Circle Ward 27

I made Circle Ward 27 as part of my ongoing learning process in Blender.

I have reached a level where I actually find it faster to mock up a scene in 3D than draw everything from scratch, which is a good boost to my workflow.
I have always used 3D as a block out for big environments even in studio, but I always relied on 2D for the final result.

Being more confident with Blender means unlocking a whole lot of subjects I hadn’t bothered with so far.
For example, drawing the aerial view of a big city like this in 2D would mean days of painstaking work, unless one doesn’t resort to completely different workflows like photobashing and matte painting, or goes for a much, much less polished and more “impressionistic” work with just brushes and patience.

I resorted to a couple of awesome add-ons for Circle Ward 27.

The main one was the great BlOSM (Blender Open Source Maps), which allows you to pull any city in the world from the OSM database and import it into Blender.
Well, at least a small parts of them, if you don’t want your graphic card to blow up.

The learning part here was about texturing each building, for which I did a “meh” job to be honest.
Next time I’ll use displacement maps to make them look less flat, and maybe add some reflections and specularity to the windows.
I wasn’t going for a production-level of quality here, so that’s good enough for now.

The second add-on that I’m really getting fond of is SciFi-FLEX, which cuts down by A LOT the tedious and repetitive process of creating and scattering panels and greebles.

I also did a mediocre work here. By the time of writing I got a lot more competent with it, and next time around I’ll use displacement maps instead of the hundred thousands polys I scattered around here.

I still did quite a bit of overpaint and editing in 2D using my trusted Krita, I don’t think I’ll ever turn into a 3D artist any time soon.
I’m basically a Concept Artist who happens to use 3D.

Anyway, I’m having huge fun working with Blender.
This was done in my spare time while learning new features (to me). For my freelance work I’m already completing a huge scene for a Star Trek illustration that it would have literally taken weeks if done in 2D from scratch.

As it happens in publishing I won’t be able to post that for months, so you’ll have to trust me on that for now:)

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – Mutiny

Mutiny is one of the illustrations I made for the Star Wars game by Fantasy Flight Games back in 2018.

Like a throng of other artwork I’ve made in the past few years, I never got around to post it, so there you go, you get to see the old stuff.

Mutiny is based on The Last Jedi, and while I always put some trivia and context around the illustrations I make for Star Wars, I have to confess I’m not entirely on board with the whole sequel thing, so I’ll have to skip this one.

In fact, if you held me at gun point asking me to sum up the three movies in a few sentences, you might as well pull the trigger straight away.

I didn’t really bond with the Rey character, I didn’t quite understand the whole plot, I was upset by the inconsistencies in the writing and, well, I don’t think I re-watched any of them.

BUT.

Poe Dameron wasn’t bad, and luckily it was him the guy who I got to draw from this movie. Plus, I really like Oscar Isaac, so there’s that.
On top of everything, he has some nice and bold facial features to draw, so I did enjoy drawing this.

And lo! I did keep the sketch.

So, about the mutiny.

This is the bit when Poe, unhappy about the passive tactics of Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, together with Rose Tico and a few other decides to take things in his own hands.

Unfortunately the focus had to be just on Poe, so I didn’t get to draw the Vice Admiral’s face, who also had interesting features for a portrait.
But hey, here’s her pink hair instead.

Interestingly, I had painted Poe’s father a while back, Kes Dameron.

Also mildly interesting, I just looked up Kes on the Star Wars Wiki and I noticed that they used the illustration I made, which is pretty nice.

Anyway, I just realized that I’ve been posting a lot of Star Wars things recently, so I’ll take a break from that for a little while.

Some of the artwork I’ve made for Wizards of the Coast has just been teased, so next week I’ll post some Magic the Gathering things instead.

Game of Thrones – Aegon Targaryen

As I promised last time, here’s my depiction of young Aegon Targaryen for Game of Thrones latest Chapter Pack, The Shadow City, by Fantasy Flight Games.

