A Brief History of Space Exploration – Red Cloud

Asteroid Mining, the first real step towards Space Exploration, became economically viable in 2045, when the cost of most resources on earth, close to being completely expired, spiralled out of control.

Copper started to be unavailable in 2045, silver and gold in 2048, nickel in 2040. At the same time the scarce fossil fuels were still required to power the common mining activities. This meant ordinary metals became luxury items.

Earth was, simply put, expiring.

Tensions between China and the United States grew worryingly, as the two countries tried to secure control over the few territories still rich in resources.
Europe was one of the first powers to be in dire straits and, as it happens, the first one forced to search for its own means of survival in Space Exploration.

The first telescopes aimed at finding ore in the Asteroid Belt had been put into orbit in 2013, more a scientific project than anything else.
A mission to study the feasibility of Asteroid Mining had been completed in the early 20s, funded by the unlikely partnership of Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and movie director James Cameron.
Considered an extravagant exercise by many, the mission proved that, however expensive, mining asteroids was in fact a possibility.

The first mining station, on the surface of Hygeia (the fourth biggest asteroid in the Belt, with its 500 kms in diameter) was finally built in 2058, a date widely regarded as the start of Human Race migration into Outer Space.

The European Mining Station (EMS) catered for 25 workers, had three surface crawlers and still relied heavily on food and supplies from earth.
Miners used to have 9 month-long shifts, after which they were sent back to Earth to avoid the various diseases linked to the absence of gravity.
The first Ring Station, built 12 years later and still orbiting around Hygeia, provided workers with an environment of artificial gravity where they could live between shifts, which in turn allowed more miners to join the facilities and a more intensive production.

The ensuing availability of automated machines, together with the wealth in resources, eventually made building structures in Space extremely easy and affordable. As a matter of fact much, much cheaper than building anything on Earth.

By 2065 a first depot was added to the complex. Two years later came the first ore processing unit, and after six years the first orbital greenhouse.
These were soon followed by a scientific lab, a fleet of new mining droids, an array of telescopes and a bigger water processing unit, plus the first meat production factory in the Solar System based on artificially generated animal muscles.

Soon the astronauts, who now spent long years away from Earth, started asking for leisure facilities, and eventually a cinema, a football field and a theatre were added to the complex.
The EMS, 40 years after its construction, housed nearly 320 miners, was almost completely self sufficient and sent about 45% of its ore need back to earth.

Four decades of mining had released a huge amount of dust around the mining facilities. The dust, kept together by the feeble gravitational field of the Asteroids Belt, was constantly lit up by the service lights of the many automated machines incessantly moving around, which gained the settlement the name of Red Cloud.

Red Cloud kept growing and growing throughout the 310 years it remained active, and after just 80 years since its foundation a vast part of its crew was born and had grown up entirely on it.
In 2075 one of the female engineers got pregnant, and since moving to Earth to complete her labour was considered too risky, the baby was delivered at the Station.

For the first time a Human Being was born outside their home planet, and from then on many others started considering this first human settlement in space as a viable place to live.
This event is considered by many historians as one of the most significant occurrences of the Colonization Era, and is still a major source of arguments for those who, in turn, regard the Foundation of EMS as the key factor in Space Exploration.

In the next chapter we will see how the troubled economy on Earth lead to the foundation of the Miners’ Guild, and began what is commonly known as The Grudge phase.
And all this simply to justify my need to practice on hard surfaces.
Here’s the process by the way.

by Paolo Puggioni

GROG, A Massive Database of RPG games

Last week I got contacted by the curators of GROG, a wonderful website that gathers together every possible information about possibly every RPG games ever published.
They were uploading the Game of Thrones RPG I’ve worked on to their database, and they asked me if I was ok with having my bio published on their website.

Now, halfway through the email I had already decided to answer “Yes, why not”, then at the bottom they went “oh by the way, this is an example of how a bio looks like on our website” and I thought “What the hell, why not!”.
I mean, now I can say that Brom and I were in the same internet place, woo-hoo!

Anyway, this is my page on GROG, for the records. Yes, I look silly, but that’s pretty much one of the only pictures of myself I have where I’m not making a really stupid face.
This is just mildly stupid.
Judge by yourself.

What I really want to point out though, is how cool this website is.
In fact, I wonder why I never heard of it, even if the fact that it’s a French site – and I don’t speak French – could be a reason.
These guys massed together every possible information you might find useful about RPG, from what the games are actually about, to publishers, artists involved and whatnot.

This is what they say about themselves:

You want to be know of the latest publications, what is in every book, look at their cover, know about the differences between versions, search through grand’pa oldies, look for a precise title, browse through themes or publishers ? Moreover, the Grog is an interactive web site : you can contribute to the database by entering your own critics or comments, be they praises or slanging matches, regarding published or indie games. There are also further services : indie games database, conventions calendar, news engine, french upcoming releases, and much more to be discovered online.

