The Dungeons and Dragons Art Life

How I became an RPG Artist

(The extremely short version)

It was January 2013 when I got the Facebook message. Or at least, that's when I think it was.
Luke Gygax, son of Gary Gygax creator of Dungeons and Dragons, sent me a message asking if I could contribute any images to his first adventure module he was trying to get done for GaryCon V (iirc).
There was something about a bear pooping in the woods. I was pretty fresh to digital art and had how-to videos rolling most of the time I was working from home.
The artwork in that module was just terrible. I had never shot anything directly to print before. Much of it was too dark, anatomically terrible, or just not what I would consider print-worthy today. It was enough to get the wheels rolling though. I was working on art 8 hours a day after coming home from my new office job, that also required 8 hours a day (Plus an hour and a half of driving).

I went all in and attended GaryCon. It was at great expense, maxing out a credit card, eating baloney and cheese in the hotel room that I was sharing, all to get there with a portfolio of images.

I was rewarded with Frank Mentzer, one of the early founders of D&D, thumbing the portfolio within the first few minutes. Since that moment Frank has been a vocal supporter of what I do.
It was at that Con I met many of my connections that have kept me going. Zach Glazar from Lesser Gnome had an idea, a basic module plot, and a commissioned piece from Jeff Dee. He was in dire need of an artist. He missed breakfast that morning and got stuck looking at what I had. Many other friends were made, games played, and art shared.

A month or so later Zach needed a small map, then in trickled the needs. I wasn't the best, but I decided from the beginning that what was needed was to be on time. Every time a deadline came, I made sure to beat it.
I started to get a bit better with each piece. I also began to take the idea of my teen age dream of illustrating fantasy RPGs seriously.

Lesser Gnome ended up entering the market after a super kickstarter with a full on old school box set. Many lessons were learned by everyone. I picked up some new tools and we showed up at GaryCon VI with our new products. Almost a year later I went to telecommuting my office job to keep up, then shortly after to no office job to keep up.

The client list has grown, I was a guest at North Texas RPG Con This year, shared a room with my childhood art Hero Jeff Easley, and have made MANY fast friends doing exactly what I love.

I have been extremely grateful all along this journey, but I have made many sacrifices and have worked at improving myself and my art like a tireless animal. My immediate family has been supportive, and every month brings a nervous moment of making sure the rent is paid.

My own Webstore is always growing with products and these seem like the days of unveiling the dreams. Just waiting for the veil to come all the way off to see what is under there!

Every year I am invited back to illustrate for Luke. We go to Lake Geneva and pay homage to Gary and meet with all our friends. Texas is also on my list every year. The friends and support I have found there cannot be beat.

This short article leaves out the working in the cold basement in Maine, our move to Florida, the many struggles and challenges we faced, and new clients I met. I have lost count of how many times my work has been published in less than 2 years. I am not sure there even is a recipe to follow or share about my journey. It seems like a long string of hard work and accidental friendships.

Now in my down time, when I find some, I produce and print my own Role Playing Game Adventures compatible with the old school AD&D model. Oil paintings don't linger around long before they sell and ship out the door. I am truly humbled by all the support, and I wake up eager every day to improve my work in some way.

Game - on.
Lloyd Metcalf
http://LMetcalf.com

Bird of a Feather

New Module From Lesser Gnome!

As many folks know Lesser Gnome is one of my main outlets of illustration. Zach and John have written another addition to the world and I have had the honor of illustrating it from front to back.
Alyssa Faden was again recruited to do the overland map, and it comes with a mini!
The Mini included is the Rhacos, similar to an Axe Beak, but generally much more 'Fabulous'.
for more work check the website http://www.lmetcalf.com

To get your module:

http://lessergnome.com/product/bird-of-a-feather-a-thopas-short-1st-print-pre-order/

Does Illustration Matter?

If you think maybe Art doesn't sell, and has no effect on your printed book, game module, or product, think again.

Ask a Dungeons and Dragons player to describe in detail a mind flayer, Goblin or beholder and they can use any book they like.
While they talk watch what happens. Their eyes do not scan the page for words, not the paragraph on the subject, not the place-holder in the text.... but an image, a piece of art is where their attention rests.
The gamer will dart his eyes down and up well over a dozen or more times to get through about 10 sentences of descriptive language.
He / she is not reading text, they are looking at the illustration that interpreted the text. They recognized the section they needed that held the monster in the text by recognizing the artwork.
The more engaging the artwork, the more engaging you will find the description become.