Now, I was about to write “hey, this is the second time I draw Aegon, the first being this one in the book World of Ice and Fire”.

Luckily I did double check before writing that, and as it turn out I was being wrong.
I mean, wrong all along, even when I was working at this illustration.

First, the Targaryen I drew back then was Aerys the Mad. Of course I knew it at the time, the names just got mixed up in my mind after so long.

That left me with the question “bloody hell, who is this guy I just drew?”

The only Aegon I remembered was the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark, whose head was smashed in by The Mountain when he was just a baby.
That clearly couldn’t be it.

Intrigued, I went as far as looking for a family tree of the Targaryen family.
As pretty as it is, that left me with even more questions, as there’s a whole bunch of Aegons in that family tree, and none of them rang any bell.

I eventually looked up his entry on Wiki of Ice and Fire (yes, I should have done that first thing), and that left me flabbergasted, as I had NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of all this after reading all the books. Twice.

Once aboard the Shy Maid, Tyrion is introduced to Griff’s son, “Young Griff”, a young man who dyes his hair blue in memory of his late mother, who was from Tyrosh. He is a lithe and well-made youth, with a lanky build already as tall as Griff. Tyrion notes that the boy’s eyes seem to be dark blue, but look black by lamplight, and purple in the light of dusk. He has long eyelashes. […]

[…] After being rescued from the Sorrows, Tyrion admits his suspicion that the youth is claiming to be an incognito Aegon. The young man explains his apparent survival to Tyrion while they play cyvasse. According to his account, the infant killed during the Sack of King’s Landing was a tanner’s infant son born at Pisswater Bend, a street of King’s Landing. The child’s mother had died at birth. The tanner sold his boy to Varys for a jug of wine, since he already had other sons, but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys arranged the swap between the two infants. Elia received the tanner’s son, whom Tyrion dubs the pisswater prince, while Varys took custody of the real Prince Aegon.

So, moral of the story is that if you have a memory as shitty as mine, the world looks new every time you open your eyes in the morning.

Also, I can save in books by keeping just a dozen at home, and then periodically going “aw, I’ve never read this, cool”.

by Paolo Puggioni

Spear Fishing Practice

I made this over what feels like a couple of hundred sessions.

I know I’m repeating myself, but I’ve had so many little time as of late, that I haven’t been able to spend a minute even on Freakshow, which has been sitting in my Works In Progress folder for an uncomfortably long time now.

Anyway, bit by bit and at a very leisurely pace I recently managed to complete the illustration below, which had started a few months ago as thing-for-fun-that-I’ll-do-while-watching-Netflix kind of endeavor.

The idea for this came from a holiday I had in Corsica some years ago.
A friend and I decided to go spear fishing. Nothing fancy, the goal was mostly to look at the wildlife, while occasionally trying to catch something to eat on the barbecue in the evening.
As it turned out, the entire expedition resulted in a bad sunburn and the slight humiliation inflicted upon us by a smart octopus, which just kept evading us by swimming a couple of inches below the maximum range that our skill allowed.

But I digress.

While looking for fish to catch, we came upon the edge of a submerged cliff, which disappeared into what seemed like and endless, bottomless abyss.

Instead of rocks, colourful fishes and all that, there was now just darkness, and surely an entire ecosystem hidden not far below us.
I (we) felt suddenly small and inconsequential, puny beings before something titanic.
As if that was not a place where humans are used or supposed to hang out.

My imagination being what it is, I immediately imagined the big scary face of some kind of hungry leviathan coming to us from the dark depths, with cold expressionless eyes and its mouth a mess of fangs.
My friend and I couldn’t clearly talk to each other, but I’m sure he had the same thought, as we turned around and swam back towards the shore without even a gesture.

Anyway, a while ago this long forgotten memory resurfaced (see what I did?) and I started doing this.
Only, in this version, the human in the picture is there to kick ass.

by Paolo Puggioni

Ser Justin Massey

This is one of the (many) illustration I had the pleasure to make for the Game of Thrones game over the past year or so.

