Barbarians of the Aftermath Test Art...

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Luther

Barbarians of the Aftermath Test Art...

Post by Luther »

Some of you may or may not know that I've been working on an post-apocalyptic expansion for Barbarians of Lemuria called Barbarians of the Aftermath. It provides a way to make any PA settign you can think of and expands only a bit on the original BoL rules to cover pretty specific aspects of the genre, like Radiation and finding old tech.

I've just about finished but I've been completely unable to find anyone willing to do the art for the book. I've been trying to find a good B&W line artist with a unique weird fantasy style like Erol Otus, John Blanche or Will Rees (who created my Avatar on the left), but no one seems interested in doing it for a percentage of the take.

So, what I've been doing instead is grabbing old public domain pulp art and remixing it to create something suitably weird science for the book and I'm looking for opinions. Here are my first attempts:

So would you buy a book with this style of art or should I really find an artist...?
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Relaxo
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Post by Relaxo »

I for one, LOVE THOSE.

I aalso think going with the pulp-era 'look and feel' to the art will add a cool retro-chic vibe to the game and help it stand out.
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Post by serleran »

The second one is much better, in my opinion.
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Post by Luther »

Well, the retro thing is what I was going for, so at least I'm on the right track there.

As for the colour vs. the B&W, most of the illustrations will be B&W, although the test image is something I'm thinkign about for the cover.

So they don't look like they'll decrease sales, eh? Some folks can get pretty tetchy about art...
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gideon_thorne
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Post by gideon_thorne »

Luther wrote:
So they don't look like they'll decrease sales, eh? Some folks can get pretty tetchy about art...

Well, put it this way, your sales will be fine as long as your only going for the niche retro market base. If those few are enough customers for you, then the art work style is entirely appropriate.
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Luther

Post by Luther »

gideon_thorne wrote:
Well, put it this way, your sales will be fine as long as your only going for the niche retro market base. If those few are enough customers for you, then the art work style is entirely appropriate.

Well, not all of us can afford a Peter Bradley, now can we?
Seriously, if I could draw anything but weird Boschian nightmares, then I'd probably hand draw everything. But I don't have a truly good grasp of figure drawing, and since no decent artist will work for a percentage and I'm workign on a razor thin budget here, I'm kind of stuck with re-imagining old pulp art.
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gideon_thorne
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Post by gideon_thorne »

Luther wrote:
Well, not all of us can afford a Peter Bradley, now can we?
Seriously, if I could draw anything but weird Boschian nightmares, then I'd probably hand draw everything. But I don't have a truly good grasp of figure drawing, and since no decent artist will work for a percentage and I'm workign on a razor thin budget here, I'm kind of stuck with re-imagining old pulp art.

I actually don't cost that much. But its true, most artists only have to be burned once from working on spec to know they'll never do that again.
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