Why is it important to game and fantasy writers to try this?
In the web design world it's what we might consider a usability study of a page. Just to sit aside, and record where a visitor looks, what they read, and where they click.
Without directing a reader and user of your product let them have a round of the text without art and it becomes apparent as you sit at the table what happens. Quietly play through your module as someone else is reading and presenting without art. Don't interrupt, don't re-describe your vision for encounters. You won't be sitting at every table after you publish.
The game changes dramatically with no art, and even different artistic interpretations of the exact same text will change the game. Just pop in a couple stick drawings in the text, all with round heads and funny faces, an play through again, it will be a new game.


If I type the name Kitiara, or Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Raistlin etc.... do you immediately recall passages of text from the great writers who created the names, or are you conjuring first artwork of Larry Elmore and his interpretations of dragons and hourglass eyes?
Make no mistake, Weis and Hickman were the creators of those characters, breathed life into them, made them talk, feel and interact with the world, but when someone thinks of those characters, they are thinking in Elmore imagery before they talk.

Now think of the importance of Rich "Uncle" Pennybags to sales of a product. Don't recognize the name in type? What if I said "The Monopoly Man" who looks like J P Morgan? How important is that little piece of art to sales? How many millions of times has that drawing been reproduced and printed? He is an American Icon. Sadly, no one really knows who the original artist was.

How much impact can a little illustration have on people?
Fred Mizen, an artist / illustrator in 1930 who managed to get a one off job painting a sign for a department store to pay his bills.
Oh, you don't don't know the name?
That's ok, most people don't and I had to google it myself.

Describe to yourself, or your kids Santa Clause.

You just described Fred Mizens interpretation, and you possibly have described it to children many times over. Fred Painted the first modern Santa that was rotund, jolly, wearing a red suit.... and... drinking a Coke over the worlds largest soda fountain. Prior to that he was smaller, occasionally gaunt, elf like, a little scary and paranormal. The Saturday evening Post, and later Macy's printed Freds art, and the world was changed.

When an illustration appears in text it is referred to in description, big deal!! Big deal indeed. Especially in Fred's case, and that of role-playing games and fantasy. In these situations it is left to the responsibility of one person describing to others how something or someone looks, what the mood of their setting is, how they interact with the world and how to relate to them. one person tells others.
When the others read that text, the imagery used to describe that scenario is reproduced when they look at the text. They will likely re-tell it again, continuing to use the image they see, their past experiences with it (described from another looking at the art), and the new things they see on closer inspection will be added.
Retold to 3 to 5 people a dozen times using a single image and a certain "expectation" becomes solidified as how something should look. How would you react to a waif thin, sunken eyed, elf draped in animal furs sneaking into your house? That would be the old Santa, not Raistlin sneaking into your bedroom.

So buy art for your writing, buy it often, and consider the value and impact it will have. Treat your artists well and they will strive to make sure your product lives in the memory of people for the long run. They will happily associate their images with your brilliant writing. Slapping in the wrong art, or no art, or even worse... MS office CLIP ART (yes, I have seen it).. will get your product passed over by the readers regardless of the writing quality.

~Lloyd M

Warm ups can be good too

What I do before I start

Sometimes before I sit down to the Cintiq (which is still a new thing to me) or a canvas, I will do some loose doodles to loosen up and warm up.
So the other day was no exception. I came home from a full day of work and sat down with my dinner salad to get into another few hours of illustration. I popped open a small image, roughly 1,000px x 800px and started scribbling around with various brushes in a set I had discovered.
At first black on white, then not liking that, I went with a Chiaroscuro technique of making everything Sienna and burnt umber.
I set the scribble aside and started working, but kept coming back to it. Right before my eyes there were things appearing that demanded splashes of light.
Well into the painting I realized that it was 1K x 800 at 72 dpi. tiny in size. So up blew the image and in went the detail, and here is the result.
Still a little impressionistic in nature, but I like the feel and energy. Wasn't sure what to do with it, but the Gnome will take it for future projects.
This note I leave to myself and others.... even on warm up start as if it will go to print. or "Res up" early in the process. Doing it later increased the work load on the drawing.
Lesson learned, now back to work!!

Whisper and Venom

I have illustrated this project extensively, pick it up, share it, check it out... but support it as best you can :)

Gary Con V Day one

 Getting Started at Gary Con

Everything was going smooth to start my trip off. I woke up early, double checked my bags, had a nice bagel and a couple cups of coffee and was running through my head everything I had to do to make my trip from Maine to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons and RPG's in general.
I got to the airport and my flight was delayed before I even got on the plane. So for 3 and a half hours I opened up my laptop and did some final tweaks on Luke Gygax's flyers for his module which I had illustrated the interior and cartography.
My life is on my laptop, my art, and everything I planned on doing. Imagine my terror when the stewardess told me they would have to check my carry on, My laptop and all, to the underside of the plane on this small plane. I had images of brute tossing my precious  cargo like gorillas on a samsonite commercial.
It survived.
My connection in Detroit began boarding at 7:10 and we got to the gate at 7:13. I am not sure if I can emphasize how far Detroits' gate A49 is from gate C26, but suffice it to say that my hurried state from one to another was something remarkable. Somehow, I made it as they were boarding. Onboard, everyone seemed to have puts big bags where they didn't belong, and there was no room for my precious cargo again... and it was officially "checked". OHHH the panic as I let go of my life, portfolio, and art to someone elses hands.
In Milwaukee, everything survived!! From this point on - everything would be smooth!
Until the rental car company decided they neeeded to put and extra $200 hold on my credit card. No idea how I didn't hear about this.