It’s part of The March on Winterfell by Fantasy Flight Games, and although the expansion isn’t out yet, the image is already displayed on the product’s page, so here it is in all its slightly higher res glory.

For those who – like me – don’t remember Ser Justin Massey neither from the tv series or the Game of Thrones books, here’s all I know about him, diligently pasted from his entry on the Wiki of Ice and Fire:

Justin is a large man with pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a mop of white blonde hair pale as flax. The fair knight has a neatly-trimmed blond beard. His tunic displays the triple spiral of House Massey.

Justin, who has a pleasing manner and a ready smile, often tells jokes with a glib tongue.
Stannis Baratheon refers to Justin as “the smiler” and Clayton Suggs considers him a “prancing fool”.

I might have made him slightly fitter than it was supposed to be judging by his description, but the art director was happy about him, so that’s how he officially looks like now.

And since I’m a good boy, I didn’t get rid of the sketch this time.

There are still a couple of illustration that I’ll be allowed to post before these Game of Thrones expansions are released, which I’ll do over the next few days.

by Paolo Puggioni

An Improbable Life III

A few months ago I had the pleasure to illustrate the third book of Improbable Life, the latest volume of Frasar’s memoirs.

The first book was published just in 2016, and as I pointed out back then, it’s a really nice read, as well as the latest one.

Also, I just realized that I forgot to post the cover I made for the second book of the series, so that will come soon.

Anyway, here it is.

Some might notice that this cover has a different tone to the previous ones.
Where the others tried to convey some sort of adventurous moment in the author’s life, together with the sense of wonder that was driving him – this one is definitely darker in mood.

This is because the book itself describes a troubled phase of his story, which led to a more inward-looking narrative.
The cover illustration still depicts an event actually occurred, so it’s not like the book is less eventful, but the tone is undoubtedly changed.

Funnily enough, I worked on this illustration at the same time I was busy on this one, so it was two images where a stormy sea was one of the main elements.

That’s where I found out that I love painting the sea, so I have to say I was particularly happy about these last two works.

Incidentally, my next post would be again about the sea, but I swear it’s not at all intentional and I’m not becoming obsessed.

by Paolo Puggioni

Coinspinner

Late last year I had the pleasure to do some works for Lost Spheres Publishing, and the illustration below, called the Coinspinner, is one of them.

The Coinspinner was made for City of the Seven Seraph, a Pathfinder campaign now fully funded and I believe already available.

I made this right in the middle of my move from the UK back to Italy, on top of all the work that I had left building up due to the move, so I remember this being quite a hectic period.
Nonetheless, I’m quite happy about the result: I found out that I LOVE drawing water.

Incidentally I’m about post another illustration that I made about the same time, with a lot more prominent ocean.

Also, the brief needed the ship to look organic and not too far away from H.R.Giger’s aesthetics, which was a nice plus for me.
Anyway, I’m not sure I’m allowed to publish the other work I made for Lost Spheres Publishing but I’ll double check.

In the meantime I’ll probably post some more artwork with raging oceans, now that I got a taste for it:)

Also, oddly enough I didn’t throw away the sketch for the Coinspinner, so here you go.

by Paolo Puggioni

Traveller – Catch 22

Catch 22 is another piece I made for the Traveller card game.

I have to say, this illustration in particular did take some thinking.
I had to cram more information than I was comfortable with in a relatively small canvas, so it required some planning, especially composition-wise.

The brief was about a guy hiding behind a wall, while another person is talking with a guard, probably giving away his hiding place.

I meant the main character to look somehow in control of the situation, so I drew him much bigger than the other people in the frame, and with his eyes above all else’s, looking down at them.
Also, the perspective of the buildings on the background kind of resemble the main character’s cone of view, to emphasize the fact that he’s aware of the situation.

I NEVER go into this kid of depth when planning for an illustration, as I find that starting with random sketches and adjusting them along the way makes it for better-flowing compositions.
So, well, I’m kind of happy about how this turned up, all the bits seem to be working together with each other despite the forced arrangement.