It is a wonderful resource not only for RPG players, but for artists looking for reference, to get in touch with other professional and so on.
There’s also a good bunch of artwork posted on the website, which, I guess, is what artists would be most interested into.
Definitely the place you want to hang out in, either if you are into RPG games or a professional illustrator.

by Paolo Puggioni

Sketches

Once again here are some sketches from my lunch break practice.
I’m currently working on another freelance assignment that I obviously can’t post until it has been published.
For this reason, I’ll be working pretty much on just sketches in my (little) spare time.

I just realized I’m getting fond of a handful of specific compositional structures: the cruciform and what I call the swirly curvy road
Ok I don’t know how art scholars would call the latter, so there you go.

The cruciform is a pretty basic form of composition, whereby the main elements of the picture lie on two lines roughly parallel to the canvas sides.
In the Cruciform, the eye is naturally led along these two main lines to the focal point, which is usually at the intersection.
The benefit of the cruciform is that it naturally engages the entire canvas, and it creates a strong point of interest.

The swirly curvy road is, quite banally, some kind of path, either created by elements of the picture or an actual path, which leads to the point of interest.

To be honest I don’t plan ahead when I’m working on these sketches (like “a-ha, Cruciform, I choose you!). I just noticed it today, which means I’ll try and avoid these two particular structures in my practice to avoid becoming predictable.

On something slightly unrelated, I just found out (obviously from from Wikipedia) why you often see sketches of court hearings in the news:

Courtroom sketch artists attend judicial proceedings as members of the public. In the UK and Hong Kong, courtroom artists are not permitted to actually sketch proceedings while in court, so they must create their sketches from memory after leaving the courtroom.
Courtroom artists can quickly capture a moment on paper and then sell their work to media outlets who would otherwise be denied a visual record of the trial. Pastels are typically used, but artists also use pencils, charcoal or other materials suitable for sketching.

An established freelance artist working in a busy court system can work up to 45 hours per week. They may be paid per sketch, or on a per diem commission. Sketches may be sold to television stations, newswire services, or newspapers, or even to lawyers or judges who may want to keep a sketch as a memento of a particular trial.
Courtroom sketches may also be purchased for institutional archives, if they depict a trial of historic importance. The entire set of courtroom sketches related to the Lindy Chamberlaintrial were purchased by the National Museum of Australia from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
A courtroom sketch artist must work quickly, particularly during arraignment hearings where a witness may appear in court for only a few minutes. A television-ready sketch can be produced in that time, and viewed on television immediately after a court proceeding is finished.

I’ve never drawn sketches in a court room.
A plan is taking form.

by Paolo Puggioni

The Runescape Combat Update

The Runescape Combat Update has finally been rolled out, which is one of the projects we’ve been working on for quite some time.

“Quite some time” hardly describes the awful amount time spent by the Graphics Team concepting, modelling and animating the throng of assets involved in the update, not to mention all the other teams’ effort to make it work smoothly.

As everyone was aware of, the models the game was using were dated and didn’t support enough bones to allow smooth animations.

Now, you might have noticed, characters even have fingers instead of pink coloured eskimo gloves!
Adapting the assets to the combat update forced modellers to cut and readapt all the old objects, and do all sort of stuff we concept artists are hugely happy not to be involved with.
The Runescape Combat Update was a huge effort, believe me.

Which is why I can’t wait to hear our player’s opinions about this update, since the new combat system will change Runescape quite considerably (hopefully for the better).

The update includes dual wielding, actual combat stances, special attacks and lots of other things Runescape players have been waiting for, for a long time.
Right now only the privileged who signed up for the beta will have the chance to try it out, but they will be followed shortly by all the rest.

Mod Chris L and Hunter explain what’s going on in the following video .
I’m sure you’ll find other videos in the next few days with players having fun with it.

by Paolo Puggioni

Art Books Galore

I just stumbled upon the best bunch of recommendations of Art Books you can possibly find on the internet, written by James Gourney, one of the most accomplished Illustrators and mentors alive.
I seldom repost other blogs’ content. For some reason it doesn’t feel right, even when the repost would be something along the lines of: “Hey, read the amazing thing this guy just wrote!”, and the author would surely be happy to know that someone appreciates their work.

However, spreading James Gourney’s advice always feels like sharing some kind of wonder you want other people to know about, so here you go: James Gourney’s Survival Guide for Art Students.

My only regret is that this post makes my Wish List bigger and bigger, with no sign that my monthly income will ever manage to catch up.

by Paolo Puggioni

Life Drawing At The British Museum

Yesterday my fellow Concept Artists and I went to the British Museum in London for our third monthly training session.
Before you start scrolling down I have to break it to you: I didn’t even scribble a stick man.
The mass of tourists was aggressive enough to discourage the most motivated artist.

