Well that came together nicely! I spent the morning noodling with different ways to draw 'cosmos', and ended up trying to emulate some of the vibe of Van Gogh's Starrry Night. I struggled with a little bit of a 'big picture' decision in the last few weeks: I didn't know whether to upgrade to a better drawing application, or to lean in hard to Microsoft Paint and see if I could wring it for all it's worth. I went with option two. I really like working in Paint, and I am comfortable in it. Additionally, it aligns with my larger artistic philosophy; I would rather try to be really creative with more limited resources than to have excess. Tell me to stage an entire play with two 4x8 platforms, six black cubes, and seven yards of fabric, and I'm a happy boy. That's the kind of stuff I love to do. So, Paint works with that approach really well. That said, I spent an hour noodling 'cosmic colors', trying different brush options, and finally found something I like.
My favorite thing about this cover is that it looks like it would be on the sci fi softcover spinner rack at my hometown library in 1986.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the art is ahead of the writing for this game... I've got a decent chunk of rulebook written, but I'm usually doing this level of final art later in my process. I'm interested to see how having more concrete images in place impacts the decisions I make in writing about the setting.
That looks GREAT! And I agree, your design philosophy comes through in every part of your games; art, writing, rules, and all! The "cosmos" looks hauntingly trippy!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how I got to the point where I was genuinely happy with my work and its consistency, yet here we are. If twenty-year-old me knew I'd eventually get here, he might have been able to enjoy the process more :)
DeleteDr. D,
ReplyDeleteWhen you draw are you using a tablet and stylus to do it or are you working with a mouse. I’d be interested in hearing more about the creative process. Thanks!
I have a Microsoft Surface with the pen. I use the pen option in Paint with gray for sketching; then I usually go back with the pen in black and do a rough line drawing. I use the wavy line tool to smooth out the lines I hand drew, creating thicker, more consistent lines but still keeping the fluid energy I like. I then fill and delete all the gray to get to a black line drawing. I drop in spot colors, then go back and select a darker and lighter shade of each color for shadows and higlights.
DeleteAlso, for special background effects (like the cosmos in this one), I do a separate drawing where I just create the background. I leave white space in the original where I want that background to fill, and then I cut and paste a transparent copy of the master drawing over the background.
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