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Xanathar& #39;s Guide to Everything
Completed April 2017, AD Shauna Narciso
As Handsome Man continues his 2-year-long beauty sleep, let& #39;s look at the process for my first D&D cover. A challenging composition in terms of clarity, but one of my fav pieces. Thread ->
Completed April 2017, AD Shauna Narciso
As Handsome Man continues his 2-year-long beauty sleep, let& #39;s look at the process for my first D&D cover. A challenging composition in terms of clarity, but one of my fav pieces. Thread ->
Before we start, how I got the job:
I& #39;d been only doing mtg work up to that point, & Ixalan was just wrapping up. Apparently Cynthia Sheppard had my jadelight ranger open for review while Shauna came by asking "Know anyone who can paint goldfish?"
I guess the fins were my in :)
I& #39;d been only doing mtg work up to that point, & Ixalan was just wrapping up. Apparently Cynthia Sheppard had my jadelight ranger open for review while Shauna came by asking "Know anyone who can paint goldfish?"
I guess the fins were my in :)
Brief! Was pretty delighted to have something that expressed a ton of character, had a lot of inside references etc. Shauna had also expressed a desire to see it rendered as much like John Singer Sargent as I could. no pressure :P
As always for me, thumbnails first.
"Thumbnail" is a bit of a misnomer here though. "Horrifying scribbles" would be more accurate. As the comp had tons of small detail I was more interested in the general placement of the elements for clarity.
"Thumbnail" is a bit of a misnomer here though. "Horrifying scribbles" would be more accurate. As the comp had tons of small detail I was more interested in the general placement of the elements for clarity.
Here& #39;s where things started to get very dicey for me. being close enough to see the detailed items while also fitting a giant beholder in frame was a real challenge. things often felt cramped and I struggled to give a few options that were unified and clear;
A request/change I made was since the brief mentioned the fish being koi-like, and xanathar& #39;s light-coloured face was directly behind it, it would make sense if it was a black koi as a usual goldfish would be sort of lost against a yellow background.
I love taking reference, and this piece was perfect for buying and digging up all the unique objects I could find. Was happy to include unique pieces my family lent out and had a great time setting everything up and finding the best composition.
Jade liked the setup too, and while I couldn& #39;t include a fuzzy baby in the pic I did manage to etch her into the dessert tray on the right for the final :)
Always good to look for reference you cant shoot yourself;
GIF!
You can see, closer to the very end of the process there was a change; the piece was too cluttered. I removed some items and moved Xanathar up to create some breathing room. in the end it wasn& #39;t too much extra work and the piece is so much better for it.
You can see, closer to the very end of the process there was a change; the piece was too cluttered. I removed some items and moved Xanathar up to create some breathing room. in the end it wasn& #39;t too much extra work and the piece is so much better for it.
Some details. I figured it& #39;d be more menacing and interesting to depict the giant iris with all of the normally hard to see details on full display.
And finally, a quick explanation I sent to Shauna earlier on to show which items would end up on display, some of which didn& #39;t make the cut. Thanks for reading!