The rooms were people weren’t punching each other on the face to get a place in front of the artefacts weren’t interesting enough to go fetch a chair and take all the gear outside of my bag, so I eventually gave up.
Plus, damn I’m getting old and my feet were killing me.

Nonetheless the trip was fruitful and illuminating.
I mean, I took 428 reference pictures, I can’t wait to find an excuse to smuggle all the props and objects I found even slightly interesting into Runescape.

The rooms I found most worthy of attention were the Aztec and the African.
I knew little to nothing about ancient South American artefacts, and I was impressed by the power of their designs.
My wife would have gone nuts wih all that lapis lazuli blue everywhere.

Apart from that, I made a mental note to look deeper into meso american ancient art, the way they break down complex scenes into simple shapes is rather unique.
Plus, the gruesome nature of their favourite subject matters (like, Queen Something Something performing the ritual of sticking ten feet of barbed wire through her tongue) never fails to entertain.

African art was just as much a surprise. You can easily see some of the faces of their carvings in Picasso’s paintings. He was almost certainly impressed by their natural skill in simplifying, decomposing and reassembling shapes.
Unfortunately when I got there I had already been in the Museum for close to six hours, so I couldn’t be asked to take my sketchbook out.
I promised to myself to go back and spend a day just in those two rooms, which are luckily neglected by the tourist throng.

by Paolo Puggioni

My Shiny New Song Of Ice and Fire Stuff Has Arrived

To my great surprise – I didn’t expect it so soon – Green Ronin sent me two copies of the Game of Thrones Rule Book I’ve worked on, A Song of Ice and Fire.
Being credited in video games is pretty cool, but having your name printed on the pages of a heavy, chunky, glossy RPG manual is a completely different thing.

For a start, when I was a kid and was introduced to the colourful, nerdy world of role playing games, the first thing I thought was “wow, when I grow up I totally want to have my drawings published on a RPG manual. It will never happen though”.
There you go, Past Me, it actually happened!

Second, books are a lot easier to brag about with friends. They sit on shelves, and you can discretely wave at them until someone realises there’s a new thing amongst your collection, and you can go – very casually – “Ah yes, that’s just the new Game of Thrones game, I worked on it”.

Also, books smell awesome, especially glossy ones. I won’t go into the books vs. tablet debate, but that’s precisely the reason why I’ll stick with paper as long as I can. Sorry trees, it’s not my fault you smell so good.

Anyway, these are some of the pages.
I was pleased to notice one of my drawings was used as the back cover art. The excellent Cover Art is Michael Komark’s.
The prints are slightly darker than the originals and they lost some mid-tones, next time I must remember to tweak the brightness before submitting.
As for the rest, it all looks so good I’m almost considering going back to Role-playing. I just need to cut my sleeping hours to three-four a day.

by Paolo Puggioni

Mountain

Mountains are not my favourite thing.
They are tall, and proud, and pretentious.
If mountains could drive, they would drive a SUV.

However, there is a lot to learn by painting snow.
The shifts in hue and saturation are subtle, and require a lot of observation. There are strong blues on the surfaces untouched by direct light, and warms, and highlights.
And I love the randomness of snow scattered on rocks and cliffs.

Anyway, this comes from one of the lunch break sketches I did a while ago.
With all the freelance work I’m doing at home after my day at Jagex, I have to confess that lately I don’t have much brain energy left. This means I can’t focus on studies and proper practice as I normally would, and developing an old sketch like this can be a way to relax while still being productive.
It also means I struggle to find creative names for my files, apparently.

As usual (yes, doing something twice makes it a habit), I’m also posting the process.

by Paolo Puggioni

Lannister Archers

This is the last one I’ve been allowed to post from the Game of Thrones Illustrations I made for Green Ronin’s RPG.
It’s also my least favourite of the bunch, if I could go back I’d paint the faces of the archers from scratch.

The ones I prefer are in the second batch, which I’ll publish in a few months.
Thanks again to Green Ronin for allowing me to post all this artwork so soon.
Not to mention the fact that the Game of Thrones series has been the best thing I’ve read in the last few years, which thing makes the whole assignment unbelievably cool.

by Paolo Puggioni

The Stone

This is the first environment I painted in a long while.
I had been drawing characters for a few months and I kind of needed some relaxing, loose painting to work on.

I did this without nothing particular in mind, so well, you can;t find a story in it.
If you have a look at the process I’m posting below you’ll also notice I overlaid some textures pretty soon, then I painted over them, then I added some other textures, then I painted over those as well.

Not exactly the canonical approach, but what the hell, I have been watching series through out the entire process, this was just for the sake of painting.
Hence the highly creative name I managed to find for this city carved in the stone.

by Paolo Puggioni