The Quest for Art

Up until now, Malhavoc Press has handled all the game design and editing of our print products, while the Sword & Sorcery art team has taken care of the layout and art/map acquisition. Now that we've got a few releases under our belt, however, we've decided to take on these art-related tasks ourselves, starting with The Banewarrens. This is great for us, because it's really fun to have a hand in the graphics end of things.

It's also more work.

Art is a very subjective thing. One person's quality is another person's crap. While Sue and I are no art experts, like everyone else we know what we like. It's important to us that our products look great as well as contain quality material. We already work really hard at this. We were very pleased, for example, with the art used in Book of Eldritch Might II. And I've heard from a lot of other people who have liked it as well.

But now the burden is even bigger. In the print market, covers and interior art become even more important. (Think of all those potential customers flipping through products in the store.) And we're going to be publishing new releases at a more rapid pace this year.

If you are an artist and would be interested in working with us on future projects, contact artdirector@montecook.com. (The best thing to do is to send a link to the website where your portfolio is posted.)

On the other hand, take a look at The Stuff this week. In it, you'll see a new monster and a very cool illustration done by The Unseelie Court. The artist gave me the picture and said, "Here, do something with this if you want." So I did. I have a few more of his pieces, and a piece or two by another artist who said the same thing a while back, and I hope to get around to using them. Our pal Stephen Shepherd did a great Queen of Lies-inspired piece, which we posted a while back, just because he felt like it. I say this because, if there are other artists interested in sending me work to use on the site (and only the site -- art for products is handled through the above mentioned process), you're free to do so. I make no promises that I'll use it, but I'll put it all in a file and see what inspires me when it comes to writing new articles for the site. Monsters, characters, and items probably have the best shot at getting used, but I'll not disregard anything.

On the one hand, you might say, "Hey, Monte, you're doing some kind of con job here to get free art." On the other hand, the artist in question gets a lot of exposure. The number of weekly visitors this site receives totals somewhere around seven times the number of copies a typical d20 product sells -- the artist's work is seen by a lot of eyes. So, while we're not paying money, the artist does not share his work with us for nothing.

Potentially, it works out for everyone. In any event, check out the crystal averon and enjoy.

Next week: A cool announcement (or two)!

 

Back to Line of Sight Archive Page / Back to Monte's Home Page