Rats Invasion

There might be several reasons why I thought it would be interesting to paint a rats invasion.

First, I’m afraid of rats. Like, terrified.
Several years ago I was on holiday here with some friends. The place is as untouched as you can get in a first world country.
A good balance between having a shop ten minutes walk from home, an awesome beach in front of your doorstep, and wildlife carelessly sharing your living space as if they were paying their part of the rent.

I didn’t mind the bats who used our living room as a hunting ground, or the crows in the morning, or the toads, or the giant spiders.
Hell, I like spiders.
Then one morning a big rat decided to explore our kitchen.

You see, as a city person, it was the first face to face I ever had with a rat. I really didn’t know yet they’re not my thing.

I immediately figured that out when I found myself on the table.
Like, with a single jump.
Without even thinking.

If I were asked, today, to do it again in exchange for a million British pounds, I doubt I could pull that up with such agility and elegance.
Long story short, to this day I still find rats very disturbing, and a rats invasion is pretty much the most disturbing thing I could ever think of.

Except for an invasion of rats clad in armours and wielding blades, on top of the ordinary carrying diseases thing.

For once, I tried to break a bit the rules of composition.
I thought that in a plague of rats, no single individual should really stand out.
Colours, edge control, details and (just slightly) colour and saturation kind of lead the eye towards the big guy one third of the way from the right.
I also positioned the other rats’ limbs and faces so that the eyes have an easy way to scan the picture and eventually get to that spot on the canvas.

However, there is really no emphasis on anything in particular, which is something that I also tried to force by using a flat, frontal point of view.

Since by the end of it I still had all the layers, here’s a nice gif with the different stages.

Oddly enough, during the few days I was painting this, I happened to read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (if you haven’t read it, fucking do it! Now!), where rats are indeed quite prominent.

Also, the other day a friend of mine, out of the blue, mentioned his days as a Warhammer player, and Skavens being his race of choice, which is another big serendipity.
I wasn’t thinking about them at all (despite being nerd enough to know what he was talking about). But still.

I don’t know what all these coincidences have to do with me painting a rats invasion. Just use this information as you see fit:)

by Paolo Puggioni

The Grumpy General

What’s now unmistakably a grumpy general, started as a simple copy-a-random-face-from-the-internet exercise.

I believe the reference was a particularly unloved Brazilian politician, but I can’t find it anymore so you’ll have to trust me on this.

Anyway, as it always happens when I start without a plan, the illustration evolved a lot from how it looked liked at the beginning.

After I realized that “random grumpy Internet face” could have been a grumpy general, I obviously drew an armour under his neck.
Then I thought it would have been cool if he were leading his army to battle under a crisp, blue sky.
That implied that the general would have had lots of blues on his face and armour, which forced me to paint over the original drawing a first time.

After that, the scene didn’t exactly show much. It was still little more than a Grumpy General’s portrait, not exactly a ride into battle.
So I gave the general a horse, and red banners on the background to contrast with the blue sky.

The red banners meant lots of red bounce light, however, which of course led to paint-over number two.

At last it came the army.

Then (and only then!) I realized that the composition wasn’t exacty something to write home about, so I had to move things around quite a lot before I was actually happy about it.

Long story short: I did everything the wrong way, next time I need more planning.
In my defence, I hadn’t even planned not to plan!

However, in the end I think the result is not too shabby anyway, so there you go.

Oh, I might have some colour profile issues with my Citinq.
The reds seem fine on Photoshop and on my iMac’s monitor, but they get very loud and garish when the image is rendered through Chrome. But only on the Cintiq. Go figure.

I don’t have time to investigate further right now, so if you happen to think EEEW! when you look at the banners please let me know.

by Paolo Puggioni

Three Oracles

I painted these oracles over the course of a few lunch breaks.

They weren’t intended as oracles at the start, rather simple anatomy practice.

I had recently come across a massive folder, filled with anatomy reference, naked people in all sorts of positions. I can’t even remember when I saved the whole lot on my hard drive.

No, it was not my porn stash. These were naked people in respectable, artsy poses.

I thought “hey, it’s almost my lunch break, this is the Universe telling me something, I should probably practice some anatomy today”.
I started drawing the first naked woman (the one in the middle), but for some reason I was struggling with her eyes, so I left them blank for a while.

Because the best way to face a problem is to think about it later, right?

