of resembles Indiana Jones’s jacket, with a backpack that has a miner’s pick tucked into it. Perhaps a belt with a couple pouches on her hips, to get the point across that she’s intelligent and well-equipped.
What is key is that she doesn’t have any exposed skin below her chin, so she’s probably wearing either long gloves and a long-sleeved undershirt, or maybe something like a skin-tight cat-suit under her vest/jacket/etc. The background would be something brightly-lit and academic, like a library, garden, or just a window. ( -> So I slapped the National Library of Athens as a background. :D)
3. Path to the Ruins. A rainy gray swamp, with a barely visible ziggurat in the distant background. Bits of lush greenery in the foreground, progressively faded out into the distance because of thick underground and the rain. A tree in the foreground has a bright orange-gold cloth tied around the trunk. About twenty feet beyond it another tree has a similar cloth tied around it. More and more of those markers go off into the background, marking a barely visible train through the marsh, toward the entrance to the ziggurat.
7. Marsh Mummy. Interior of the ziggurat, illuminated by torchlight, a mummified figure hangs from the wall. A spear trap has popped out of the wall and impaled the figure in the back, and it slumps forward, hanging from the spear. Beneath its gray wrappings is sticky dark flesh. Moss growing on the cracked stone walls hangs and conceals it a bit, but a golden necklace flashes brightly in the torchlight.
Thoughts, crits? They're finished and sent already, but I can use the feedback for future projects. :)
Edit: Published: http://www.enworld.org/ap/zeitgeist.html
My work is in the third chapter, Digging for Lies.