Concept Designs - Tabletop Miniatures

"I don't dislike to be alone"

Ingmar Bergman

What would you do, if you had plenty of spare time and wouldn’t have to worry too much about economic issues? Well, most of the people would like to travel the world and spend time with their friends (which is not such a bad idea), but I would love to create my own, miniature cities and other fantasy sceneries like those from tabletop RPG games. Okay, maybe I would also travel here and there...

True, I don’t have time for creating physical models, painting them and building fantasy lands of them, but lately, I had (again!) an opportunity to work on concept designs for a company producing such 3D models. Their Kickstarter campaign has just ended and, considering how successful it was, I can guess, that there are quite a lot people interested in spending hours and days on building their miniature worlds and probably even fight battles there. The only difference is, that they actually HAVE time for that 😊

To the point! My task was to design ships, a little bizarre harbor city buildings, and various scenery objects for “lost tribes”. Below you can see, among others, a boathouse, a navigator’s guild, a port tavern, a governor’s mansion, a wizard’s tower, a shaman’s hut and tribal tree houses.

 I hope that all the backers will have fun with these sceneries!

Steampunk Playing Cards part 1.

 “Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.”

George R. R. Martin, "A Game of Thrones"

For some strange and unexplained reason I'm working mostly on graphic designs and environment/architectural designs, which means that I'm using only pens/pencils and graphic tablet on daily basis.
As the time went by I began to suspect, that I'm going to forget how to make watercolor illustrations until one day...
a proposal from one of the leading Polish card manufacturer ("Trefl") came.
The offer concerned making set of cards in a Steampunk style. Handmade, watercolor technique, victorian aesthetics, steampunk subjects - PERFECT!
Some of my previously done artworks were also welcome to be part of the deck (ie "Train", "Steampunk Landscape").


Working process started with thinking (what a surprise!).

CONCLUSION 1 - Jokers could be presented as goblins, Aces as buildings, Kings could be portrayed as bearded guys, Queens as cute ladies (congrats Evi, how unusual) and Jacks could be robots. After discussion with the client  we decided to put vehicles on cards with numbers.

CONCLUSION 2 - each color could be designed as a different...how to put it right... subculture?
hearts would be members of the "upper classes" , clubs should be inventors/researchers fascinated with steampunk technical achievements, spades could be pirates or sea travelers and diamonds could be a charming mix of goths and dandies with a touch of decadence.

That's just a little sample of what you can expect to see in the deck. Next posts will reveal more :)

Miniature Houses

Studying architecture certainly has its advantages: weight loss, adaptation to a small amount of sleep, acquiring some skills in designing architectural objects etc. Today I'll focus on the third aspect: designing architectural objects.

Recently I'm designing Winterdale - a fantasy, medieval land (which means in practice that I'm preparing concepts of various miniature buildings for Printable Scenery ). 

Designs you can see below are a base for 3D modeling guys. They, in turn, are making models ready for printing on 3D printers. Honestly, I sympathize with them. I felt a little bit guilty when I was adding all the tiny, fancy details on paper. But the ultimate goal  is to give maximum fun while painting the models and to please the eye after that, right?

They are created for tabletop RPG games...or for decorating shelves. Personally I really like to watch tabletop miniatures, even if I don't have too many opportunities to play. 

That's all for now, but expect more :)

Something Dark - Board Game Illustrations

“Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.”

Aldous Huxley "Brave New World"

Drawings you can see below correspond perfectly with an ambience of this day. Or maybe it's only my grim mood... These are only a few of over 30 illustrations I made last year for a board game "Machina Arcana". Several artists were working on this quite complex project. My task was to draw a map and illustrate scenario cards. The plot of the story is a bit dreadful (frankly speaking it's completely dreadful) so I had to reach the darkest corners of my imagination to capture this horror-steampunk atmosphere :D

Poniższe rysunki znakomicie oddają ponurą atmosferę dzisiejszego dnia. A może to tylko mój ponury nastrój...  To tylko część spośród ponad 30 ilustracji, które wykonałam w zeszłym roku do gry planszowej "Machina Arcana". Nad całym dość złożonym przedsięwzięciem pracowało kilku grafików. Mi przypadły w udziale karty scenariusza oraz mapa. Akcja gry jest nieco przerażająca (a właściwie całkiem przerażająca). Musiałam więc sięgnąć do mrocznych zakamarków mojej wyobraźni, żeby należycie oddać steampunkowo-horrorowy klimat.

Process of making these illustrations was different than usual. The main problem was that cards' size was only 6x9 cm (if my memory serves me right). Originals were a little bigger than that and their size was almost A4 fromat. Fairly quick pen and watercolor drawings were scanned and then they were slowly and laboriously edited in Photoshop.  This let me to achieve high contrasts and very thin, clean lines. As a result even small, detailed illustrations are clear and legible.   

Te ilustracje powstawały w nieco inny sposób, niż większość moich prac. Problem polegał na tym, że wymiary karty z ilustracją wynoszą jedynie 6x9 cm (jeśli pamięć mnie nie myli). Oryginały były oczywiście nieco większe - miały wymiar zbliżony do formatu A4. Dość szybki rysunek piórkiem i akwarelką był skanowany, a następnie powoli acz mozolnie obrabiany komputerowo. Pozwoliło mi to na otrzymanie dużych kontrastów i bardzo cienkich, ale wyraźnych linii. W rezultacie nawet małe, nasycone detalami ilustracje są czytelne. 

The next post will be more optimistic. I have no idea what will be the subject, but I'll figure it out :)

Następny wpis będzie bardziej optymistyczny. Jesze nie wiem, o czym będzie, ale coś wymyślę :)