 At Lake Geneva Resort

I came into the resort and immediately recognized my roommate Jeremy and shook his hand. Then he thought it would be funny to flip his badge over and say, "Hi, I'm Steve.." The exhaustion of travel sent me spinning and saying, "Ok... Hi Steve..."
Before I even checked in, ten minutes through the door Frank Mentzer was flipping through my portfolio and commenting on the pieces he liked, and how he liked to know that digital artists could also work in traditional media, Colleen was right! We talked about OGL and copyright info for module printing and I immediately was struck by how good this weekend would be. Frank is a very charismatic articulate speaker and was freely sharing his experience. HE took a card and I am pretty sure that somewhere between himself and Jim Ward we will be talking about maybe getting some work in some Eldritch modules.

The lodge was warm and inviting, the staff friendly and there was plenty to do. I WAS STARVING!! that bagel at 8:00 AM was a long time a go.
A run to Burger king and we were in action again. We grabbed a board game of "Ticket to Ride" and a drink and had a late night. Jeremy and I sat up talking about the Con, the games and what we would do.
I checked my schedule and saw I had an Old school D&D game with Tim Kask in the morning at 10:00. The first old school TSR employee, if I recall correctly, and legendary editor and DM.

 The next morning I got my badge and a little extra gear before breakfast and I found Tim's table and sat down to a good old school D&D module "Curse of the Weaver" sold by Eldritch. A fun story, a solid module and a fun game.

 Tim Kask (Behind the screen)

Tim worked his way through the module with the group. His first game of Gary Con V. I felt my character was dominating the social situation, and along toward the wrap up time, my character made a slightly rash decision and charged into a giant lizard (That may have been wounded) instead of fleeing.
This started the trend, and Tim enacted a coupe de gras and finished up the game a TPK (Total Party Kill) It was a good game, lots of fun, and The Curse of the Weaver is a great module.

After this I attended a seminar talk by Frank Mentzer about his time with Gary Gygax. It was both enlightening and entertaining. It was more of a "Let's all sit around Frank and listen to his tale" than a seminar really, it was just the title he chose for the talk.
Some Chinese take out and a nap was in order... and there we are.
The portfolio and artwork has all been well received, Luke bought me a drink and chatted a while this evening and SO many good things are happening. I really feel my work has a place in all this somewhere, and it's coming together. Not to mention the fun!
Tomorrow morning I sit in on Frank Mentzers D&D adventure, notes and photos will happen.

Warming up for the con

When Raptors Fly

There always seems to be a shortage of time when it comes to preparing for a trip or some such thing, but I have really made an effort to keep focused on what I love to do.
So when I get home at night from working on a computer all day, it is sometimes a little difficult to turn the computer back on, and paint. but, it's paint time, not work time.
A little ginger tea and the old Wacom get warmed up and I have to remind myself to get some sleep.

A double whammy!

It has been quite some time since I have updated the old blog, which also updates the front of the website.
Shame on me... but this is good news, it means work is coming in to keep Ol' Spratt' busy.

To reward your patience, Enjoy a couple pieces that I recently have finished.
A monacled Goblin. Maybe a little contradictory, but I was thinking perhaps the monacle might be an object of "true seeing" or perhaps "Treasure finding", and this character seems to just create his own backstory just looking at the image.

The second is the Flesh Xorn. A creature related to the Xorn, but from the plane of flesh (or some such similar place). The problem with resizing things for blogs and web, is the loss of detail.
I particularly enjoyed working on the mouth parts for this one, and they are lost on the wide angle view.
I am not sure where I will use this creature, but I assure you, it will be a rather uncomfortable encounter.

Just a little Kobold

I'm a little kobold, short and stout, here is my priestess, She'll take your party out!
Yes, The module will create a healthy respect of the always overlooked Kobold.
Things are looking exciting!

New painting style test.

Recently, I have begun to take a drawing, multply on the mid range color, dodge out highlights (multiple layers), multiply in the darks.

Then of course, dump the whole thing and use it as an underpainting.

