Exit, Pursued by a Monster – Alex Drummond
I did a series of teasers for the Art of Legends & Labyrinths awhile back at a time when I thought we were gearing up for the eminent release of the book, but it ran aground on the rocky shores of the project. I’ve still got a half dozen or so pieces that were completed but never previewed and I’m going to go ahead and roll those out now for everyone to see.
One of my goals for the art in Legends & Labyrinths was to have it representative of what actually happens at the gaming table. It’s one of the reasons that I offered an illustration based on a backer’s campaign journal as one of the reward levels for the 8-Bit funding campaign: I wanted to have the visuals of the game drawn from actual play.
This piece is one example of that. Here’s what the original art order looked like:
A cavern which has been excavated to reveal the ancient remains of a city. The surroundings have the feeling of great age; the dust of Sumerian clay. We are looking toward an ancient tower half-embedded into the cavern wall.
On the floor of the cavern in front of this tower a huge, mob-like melee is raging: Tor, Elestra, Ranthir, Tee, and Nasira (or some selection thereof) are fighting large, ogre-like creatures with ebon black skin who are being commanded by a small cadre of robed cultists. (These are the same guys Tee was about to ambush in the illustration for page 67.)
One moment ago, Agnarr leaped through the upper window of the tower – from the third floor or thereabouts; high up. It’s like a stunt out of an action movie and Agnarr looks totally cool in mid-air; like some sort of combination of Conan, James Bond, and John McClane.
What we’re looking at right now is a massive creature which has smashed through that window and large chunks of the wall around it. It looks like a sandworm from Dune except that its mouth is rimmed with needle-like teeth and it’s got two lanky arms thrusting out from its sides.
So: Tower window being smashed open; chunks of masonry hanging in the air. And a giant worm chasing Agnarr in a race to a floor which is filled with a crazy melee.
For those following along at home with the Black Book Beta, this piece was intended to appear on page 74 (replacing the photoshopped placeholder of the volcanic dragon).
@Justin,
The eerie blue lighting effects are quite good. That looks like an insanely busy scene to run on the table, but fun.
For the artwork, did you receive any sketches that show how the artist conceived and step by step went through the design of the scenes? Did you give the artists general ideas about the scenery, or did they interpret your guidelines liberally, and present you with more or less finished works that you gave the yea or nay to?
How did you decide who your artists were going to be? Just looked through every artist of fantasy work you could find online, or in your favorite games, and then contacted them?