I’m very excited to be involved with the illustration and design of the Shadow World Player Guides.

This is the roleplaying campaign setting created by Terry Amthor for ICE‘s Rolemaster ruleset. And by Campaign Setting, I am of course talking about an entire world!!!! Basically, think of the realm of Middle Earth, with all the different cultures, lore and history and then cube it. The Shadow World is not a one continent land, it consists of 14 continents in the western hemisphere alone!

The Player Guides, as the name suggests, are to help the Players better understand the world without requiring the Game’s Master to waste playing time describing the different elements to them including the basics of time keeping (hours, days, months, seasons, years etc), climate, geography, inhabitants, magic and gods etc. It will also include a lot of location images of the various lands and places of interest.

The first one released will be the World Guide but then there’ll be a lot of more specific info dealt with in the more Regional Guides to follow including local customs, history and lore, inhabitants and any ‘local gods/spirits’ common to these places.

Here’s a taste of some of the location shots planned on being used in the Guides…

The Emerald Forest in Emer

The Quon Jungle in Emer

One of Eidolon’s Sky Ships

The Aalk Athimurl, the fortress of the Dragon Lord in Jaiman

A Navigator’s Obelisk used to summon a Navigator

These were all created using Vue Complete, a 3D landscape application. For larger versions of some of these images, take a look at the 3D Sketchpad Gallery.

Here’s a taster of the 3D images created in Vue Complete…

The Vœrken Mire from the roleplaying campaign setting of the Shadow World

And 2 Avatar inspired images

You’ll be able to see the full size versions of these images in the Gallery!

Does this mean I’ll eventually get the Gallery done for this site including the design work and logo’s?
Yes, I will eventually do it.

I’m working on a Shadow World Players Guide which will have a lot of Vue landscape renders as well as some drawings. As it’s still in progress, I can’t add any images here so I have a couple of other things to show.

A Vue render trying out a technique for ‘hyperterrains’ – the name given to the creation of the unusual shaped terrains which aren’t possible in the traditional terrain creation process.

An old-school Vector in Adobe Illustrator. Some subtle object blends but mostly a line work. Michelle is the woman featured and she has a gallery here.

That’s it for now.

They’ve made Vue Pioneer, the core program, available for FREE so it’s definitely something you’d need to checkout!

Here’s the full image I used in the banner ads for my site; just so you know what to expect. This was created in Vue Complete but only a couple of extra modules would have been needed on top of Vue Pioneer for this image.

As always, click that image for a larger version.

The different Vue Versions

To try and counter any confusion before you go to the E-on Software’s web site, Vue comes in 3 main versions. Starting from the top they are…

• Vue xStream – This is strictly for the pros and it gives them access to all of Vue’s modelling & animation tool directly in their high-end 3D programs (Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D etc).
• Vue Infinite – This is the same as Vue xStream but it’s a standalone version that you can use without the need for a separate high-end 3D program.
• Vue Complete, Vue Pro Studio, Vue Esprit and Vue Pioneer – These are the same program at it’s core – Vue Pioneer – but with different amounts of modules installed on top of that. As the name suggests, Vue Complete has all the modules installed and Vue Pioneer has none.

That’s not to say that Vue Pioneer is no good, Vue Pioneer has many features that gives you access to the powerful 3D landscape modelling. When you’re ready to take the next step, you can purchase just the modules you need if you like – you don’t need to conform to the specific modules that’d take you to Vue Esprit or the Vue Pro Studio versions.

Some of my recent additions (as well as several to come) have used Vue and I’ll be including this banner below any of my posts that have used Vue.

What’s in it for me?

It’s true that I’m altruistic …to a point.
If you make any purchase on the Cornucopia3D web site for extra modules or 3D content within the first 30 days of visiting the site, my account will be credited 10%. After that, I see nothing.

Vue Pioneer is completely free and you needn’t purchase anything at all, which means I’d get nothing …but if you do, I’d certainly appreciate it.

We’re doing some more brochures for the Wildlife Trust and this is the latest. Adobe InDesign is my DTP (Desk Top Publishing) app of choice.

Having great images to use means that the final brochure can’t really go wrong even if I tried!

The original theme used for the base layout is Gravel. The client wanted something styled like her previous site so all the image content of the theme has been changed to reflect this. I really should have started from scratch though if I’d known how fussy the client was going to be.

The reason for a WordPress site is it’s easy site management for those not so technically minded to add new content, be it posts, pages or galleries.

…which reminds me, I will sort out a proper gallery for this site soon to include sections for Logos, Web Design and Graphic Design created under the CJ Productions umbrella – but in the meantime, you can check out my drawing specific galleries at my Craig’s Sketchbook site.

It’s that time of the month again – it’s ICE’s map contest! This time it’s a lair for Kobolds (a lesser goblin type creature).

I was going to enter the old-school hand drawn map that I uploaded here – old-school map but after I added a little bit of texture to it, I just had to carry on!

Here is the opening spread describing the tactics the kobold’s would use to defend their lair and a larger map view is below that.

And here’s a close up of the textures so you can see it at it’s actual size

This is the cover illustration used for the PDF depicting the nasty trap the Kobold’s have in store for unsuspecting adventurers!

Click those images for a larger version!

Check it out – Craig’s Sketchpad Gallery

…and ironically, this post has no pictures.

I’ll also be adding a gallery here which will include more of the ‘design’ projects covering both web and print work but I’ll let you know when that happens.

This Brochure was specifically for their Cilgeran location.

…and this was their Membership Brochure

…and this one was targeted for Small Businesses

…some posters

…also, I designed their site too!

http://www.welshwildlife.org/

There was a significant amount of help from Melissa John of Dazzling Props

This one was for the Welsh Tourism site