Medusa,
Giving you the "eye"
Commentary?

I was actually pretty pleased with the result.

Morning on the bog

Early in the morning, out on the bog, waiting for the sun to come up. It was time to start down the trail and see what the forest had in store. But not before snapping a quick photo when I got there.

The Digital Juice!

Corel Painter, My Love Hate

Corel Painter has been living on my laptop and desktop for a long time now. Every version looks so dang exciting, I just can't seem to pass each one up. Painter 10 was barely useable for me, it was a heavy system hog, Corel 11 fixed all those performance issues, and now 12 is running like gravy, and many items have been removed, some streamlined, some switched.

In all fairness, even Corel suggests that Painter would ideally compliment the use of photoshop as a digital painting tool. Indeed Corel easily opens photoshop .PSD's and appropriately keeps layers and all right where they should be.

My comfort level is in Photoshop, I will admit to constantly becoming frustrated with Painter when I can't simply pop over and find opacity, shape dynamics, rotation and flow settings for the brush I am using. The settings are there, but they are labeled differently and living in different places.The stock brushes, while very organic in feel, can become irritating beyond belief when you just want a quick alteration, like a similar, but finer stroke that flows a little less. You get pulled out of the creation flow to switch brain sides while you hunt for settings. In Photoshop this is a quick adjustment, in Painter, it's more hunting around. You also have to deal with a tool box that lists items like (pencil) (markers) (pastels) (conte) etc.

The traditional artist who has not spent hours, days, and weeks in Photoshop would probably make quick work of the learning curve of Painter. I also have a personal grumbling with the "autopaint" feature that I think some take too much advantage of.

So why even use Painter 12?

Watch a couple of Android Jones videos and you will know why. Look at some of his work, and you will be running to the nearest software joint with money in hand eagerly giving it up. As soon as you open up the software with your Wacom Tablet you think,"oh yeah, this is going to be fun!"
Indeed it is VERY fun.
Painter actually uses canvas texture, it's one of the places the software shines brightly. This can be simulated in Photoshop, but Painter has the idea of drawing on paper with a texture nailed down to a science. It was important for the Corel team to match what artists wanted and were comfortable with. This software was build with traditional artists in its' heart, while Photoshop incorporated them much later and a little more awkwardly.
When you pop open the tool bar and grab (Pencil 2B) it performs exactly as you would expect a 2B pencil to do, the same with Felt tip markers, and all other tools. The tools can actually feel so extremely organic, I find it totally affecting my lines and style as I become so completely inspired and enveloped by the look and feel of the materials I am working with.
I often forget to use layers at all when I'm in painter because it accurately conveys the feeling of actually working on the surface. You can't have layers on a real world painting canvas, so I forget I CAN in Painter. Yes, it's that good at replicating the look and feel.
Open a can of turps and spear paint on your hands if you want, but it is no longer necessary.... (although turps and linseed smel soooo good!!.....open a window)
Painter 12 also added a nice feature that Photoshop has TOTALLY missed the boat on. The mirror! You can put a line on the canvas, and what you do one one side is replicated in mirror fashion on the other side or sides. That's right, you can even Kaleidoscope it with many mirror lines. When it comes to drawing faces and what not, just the single mirrored plane is worth its' weight in GOLD!
For casual sketching I find myself in Painter frequently, becoming inspired by the strokes and lines that can be created. My refinement of images seems to come through in Photoshop.

However, I think everyone should do themselves a favor and push through the learning curve of Painter. For a digital artist, it is ideal once you learn the software.  Entire Comic book / Graphic novels are being made in Painter, not to mention gallery artists and performance artists like Android Jones.

The love / hate ends with love, but it is necessary to approach it with the idea that Painter does something different than Photoshop, it is not trying to replicate or replace it.

Haunted Maine Ghost Hunting

We got invited to join New England ghost Hunters on one of their favorite haunts as Halloween approached. We gathered up all the gear two people could muster and ran off into the night to meet some new friends. We toured Parsonsfield Seminary during a staged haunted house tour before joining the investigators for the real thing.
The team knew the building well, and showed us around and pointed out the essentials of what they do and how they approach an investigation. A few EVP sessions were had, a spirit sniffing dog "Loki" was present and we became so wrapped up in filming, and getting extended exposure photos we hardly noticed the night speeding by.
I could see Colleen's eyes light up at the combining of science and spirit. Two things that are so opposing to one another that they become similar.
The Parsonsfield Seminary, or ParSem, as it is called by the locals was founded in 1832 and has a very deep history. We pieced together the following video for Saco River community Television Channel 2, enjoy.

There was a lot of history in the old Seminary building


For those who are interested in Paranormal research, here are some tools to help get you started.