Zeitgeist: Cauldron-Born

 Two more illustrations for Zeitgeist #5, Cauldron Born.

 

A toast to peace 

'King Aodhan and "Minister of Outsiders" Lya Jierre -- warily raise wine glasses to each other.'

These were existing characters - the king's appearance is loosely based on the actor Clark Peters, and Lya is based on Carrie Fisher. 

Colossus Under Construction

A 300-ft. tall metal construct is being built in an underground shaft. The idea was to make it look more human/statue-like than robot, and to show its scale. If you can see some inspiration from Prometheus' poster - it's because it's definitely there. :)

Zeitgeist: Always On Time

Further interior illustrations I made for the Zeitgeist adventure path (see previous batch here). These are for the fourth chapter, Always On Time.

 Screaming Malice: Imagine a black oily swamp reared up
and towered over you like a giant with tendrils that end in screaming,
fanged mouths. When a group of bandits try to ambush and rob the train, they
provoke this monster to attack as a distraction.

Ashima-Shimtu: One of the train's stops is near a
cursed island, with a prison for a millennia-old demon. 

Haunted island: At night the fogs or
rain roll in, and if anyone living is still on the island, all the dead who
drowned or crashed on the rocks around its shore shamble onto the island to
kill them. 

To be honest, I'm not quite as pleased with these three as I was with the ones for the previous adventure. I was under a lot of stress lately (work and family matters) and I think the work suffered from it. Some changes were needed, too. Ashima-Shimtu was initially a scene that included the demon, but it had to be cropped so that the focus would be on the character:

Likewise, the malice image was a problematic (though I'm partially fond of its rough look). The train in particular was a mess; for the revised version, I finally got round to learn how to use Google SketchUp. It saved my ass, and I'll be definitely coming back to it for future works.

Zeitgeist illustrations

I got the green light to post the illustrations I was commissioned to do for Zeitgeist: The Gears of Revolution, a series of D&D adventures published by EN World. The adventure these are in will be out sometime in early January.

1. Dr. Xandria Meredith, Archeologist and Adventurer:

She is meant to be a redhead, cute but smart and with an explorer's physique.The background was to be 'bright and academic', so I happily slapped the National Library of Athens in it, slightly changed to fit the composition - though residents of Athens recognise it at once! :)

2. Path to Ruins:

The description called for a rainy grey swamp, with a ziggurat barely visible in the distance, and a path towards it outlined by scraps of golden-orange cloth tied to tree barks.

3. Marsh Mummy:

A mummified corpse, to be exact, hanging from a spear trap from the wall. I don't really understand how a corpse can possibly mummify in a damp environment (unless it's inside a peat bog), but oh, well. :) The glittering necklace was a key point.

Also, here are the early stages of the above. I normally work very haphazardly (as seen in the early swamp image), but I tried a more structured approach for the mummy, and I completely went out of my way with a detailed line art drawing (which is something I never do) for Xandria.