STR-DEX-CON-INT-WIS-CHA-ART
January 4, 2016 10:32 AM   Subscribe

Concept artist Tom Rhodes asks fans to submit detailed descriptions of their RPG characters. He then illustrates a random selection each week on RnD Fantasy.

You can see all the character art on the channel's companion blog.
posted by overeducated_alligator (13 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sweet.
posted by canine epigram at 10:40 AM on January 4, 2016


Thanks for the recommendation. Great art and descriptions.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 11:10 AM on January 4, 2016


I was surprised at how much effort the artist put into the underlying layers of skeleton, muscles, clothing layers. I'm coming from a more superhero-comics based style of drawing (and am far less accomplished and professional that Mr. Rhodes) where just the basics of, for instance, the rib cage would be sketched out first.

He also really knows his RPG worlds judging by the descriptions he gives on the blog of how he comes up with the concepts. Impressive process and end results.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 11:19 AM on January 4, 2016


Why does Davor's chain end in a swastika?

At the end of the whip chain is also the key that was once used to lock him up as a tip. I thought that would be cool.

...
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 12:36 PM on January 4, 2016


Do old keys really look like that? It feels so weird.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 12:38 PM on January 4, 2016


Do old keys really look like that? It feels so weird.

It's not an unreasonable design for a key for a warded lock. Consider some of these historical examples.
posted by jedicus at 1:04 PM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


This one in particular is not far off from the one Rhodes used.
posted by jedicus at 1:04 PM on January 4, 2016


Maybe he was locked up by Nazis.

Wonder how many submissions he has backed up? These illos look pretty sweet.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:13 PM on January 4, 2016


I noticed that he is using Photoshop as his illustration tool. Although I understand that Photoshop is great for the manipulation of layers and masks, wouldn't Adobe Illustrator be a better tool because of it's brushes and palettes?
posted by In The Annex at 2:02 PM on January 4, 2016


My initial reaction was: wow, not only is his art good, but this is so good of him.

In high school, the nerd thing to do was to obsess over your characters and their tragic backstory and to draw them, or to pester someone more accomplished to do it. I certainly did that. My notebooks are full of hard-ass White Wolf characters that are all now completely embarrassing, the more so because I did not yet realize what "cultural appropriation" was, and that it is, in fact, a bad thing. But we outgrew it. I remember when a disappointing online boyfriend came to visit a friend in the first year of college, and the complaint (one of many complaints) was, "He spent half an hour in the comic shop looking for a 'visual template' of his vampire character."

This guy is doing a fine thing in giving people their hearts' desire, and I salute him.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:17 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


In The Annex > Although I understand that Photoshop is great for the manipulation of layers and masks, wouldn't Adobe Illustrator be a better tool because of it's brushes and palettes?

The names of these programs are somewhat deceptive. Over the years, Photoshop has acquired a lot of features aimed at people creating new art in it. Natural media brushes, all kinds of stuff. Illustrator, on the other hand, is kind of arcane and sideways, and makes a lot of simple things pretty awkward. Illustrator is also really terrible at working as a simulation of "paint strokes on canvas"; if you dive into it by grabbing various brushes and making strokes, you'll quickly find it slowing down to unusable speeds.

(I say this as someone who has used Illustrator as her main artistic medium since 2000, and who is working on a couple of painterly graphic novels in it.)

A huge percentage of all digital painting you see nowadays is done in Photoshop. Stuff like this, the images in an RPG book, concept art for video games and movies... there are other tools with their own followings, but a hell of a lot of artists these days use PS.
posted by egypturnash at 3:05 PM on January 4, 2016


Photoshop, with the right set of brushes (custom made or 3rd party purchased) is way better suited for this over illustrator.
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:34 PM on January 4, 2016


I was surprised at how much effort the artist put into the underlying layers of skeleton, muscles, clothing layers. I'm coming from a more superhero-comics based style of drawing (and am far less accomplished and professional that Mr. Rhodes) where just the basics of, for instance, the rib cage would be sketched out first.

It's impressive! That's why it's even more of a surprise when you get to the third guy down and he's carrying a massively oversized FF7-style battleaxe.
posted by ocular shenanigans at 6:38 AM on January 6, 2016


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