Cover and Characters Art for Murder a la Carte

General / 19 January 2015

Cover Art


Murder à la Carte is a Pathfinder compatible adventure developed by 0one Games and written by Tom Knauss. I found very interesting this mystery approach to the fantasy adventure where you'll have to unmask Marcellus' killer.

For the cover Mario Barbati (owner of 0one Games) wanted the discovering of the dead body by the house workers. We chose a low point of view to have the drowned man in the foreground keeping the action in the down-right corner to fit the Basic Paths' layout.

As characters I had to draw the old rich man, the legendary hero Marcelus and his servant, butlers, cooker and gardener who are called to be our usual suspects like if we were in a classic mystery novel. 

Thanks to Mario Barbati and 0one games for counting on me for this project.
And thank u all for your visit to my Cave

Good luck solving the mystery ;)
Charro.

Cover Art Process
final cover layout


Boris final art
Drake final art
Fazzlemare final art
Mortimer final art
Scarlet final art
Tobias final art
Warren Joe final art



Characters Art Process



promo image from 0one website




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Characters and Creatures Art for "PLENILUNIO" by Nosolorol Publishing

General / 12 January 2015

Plenilunio promo image from Nosolorol website
PLENILUNIO, developed and published by Nosolorol Ediciones, is a roleplaying game based on the universe of Malefic Time, created by Luis Royo and Rómulo Royo. As you can imagine, I am infinitely pleased to share pages with this couple of art masters and to do my tiny contribution to this meta-project which includes not only three illustrated books published by Norma Editorial, but also a novel written by my friend Jesús B. Vilches, a manga comic book by Kenny Ruiz, a music album by Avalanch and much more still to come.

Characters from Plenilunio are survivors who live in an apocalyptic New York. The most simple goods like food or water are difficult to find, it is a rude world where the rests of our civilization are still present so, our survivors use whatever they can find useful to keep they alive one more day. Behind all this apocalypse, there is a war between two ancient and powerful forces and our characters are called to play a role in that war...


CHARACTERS

110 katanas member

Nomad
Angels Hunter
Orthodox Rabbi
Petty Thief
Scrap Merchant
Urban Shaman
Seeker
Moon Mestizo
Gang Member
CHARACTERS PROCESSES












At last, I did three creatures included in the book, in which I tried to suggest their shapes from a dark textured background, more than doing a detailed pic. Since I was also involved in the layout design, I decided to paint them directly on their double pages.
 
 CREATURES

Ghost
Starving
Ogre Well, that's all for now, but I hope I'll come back with more Plenilunio art for the upcoming books. Thanks to Luis Royo, Rómulo Royo and Jesús B. Vilches for taking me on board of this awesome project and thanks to Nosolorol for making it possible.















And, of course, thank you all for visiting my Cave  :)












Plenilunio promo image from Nosolorol website

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The Grande Temple of Jing III

General / 01 December 2014
Lay of the Dead Lords

And here you have my third post with five more interior illustrations and processes for the upcoming The Grande Temple of Jing, "the Dungeoncrawl that rules them all" developed by Hammerdog Games. As I told you before I did more than 70 pics so, these are only a preview of what yo will find in the book.

Thanks for coming to my Cave ;)

 *You can see more pics for this book in my previous posts: I & II

 Links:
www.hammerdog.com

Lay of the Dead Lords process
Dragon Gate Dragon Gate process
Gravecaves Gravecaves process
Harpy Town
Harpy Town process The Forge The Forge process





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Western Art for "Plata de Ley" by Nosolorol Publishing

General / 18 November 2014
Cover + backcover illustration
Plata de ley, written by Diego López and published by Nosolorol publishing is a RPG adventure set in the wild west. For the cover we wanted a simple but strong idea that undoubtedly fits the western ambience. In order to keep it simple we played with a cowboy bandit silhouette to get the one. Once we got a favorite, sunset and oranges-reds were the chosen light and colors. Of course, the train and cowboys has something to do with the adventure. I finally added some dust to bring it some dirty-old feeling.


Cover Sketches

Cover Painting Process

 For the characters (I did four of the nine included in the book) the author Diego López had provided some references from films. I felt that his characters idea was to get some kind of "league of extraordinary western characters" so I didn´t hesitate to be obvious with some film character references.

Instead of my classic step by step I have enlarged my work file to show you most of the layers I have used in the work (too much space would be required to show everyone). Some of them are photoreferences, others are sketches or different color versions. I hope you like this approach to my workflow.



Malcom

Maverick


Pancho Castillo



El chico (the kid)



No so much else to say, I am always happy to work in far west stuff. Thanks to Nosolorol and Diego López for they trust.

Thanks again for coming to my cave.
I hope you enjoy the visit.

Charro.

Links:
Nosolorol Page
Product Page
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Cover Art for "Cultos Innombrables" (Nameless Cults) by Nosolorol Ediciones

General / 17 November 2014
close up

RPG book "Cultos Innombrables" (Nameless Cults) was finally released last week. Here you have the process and sketches I did for the cover about six months ago. This was one of the first arworks I did working from Nosolorol office where I work directly with the creator and also chief publisher Manuel J. Sueiro.

