Art: Brother Ptolemy for Nevermet Press

While I have done a few supplemental articles and encounter maps in Illustrator for Nevermet Press, Brother Ptolemy will mark the first villain around which the two-week publication cycles we work in will focus. Having recently completed the second of two pieces focused on the character, I just couldn't wait to share them any longer. This is due, in part, to a perceived maturation as an artist on my part.

I put some watermarks on them as a sort of compromise for leaking this early.

I started the first piece wanting to take more of a more comic-book, in a manner similar to the PC character portraits (which have taken a back seat along with so many other projects - sorry guys!) posted earlier. Unfortunately, I am not good a inking.

The image was drawn in pencil, then scanned and an attempt at inking in Corel Painter X was made. It was taking too long, so I took the original and inked by hand primarily using a brush pen, along with one or two others - I can't remember exactly what size/brand at the moment, but I'll update this when I find out.

As I started coloring, however, I realized that a comic-book coloring style was not traditionally one associated with the classic, painterly art styles of a certain big-name publisher of RPG's. So I steered my progress back to a more traditional painted look, albeit with the inked outlines. Additionally, we weren't sure if full-color printing was in our future, so I tried to 'play it safe' and produce something that would still look nice in a B&W book.

The second piece was inked up, but I decided to go all out and do a full color digital painting - again using Corel Painter X. I know it's cliche to hear, but I really learned a lot in working on this piece - an improved (but by no means perfected) sense of value and lighting, the importance of good photo references and making your own when necessary, working with form shadows vs. cast shadows in a dark environment . . . skills I hope to sharpen and add to on future pieces.