Art Tier Now Open!
Hello Everyone!
The Art Tier is now live! As you may know I’ve spent a while planning this, and now everything is in place to make it happen!
So what can you expect from the Art Tier?
• Each month I’ll send you a handful (meaning 3 - 6) portraits, suitable for NPCs, Player Characters and monsters in your games.
• I’ll also paint a couple of scenic images - landscapes, locations and the like. Sometimes they’ll have figures in them, sometimes not.
Largely these images will relate to that month’s theme, but I won’t constrain myself too hard if I have a cool idea and I want to share!
I’ll also share some stories and insights from my time as a working artist since 1999. These will be videos and written pieces, produced as inspiration strikes.
Experiments!
Style-wise there will be a good mix: some more polished pieces, some sketches, some monotone, some colour. The core stuff will remain solidly as promised, with weird stylistic and technical experiments shared for interests sake as additional, bonus files.
There will be some things I create which I share with everyone, both because I like to do so, and to encourage folks to join the Art Tier!
It’s a conversation
I’d like to engage you all in the process too - I want to try and encourage some conversation about how you use the art tier benefits in your games, and how I can improve them for your use, and what you’d like to see. For example, what’s the best format for VTT NPCs in your games? I’ve heard a few different requests, so it’d be cool to have a conversation about that.
And I’m happy to chat about what you’d like to see in terms of content. Once I get into my stride, I’ll see if offering a more formal process to make requests for NPCs and locations might work. Initially I want to feel my way, and see how it works out, much like I did by beginning things with the maps.
Discord is coming
With that conversational aim in mind, I’m looking into setting up a discord channel for the patreon, especially for the Art Tier, though I suspect it’ll be nice to be able to chat to everyone more directly. I’ll update when I know what I’m doing!
Art Tier Benefits for August
Lastly, to reassure those of you who've been kind enough to already sign up for the Art Tier - there will be Art Tier benefits in August, even though we’re hard up against the end of the month! I’m just sorting the files now, fretting about how nothing is good enough, but then that’s entirely normal... :)
Thanks as ever for all your support!
Jon
Comments (14)
Very good! Just repainting the elk elf from your BtW cover with Faber Castells. Learned a lot but seeing you actually painting persons in your style on a vid stream would enlighten us further ;-)
A NPC painting video like the Beoring Dwelling Landscape would be cool :-)
You got it! I can livecast from my iPad Pro, so I’ll do a couple of private runs of that and share the recordings and then who knows? Maybe we’ll risk some actual live painting sessions. Sounds terrifying but could be fun!
Now that I have upgraded, I see you have already done exactly that!
I was hoping, as I saw the comment notifications and the upgrade notification it would all come clear. Do let me know if you have any preference for how the NPCs are presented, and I'll do my bets to fit that.
I play using a virtual tabletop software. What would be really useful to me is to have images that could be used as avatars for both PCs and NPCs. They wouldn’t have to be square as long as they are something that could be cropped down to a square without cutting out too much. I hope I’m making sense here.
Yeah, I'd love to see Mogdred with his Dragonhelm!
I'm sure I can do something you could use for that, sure!
First off, thanks again for the last minute Marsh map. We didn't QUITE get to the marshes yet this Monday (the players got bogged down politicking with Thranduil and discovered, much to their dismay, that The Easterly Inn has been ransacked). But I'm thinking we will def get there next Monday. As for character portraits, obv I prefer NPC portraits that are useful for TOR. I generally don't need full body sketches as I create head/bust portraits using tokentool for Roll20.
If you're looking for specific NPC ideas, I'm in the process of starting a WFRP 4e sandbox game set in Marienburg... One of the major villains is a high-ranking priest of Morr who is also a secret worshipper of Stromfels. I have nothing else than that, but would love to see your interpretation of a priest-cultist... Another big villain in my campaign is a gang boss, trying to pretend to be a vampire, but isn't actually one. (S)He's still convincing - the ruse isn't meant to be humourous. And finally, a female Tilean halfling chef called Paola. Pretty in an earthy, wholesome way.
Thanks for the ideas Matt! It's cool to consider what I can provide that would cover those bases.
OK, so I've just joined the Art Tier. Happy to give you the support, Jon! In terms of NPC format, I prefer square or portrait headshots with a bit of torso. File type doesn't bother me, I'll probably convert anyway for different media requirements. Content-wise, as I said earlier, I'd love to see at least one or two humans every month. I love sketches, too! Because they're rough and unfinished, it actually helps the imagination to fill in the gaps a bit more, so please provide lots of sketches, too!
This is really great news, and I'm tempted, but I'd only really be interested in human characters. Are you likely to always provide at least one or two human portraits each month?
Hi Matt - there will be a selection, but I'm pretty confident there will always be one or two humans.