This academy is part of a bunch of Illustrations I made for Pathfinder’s The Rise of The Runelords.

“The Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path” begins with this goblin raid and takes players on an epic journey through the land of Varisia as they track a cult of serial killers, fight backwoods ogres, stop an advancing army of stone giants, delve into ancient dungeons, and finally face off against a wizard-king in his ancient mountaintop city. This hardcover compilation updates the fan-favorite campaign to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules with revised and new content in more than 400 pages packed with mayhem, excitement, and adventure!

 

As well as most of the Illustrations I’ll post in the coming weeks, this comes from the various freelance assignments I’ve completed throughout 2013 and never had the chance to post, either because of lack of time or because they were still unpublished by the owners.

The Academy is one of the few environments I made for Pathfinder. As it is a role playing game (thus, you’re more likely to play as a living being rather than, say, a barn or a siege tower), most of the work for Paizo ended up being focused on characters.

Which, in hindsight, worked out perfectly for me, as at work I’m more likely to work on environments than anything else, for one reason or another.

I did’t have a very detailed description, and as it usually happens with the people at Paizo I was left with a fair amount of freedom with the assignment.
I figured the academy would have to convey a certain sense of peace and serenity, so I went for a rather solid shape, with straight lines and a gently curved dome.
Then warm colours, fluffy clouds and rolling hills.
Yes, I could have drawn a rainbow as well, but I didn’t.

Looking at it several months later I realised that it could have done with a further layer of polish, but hey, I didn’t have that much time to finish this!

This is why you should always let drawings rest for a few days before you call them finished.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I had a bunch of sketches of the academy knocking around, but I might have been a bit too zealous in cleaning up my old files folder early this week, and I would be inclined to say that they’re gone forever.

Oh well.