I also happen to have the sketch handy, for once.

by Paolo Puggioni

Traveller – Bodyguard

This is one of the illustrations I made last year for the Traveller card game.

I had started talking about it a while back, then I got distracted by the whole moving abroad thing (the ordeal of which started right about the date of the entry just linked) and I never got around to posting the rest of the artwork I made for the project.

So here’s another one, quite clearly titled Bodyguard.

Pasting directly from its page on BoardGameGeek:

A card game with trade, exploration and combat in Marc Miller’s classic RPG setting, The Third Imperium.

Traveller is a card game adaptation of Marc Miller’s classic Science-Fiction role-playing game. Players assume the role of ship Captains plying the mains of the Third Imperium.

The game has been designed to accommodate 2-4 players, but it also supports solo play and we anticipate releasing special solo play scenarios and game modes. Single and two-player games should last about 30 minutes. Three or four will go for 45-60 minutes.

Traveller is non-collectable. There’s no random allocation of cards, and no rarities. Every product is a fixed set, so you always know exactly what you’re getting.

Our basic mechanics are an icon-driven race game, with ample opportunities to interact with, and even engage in piracy against, other players. All Captains must also contend with a hostile galaxy and the looming threat of insolvency.

Since the shipping of the game is ongoing right now, it looks like my being late is in fact quite well timed.

I’ll post a few more shortly.

by Paolo Puggioni

Game of Thrones – Valar Dohaeris

As I said in my last post, The Archmaester’s Key, Game of Thrones last chapter pack by Fantasy Flight Games, has recently been released on FFG’s store, and I had the pleasure of illustrating Valar Dohaeris, one of the cards of this expansion.

As the name suggests (if you are a Game of Thrones’ nerd as I am), the illustration is set in Braavos, and it depicts the Temple of The House of Black and White, which is where Arya Stark spends a considerable amount of time both in the books and in the HBO’s series.

I have to say, the chapters about Arya were among my favourites while reading the series, so working on this was even more enjoyable to me.

In case anyone’s memories were fuzzy about this place, I happen to have the relevant bits handy, straight from my brief:)

Slowly her eyes adjusted. The temple seemed much larger within than it had without. The septs of Westeros were seven-sided, with seven altars for the seven gods, but here there were more gods than seven.
Statues of them stood along the walls, massive and threatening. Around their feet red candles flickered, as dim as distant stars. The nearest was a marble woman twelve feet tall. Real tears were trickling from her eyes, to fill the bowl she cradled in her arms. Beyond her was a man with a lion’s head seated on a throne, carved of ebony. On the other side of the doors, a huge horse of bronze and iron reared up on two great legs. Farther on she could make out a great stone face, a pale infant with a sword, a shaggy black goat the size of an aurochs, a hooded man leaning on a staff. The rest were only looming shapes to her, half-seen through the gloom.

Between the gods were hidden alcoves thick with shadows, with here and there a candle burning.
Silent as a shadow, Arya moved between rows of long stone benches, her sword in hand. The floor was made of stone, her feet told her; not polished marble like the floor of the Great Sept of Baelor, but something rougher. She passed some women whispering together. The air was warm and heavy, so heavy that she yawned. She could smell the candles. The scent was unfamiliar, and she put it down to some queer incense, but as she got deeper into the temple, they seemed to smell of snow and pine needles and hot stew. Good smells, Arya told herself, and felt a little braver. Brave enough to slip Needle back into its sheath.

In the center of the temple she found the water she had heard; a pool ten feet across, black as ink and lit by dim red candles.

I don’t really remember if I decided to make the pool larger than ten feet as an artistic licence, or just because as an European I only speak Metric.
Regardless, it was supposed to be the focus of the composition, so it is indeed slightly larger than it’s described in the books.

I’m saying this just in case you are a Game of Thrones fundamentalist and you feel compelled to point this out to me in angry emails:)

by Paolo Puggioni