Long story short, I ended up liking her that way, and I thought “this could be a seer or something, which is pretty cool. But the main thing is that I’m done with that eyes issue”.
I gave her a weird head gear, because that’s how oracles roll.
I added some clothes, because I couldn’t think of any logical reason why a seer would walk the Earth wearing just a funny hat.

Still, I had already spent some bloody long time painting her entire body, and it would have been a pity to cover her up completely.
So I kept the half-undressed look (or half-dressed? Gosh, which is the optimistic view here?), somehow recalling iconic images of Sybils and ancient female oracles.

Just guessing. It’s not like I did any research on the matter this time.

I painted the women on either sides during a couple of other sessions, and then I went back over all of them adding ornaments and weird symbols to tie them together.
I think that helped them look more as part of “an Order”.

The Order of the Three Oracles, maybe?

Like, there always have to be three of them. The rite of passage consists in being blinded by a spitting snake or something like that.

Each one of them will give you just one part of a prophecy, but you never know whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end.

Also, they have to be fit. That’s crucial.

Either way, here are some close ups.

What have we learned today?

Not much, probably.

Apart from “if you can’t be bothered to draw eyes on specific women, turn them into blind, attractive, half naked oracles”.

By Paolo Puggioni

Wardens of the Reborn Forge

I didn’t do much stuff for Wardens of the Reborn Forge, but for what it’s worth, here it is.

Wardens of the Reborn Forge is a deluxe super-adventure for 12th-level characters, and includes 64 action-packed pages of adventure filled with mechanical machinations, new monsters, a beautiful double-sided and full-color poster map of Alkenstar, and an important miniatures-scale battleground!

Alkenstar, City of Smog, is a bastion of civilization in the magic-warped region known as the Mana Wastes. Its ingenious citizens survive in the treacherous Spellscar Desert with the help of canny inventions like guns and clockwork automatons, but now their construct protectors have begun to run amok within the city. It falls to the PCs to venture beyond the city walls to find the source of their strange behavior. Will they uncover the mastermind behind the plot and put an end to this madness, or will they instead fall victim to the primal magic and savage tribes of Mana Wastes mutants that beleaguer the city?

The module can be purchased here.

Lord Armorer Narda-Hufftwood

Once again, a guy with dark skin.
Since, apparently, practice makes you better, this time it didn’t take as long as usual to get the colours right:)

According to the brief he was supposed to look noble, and also one who could clearly manufacture stuff with his hands.
The solution: gloves. And a tool belt.

Evidence of Treason

Not much to say here. A folder with documents on a desk. Nailed it.

The Alchemist’s Addiction

I didn’t know much about this card a part from the objects described (a vial and a knife).
In an effort to make it visually interesting, I took as a reference two photos of an ancient vial and an ancient sacrificial knife I took myself at a museum.

Since I’m normally too lazy to tag my own images, I’m afraid we’ll never know what museum in particular they come from. Oh well.

This is all from Wardens of the Reborn Forge. And from the bunch of Pathfinder cards I’m allowed to publish, sadly.

Legacy of Pharaohs part II

This is the second (and last) bunch of illustrations I made for Pathfinder’s Campaign Setting Legacy of Pharaohs.

As I said before, the assignment was pretty much all about characters, so here they are.

Nixinox

Nixinox is part of a race called Girtablilu, and according to the brief she is an oracle, hence her milky white eyes.

Too bad the characters in Legacy of Pharaohs required only the upper torso to be drawn.
Nixinox – like all her people – is half scorpion and half human, and despite this being a super well-known combination, I never happened to draw any of the like.

Asuulek

Asuulek is a dragon. Not much to say here, it has wings, and teeth, and he breathes fire. The usual dragon package.

Commander Sefir Etis

Right, this is my least favourite character from Legacy of Pharaohs.
Well, he did nothing wrong, I did.

He’s supposed to have an armour made out of giant scarab carapace. And to a degree I got there.

For some reason though, in hindsight, his face is all wrong, he has barely any neck, and every time I look at him I’d like to delete it and start from scratch.
The art director was happy with it, so I guess he was god enough.
However, I decided to post it as a reminder of what I wouldn’t do next time.

Azghaad

Azghaad is one of the first characters I made for the set, and I think at that point I hadn’t knocked out the North African skin tone yet.
He’s not supposed to be dark skinned, but not white either.
I got maybe pretty close, but I would go back and tweak him a bit, if I could.

Oh well.