We started to work with the idea of a girl summoning some kind of Cthulhu mythos' force. From that idea I did a lot of rough sketches and we started to select and discard some of them looking for the right POV and attitude. Even in the color phase, she turned from the initial half-frightened girl to a final defiant character shouting to the monster. Against the common cliche of the girl being sacrificed, roles turned back and she appears sacrificing a Deep One. That turn of roles have a lot to do with what you would find in the book, where characters go a step further from the classic "heroes against monsters" to a more contemporary view where good and evil is always relative.

Since traditional Cthulhu game happens in the 20s we also wanted to show that the game happens nowadays so we show a mix of contemporary and ancient stuff. Due to the same reason, we placed her in a modern office building with the city in the background. I really enjoyed imagining the action happening in that dark office which some seconds back was almost quiet, except for her voice whispering some kind of summoning spell. 

Finally, as an old fashioned Cthulhu RPG player I have to say that I love this book and it is just the step needed to go over the cliches, keeping the mystery and darkness of Cthulhu Myths. So, I wish a long life for this Nameless Cults ;)

Thanks for visiting my cave.
Have fun, and summon something ;D

Links:


sketches
Digital Painting Process Digital Painting Process close up

Final Artwork





Printed Book
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The Grande Temple of Jing II

General / 10 November 2014
Phoenix
Here you have some more interior illustrations and processes for the upcoming The Grande Temple of Jing, "the Dungeoncrawl that rules them all" developed by Hammerdog Games.

Have fun and survive the Dungeon ;)

 *You can see more pics in the previous post






Koniyata


River of Gold

Temple of Serpent

Treant

Xorn Poker

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The Grande Temple of Jing I

General / 04 November 2014
Original back cover (now relocated)


The Grande Temple of Jing is one of the biggest projects on which I have worked. In total there were more than seventy illustrations that give image to a book with more than three hundred pages. Some of them illustrate texts written by acclaimed authors of Role world and the fantasy world, such as Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, Jim Ward, Larry Wilhelm, Skip Williams or Jonathan Tweet, among many others.

Working with Danny O’neill (owner of Hammerdog Games) is always a pleasure. He has a very good understanding of how to do an interesting adventure or scenery for players. I started working for Danny on 2011 with this picture so it has been a long time working in this project. At the beginning of 2013 Hammerdog Games did a succesful kickstarter campaign that boost the project and enlarged the book. Since it is in final layout phase I start a series of posts to show my artwork for the book with Danny's permission.

You can know more about The Grande Temple of Jing and other products by Hammerdog Games in their website www.hammerdog.com
 


Original back cover pencils
Entry Chamber


Entry Chamber - Process
Underground Sea

Underground Sea - Process

Welcoming Chamber

Welcoming Chamber - Process

The Caretaker

The Caretaker - Process



Front Doors

Front Doors - Process


Golden Entry

Golden Entry Process
Chamber of Rays


Chamber of Rays - Process



Armor Shrine of Korchak

Armor Shrine of Korchak - Process

Eggs Chamber Eggs Chamber - Process
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CD cover for "unum" by Vexillum

General / 23 August 2014
Final art By the end of 2013 I finished this commission for the italian music band Vexillum. They have a clear idea of what they wanted for the cover. The bas relief stone is the key of the story that they tell in their new album "UNUM"

Based on a sketch provided by the clients, I only needed to try a couple of designs to find the one.


Sketches and Painting Process
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Matrioska cover art for Nosolorol Publishing

General / 12 August 2014
Matrioska cover + backcover art Since May 2014 I started a new adventure with Nosolorol Publishing becoming part of their team and working half-time in their office (I am still doing freelance works also). That fact have changed my life in much more ways than I expected not only it brought more freedom and interesting projects to my work, but also I met a group of new friends (freelance illustrator work is often so lonely ;P) and uncountable improvements in my daily living.

Matrioska is a *self-playable RPG book writen by Mario Fernández, with a truly interesting plot that... I do not want to spoiler ;). I just recommend you to play it and discover the secrets behind Dakota building. For the cover art we spent most time looking for an idea or design focused on what we wanted to tell to the viewer, playing with the shape of the building as it could somehow change or holds something else... I did also some of the interior art but again, I do not want to spoiler the story

*A self-playable RPG book is a one shot adventure with everything you need to play. Nosolorol has developed this concept in some of their books and it combines the ease to play without getting crazy with a lot of rules, with that kind of perfectly tied story that you can find in a good movie.

Thanks to Nosolorol team for having me on board and thank u all for coming back to my cave.
Hope you like it :)

Links:
You can find Matrioska here
Nosolorol website
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"Blood & Glory: Legend" Digital Comic

General / 30 June 2014



During summer 2012 I did the comic artwork for the game Blood & Glory: Legend developed by Glu mobile inc. and Cryptozoic Entertainment. Based on a script by Gray and Palmioti. Panels are thought to be seen at full screen so somehow every single panel become also a page. Below you will find sketches and final art for some of the panels. Full work was more than 100 panels.















1/3 of the panels done were included in the game. The other 2/3 were part of a clasic comic book with 33 pages. Although I found comic workflow too fast I enjoyed the chance of telling a story with more than one pic.











 The game was succesfully published worldwide more than one year ago (I don't know what happened with the full comic) but it didn't work in my mobile. Recently my friend Tito, who spent his time advancing to reveal all the panels, showed it to me. Thanks Tito!

 And thank you for coming to my cave :)






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