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Coloring It In: Gem State Gaming
Recently, Gem State Gaming Convention unveiled the final art for this year's event. Your's truly had the honor of doing this year's art and shirt design which means I have a ton of progress shots on my computer. Start to finish, the entire project took well over 30 hours, five months, and a deluge of frustrated vocabulary all crammed onto an 11" X 14" piece of bristol.
So, you know, business as usual.
Coloring Stone
The background, especially the stone, took the majority of work to color. The real trick to coloring a low-lighting work is keeping everything dynamic without making it too drab and dark. That's why I spent a ton of time on the stone work, focusing on where the light from torches, magic items, and glowly mushrooms would reflect on the surface. More or less, I think I got it down pretty okay! The majority of the stone work was done with Copics, with extra small details (such as the stippling on the stone) being created with colored pencil.
More Background
More stones, more lighting, and now the added issue of flora. Once again, my greatest fear was a background that would be too drab or too dark to matter. I added in the glowing mushrooms and red elements in an attempt to liven things up a bit. Once most of the elements were in place, I used a combination of my Sakura gelly roll and Copic Opaque White to add in the highlights. It was my first time using Copic's white and, well, I don't hate it. It's a bit more involved than just picking up a gel pen, but the white is much stronger. Kind of worth it, in my opinion.
Finally, Foreground
The foreground went 1,000% faster than the background. I no longer had to worry about dynamic stone lighting and detail, as well as the million tiny details I had crammed into the background. Nope, it was smooth(er) sailing of large swatches of color. My main issue with the foreground was the ranger's garb. Since she is a new character, I wanted to make sure she popped out from the rest of the background without being too garish. Blue had minimal usage thus far, and I figured it would provide a nice contrast to her green skin tone and add dynamic opposition to the main character's warm color palette.
For those curious, their simple, expressionless design and strange skin colors is because both characters are meeple--a sort of humanoid shaped token often used in tabletop games.
And there you have it! A quick look at the crazy process that is illustration. I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes view, and I hope you come to Gem State Gaming this year for 3 days of action! I'll be running about as a guest and an artist, so be sure to stop by and hang out!
Gem State Gaming Convention:
July 20-22, 2018
Wyndham Hotel
Boise, Idaho