So, this is it for Legacy for Pharaohs.
I still have another small folder with Pathfinder artwork I’m allowed to publish, so I’ll get back to it next time.

Legacy of Pharaohs

Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs, is another Pathfinder Campaign Setting I’ve worked on in 2013.
Since these projects are released several months after they’re actually finished, I’ve had it sitting on my hard drive for quite some time, before I realized I could actually publish it.

In the heart of the Inner Sea region stretches one of the oldest human empires still standing today: the mighty and mysterious land of pharaohs and pyramids known as Osirion. Hosting as many accursed tombs and treasure-filled ruins beneath its shifting sands as above, Osirion offers no shortage of adventure for characters of all sorts. From the cosmopolitan capital city of Sothis, seat of the Ruby Prince, to the desolate wastelands of the Osirian Desert, discover the might and majesty that lifted humanity out of the Age of Darkness and could potentially usher in a new golden age if unearthed from the past.

As the name suggests, (and well, the description above), Legacy of Pharaohs has a strong Egyptian flavour. Pyramids, lots of sand, and North-African looking characters.

Like many of the assignments I had from Paizo, this one was mostly focused on characters and I enjoyed it quite a lot.
All characters had to look either North-African or Middle Eastern, both of which have in general a dark skin tone I rarely have the chance to practice with.
A part from rare occurrences.

The Lady of the Canal, right below, is my favourite one from Legacy of Pharaohs.
She’s the first one I made (always the most difficult first!).
Thanks to her I remembered that, when painting black skin, some blue strokes on the up-facing surfaces are kind of “the secret”.

Wali Sarita Senbi and Jira Odan below, had to look Persian instead, and since I’m not too familiar with those particular facial traits I had to make quite some research before I committed to a design.

The only two non-characters I made for the set are an environment and a small object, both below.

Hor Aha

Osirian Scarab Symbol

There are still a few pieces left from Legacy of Pharaohs, which I will post next time!

Sacrifice to the Kraken

I’ve always had a thing for the myth of the Kraken.
I would almost go as far as saying that I’m obsessed by it, except it’s not like I think about it all the time, or that I daydream about it, or that I play with small action figures of a Kraken swallowing a tiny ship full of horrified little sailors.

So, I won’t. Let’s go back to my first statement: I’ve always had a thing for the myth of the Kraken.

It’s not difficult to imagine how it came into existence, is it?
I figure that the very first time puny humans ventured out to the unfamiliar sea, on a flimsy, floating chunk of wood, they stared nervously down to the dark depths and wondered “what if there’s a giant monster down there?”.

Hell, I wondered that myself when, scuba diving off the West coast of Sardinia, I suddenly found myself out of shallow waters, staring into a dark, impenetrable depth.
I imagined a giant mouth coming out of the dark, from below, big enough to fill my field of view. And then I swam back to the shore, because I am chicken.

And it’s not like the Mediterranean is deep and full of predators. The worst you can find is probably a school of tuna.

Anyway, I was having these thoughts the other day while doodling during my lunch break at work, and I came up with this.

Kraken aside, I figured this scene might have happened at some point, right?
Primitive people sacrificing some poor sod to keep the Kraken well fed, and prevent it from shifting its attention to the fishing fleets.

It may have happened multiple times, I dare say.
Imagine you’re a primitive guy, and you just sacrificed some other guy to the Gods of the Sea. Clearly since a Kraken didn’t actually show up you MUST have done something right!

Anyway, bonus content:

The single and only reason why I would really like to be a God is to have the chance to command someone to RELEASE THE KRAKEN.

by Paolo Puggioni

My Pathfinder Cards Have Arrived!

I normally disapprove of exclamation marks in post titles, but really, my Pathfinder cards have arrived!

This is, after all, the difference between working for something that you eventually get to play on a computer, and something that gets actually printed out and sent home: the exclamation marks when they arrive, and obviously the smell.

Whoa, I didn’t remember them being so many. I recall now how freakishly busy that month has been.
I had worked on these two Pathfinder modules quite some time ago. Last year, in fact, but they have been released only recently.

The first set is Tears at Bitters Manor: When retired adventurer Taergan Flinn doesn’t show up to meet with his old companions, the PCs are called upon to investigate, leading them into a swirling maelstrom of horror and tragedy. Can the PCs unmask and confront the malevolent entity behind the madness and restore hope to a tortured land?

All the artwork in the module has a grim sense of foreboding, which is definitely suitable for this slightly darker module.

The second Pathfinder module I got is the Emerald Spire, which is part of The Emerald Spire Superdungeon, and I’ve also just noticed that one of my images has been picked as a cover for the card set:)

For ages untold, a gemstone monolith has pierced the heart of the Echo Wood. Now, as civilization intrudes upon this enigmatic splinter, a strange life once again stirs in the depths—one with ties to undying evils and a might beyond time itself. The promise of wealth and power calls to glory-seekers from across the Inner Sea region, tempting them into a labyrinth of monster-haunted vaults, defiled tombs, arcane laboratories, and worse, as they seek to unveil the secrets locked below the legendary Emerald Spire.

So, in the next few days I’ll post part of the images I’ve made for these last cards sets. As I said, there’s a whole bunch of stuff still sitting on my hard drive that I’m planning to publish soon, so you’ll be seeing some more soon.

by Paolo Puggioni

New Website!

If you’re here (and this is at least your second time) you may have noticed I’ve just updated my entire website.

Well, to be honest I did little to nothing, all the work was done by these two amazing people right below.

They are, for the record, part of that restricted group of people I really regret not having around more often. But skipping all the sentimental part, what really matters in this context is that they’re really bloody good at what they do.

You should see how idiot-proof all the back-end side of the website is, how quick and elegant.
I’d be tempted to make the password public, so people could have a look around and see how cool it is.
(Of course I won’t actually do that, seeing how keen Internet people are on posting random genitalia and stuff like that).

Anyway, aside from the architecture, we made some important changes.
The main reason I decided to make changes was that, with the previous set-up, different kinds of work had to be grouped together, making it difficult to get a real picture of what I do: I work as a video game Concept Artist during the day and as a freelance Illustrator for the rest of the time.

Many people looking into Concept Art however, would often end up saying things like “I don’t know man, it looks you’re more into Illustration”, and the same would happen the other way round.

The new website makes it easier to separate the two things, and to quickly find what one is looking for.

The features you don’t see also allow me to create new categories as I need them.
If six months down the line I decide to start drawing only cats, I can just create a nice Cats category, so that feline enthusiasts don’t have to skim though the “Misc” page to find drawings of their furry friends.

This is not happening by the way. Dog person.

Anyway, thanks again to Papermoustache. I’ve also posted some new artwork that had been sitting on my Hard drive for a while, so feel free to have a look around.

Now that everything smells of fresh paint I’m obviously planning to go back to posting regularly on this blog, so please subscribe if the idea of missing my updates leaves you with a bitter feeling of emptiness.

Towns of The Inners Sea part II

Here’s the rest of the illustrations I made for Paizo’s Towns of The Inners Sea.
As I said in my previous post, they were mostly portraits, which was both good fun and good practice.

This is the one I’m maybe the happiest with. Her name is Uzmilla and she’s obviously a witch. She was supposed to have wrinkly skin that looks like leather – check; one green eye and one red eye – check; a nasty look but not too evil – check?

I’m particularly satisfied of her hand. Practicing on greys really paid off, the way they make her skin sickly and thin on her bones really works there, I think.
Looking back at it, her neck could do with some more work, and the edges of her silhouette are way too sharp, but hey.

This, on the other hand, is the one I like the least.
It came out a lot more “oh look I’m such a good chap” than I meant to. For some reason I feel like I should do something mean to him, just to spoil his day:(

This one, her name is Salodri, is intriguing. The brief didn’t explain why she is wearing an elaborate eye patch.
I like to think she has a perfectly good eye underneath, she only does that because it’s her way to be a hipster.

And this is Zundrunga. He was supposed to look strong (check) and trustworthy (check).
Fun fact, after I finished working on Towns of The Inner Sea, I realised that I made him exactly like an old friend of mine at school.
He was strong as a bull, but with a kind and gentle heart. For some reason, the moment we met he decided we had to be friends, and that his mission in life from then on was to beat the crap out of everyone who even thought about bullying me.

High school was a walk in the park for me. I hope you’re doing fine buddy.

Lord Hazic Kel Kalaar here, is the one who gave me more problems. I struggled to fit his banner in the frame, his face really wouldn’t work and I made like five versions before I decided this was was good enough.

Either way, this is it for Towns of the Inner Sea.
They are printed at a fairly small size, so the large areas with relatively flat colours should work fine (I haven’t see the prints yet).

More stuff to come shortly!

by Paolo Puggioni