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What kind of Artwork for new TNE sourcebook

kafka47

kafka47

SOC-14 5K
Marquis
As those on the boards know I am a big fan of artwork. What type of artwork would we like to see?

Cyberpunk style a la covers of Fading Suns products.

Cartoonish situations a la SJG GT offerings.

Realistic pencil drawings a la Keith bros and some of T20.

Anamie a la Heavy Gear and other parts of T4.

Rich textured art in the form of Blair Reynolds or Fading Suns interiors.

Horrific art in the Kevin McCann, as suggested in an earlier post.

The same style of art that dominated the original TNE?

Military art in the style of SJG's Secret Ops, Twilight 2000, Ground Forces, etc.

Others...

My suggestion would be for Horrific Art, to set the product apart from other T20 items and give a new look and combine it with same art style as FS interiors...but, I would interested to see what others (especially, MJD) has to say.
 
Is this a poll? Hmmm.
I don't have any SJG stuff; I have Marc Miller's T-4 first book, and now a xeroxed copy of Pocket Empires (Thank you Falkayn!).

let me put it to you this way.

"I *do not* want to see the same style as was used in TNE. *ever* again*.

What kind of art do I want to see?There's a better question!

Clear inked work. Down and gritty looking. Cartoonesque? whatever do you infer by that? Stuff that was in MT & MT/HT sourcebooks would do me fine.
 
Clear inked work. Down and gritty looking. Cartoonesque? whatever do you infer by that? Stuff that was in MT & MT/HT sourcebooks would do me fine.
Click to expand...
Cartoonesque, for me that includes the animie stuff seen in Emperor's Vehicles or better represented by GT Main Rulebook & BTC stuff. BTW, it is not a survey but an attempt to get some new art out there and if people can suggest artists to do the stuff...all the better!
 
My first choice for Traveller artwork is always going to be the old-school stylings of David Dietrick, Liz Danforth, Rob Caswell, Blair Reynolds, and that guy who did the sketch-drawings in the old GDW books (Barr?). Bryan Gibson's gear and vehicles and William Keith's spaceships and aliens are great but I don't like their 'scene' pictures (Gibson's are too cartoony, Keith's just plain amateurish). To me T20's artwork looks a LOT like TNE's (not counting those last couple releases where GDW appeared to be using free clip-art) and I'm not crazy about it -- too comic-booky for my tastes. Computer renderings (a la Jesse DeGraff) are always welcome. I loved A.C Farley's covers for MT (Rebellion Sourcebook, WBH) and think David Mattingly's T20 cover is the best-looking Traveller artwork ever. I wouldn't mind seeing some atmospheric stuff a la Transhuman Space or some of the WW books but figure that's probably outside of QLI's budgetary range (and possibly Marc Miller's acceptable content guidelines :eek: ). But really I'm not all that particular. As long as it's not heinously ugly (T4's Milieu:0, the aforementioned late-period TNE) I'll hardly even notice -- the words and numbers are what I'm interested in!
 
too cartoony?! agh!


all a matter of taste, sorry its not to yours. Been working on traveller for longer than I care to think....and everyone has their own ideas of whats best, but its that diversity that makes traveller fans so interesting.

thanks for the honesty.

Bryan
 
I didn't mean to bash your style, really! Heck, your guns and vehicles and Imperial battle dress are as definitively Traveller to me as any of Bill Keith's aliens or starships! It's just something about the people in your 'scene' drawings that doesn't quite click for me, and 'cartoony' seemed a convenient descriptive shorthand. I still think yours is the best interior art in the T20 book (and was the best art period in the entire T4 line) and can only wish I could draw 1/20th as well...

No hard feelings?
 
Hard feelings? never!

I wasn't joking... I appreciate the honesty!
Granted the linework might seem a tad cartoony, or anime, I freely admit... when i started I learned to draw from comics and manga, so that style is a real part of my work, i think you hit the nail dead on.

starngely, it is also the byproduct of working for the restrictions of the medium, remember, only in the last few years have printing processes come to the point that we can reproduce the artwork in full tone. Time was black and white work had to be crisp adnd focussed on line rather than shade, simply put the technology wasn't there.

Now, we can do much better... i am hoping in some of the upcoming stuff we'll see some of my shaded and color work...

Bryan

Thanx for the compliments, like any artist, that egoboost is always welcome!
 
I had forgotten about the realistic computer stylized painting of Jessie in my list.

But, the things I see in Transhuman Space (if you mean Christopher Sly's work), I would rather see in Milieu 2100 as I think they will better served there to give a feeling for the vastness of the Vilani Imperium and the relatively small Terran forces. Unless, we want to go back to the style "Space: Above and Beyond" (television show) which seemed to be the preference of early GDW designers if you look at Fighting Ships of the Third Imperium or Imperium board game, especially the Japanese cover.

What are the possibilities of getting more colour work into sourcebooks these days? I see more and more companies are printing in Canada, I presume because it is cheaper and the software is compactible. Could we dare to hope for more full colour sourcebooks?
 
My preference would be the realistic, space-operaesque style that was used during the CT/MT years. I don't like the manga style, horror style or any other style that detracts from trying to emulate the feel of a "real" universe.

My Cr0.02.
 
I want to see art that show the Traveller universe as it is. Realistic-looking people, ships, places - nothing cartoony or abstract. I'm stuck between the fantastic cover of Gurps:Starports and Bryan Gibson's awesome Imperial Marines on Grav Belts from T20 to decide my all-time favourite piece of Traveller art, both of which qualify for very different reasons.

Shane
 
One of my favorite illustrations is the Marine powered armor trooper, and the strephonist with the gunshot hand, on the wall, "Strephon Lives *splatter*!" in the front of MT/Hard Times".
--That kind of grit/ shade work/ and ink.

Some of the other illus. in the source book I could've lived without... Variety however, was never lacking.

But if we're looking hard at what "we the fans want to see", the balance sheet on this is this--Our opinions matter to the Hunter & Coy. Ancients..
BUT: its They who *have* to find artists who can
(A) meet this vision,
(B) remain within budget,
&(C)most importantly, work within the deadlines the Art director sets for them. Produce, and on time, in a nutshell.

Lotsa talent out there. Not everybody can do it on command, on time, & *finished*. Not everyone is affordable, either. One of the things I learned hanging round artists at Scifi-Cons in days gone by...

YMMV, OTOH!
 
For the love of God, not Christopher Shy. The art he did for Transhuman Space was entirely the wrong thing for the setting in my opinion (and a lot of other peoples' too). He's great for horror, but bloody awful for sci-fi. Traveller - even TNE - is just not the sort of style he could be capable of illustrating well - he's too blurry, smeary, fuzzy, dark, and usually just plain wrong (I realise most of those mean the same thing, I'm just emphasising the point
)
Someone who can do nice sharp, clear, and above all illustrative artwork would be fine though. But please - not Shy.
 
Blair Reynolds (late of call of cthulhu, formerly of Traveller) would be excellent. His DGP stuff was great.

I have to disagree about Christopher Shy. I think his dark, brooding, moody art would be excellent for TNE. Cemetary worlds, burned out planets, forgotten tech. It would look great!

If money is no problem, Jim Burns and Tim Bradstreet. Love Jesse to do the ship/tech designs in 3D.

My 2creds.

-S.
:cool:
 
Oh yeah. No cartoons. No anime. Not very Traveller too me. There are a few great anime illustrators but for the most part its all too child-like for me.

My 2creds.

-S.
:cool:
 
Originally posted by Solo:
Blair Reynolds (late of call of cthulhu, formerly of Traveller) would be excellent. His DGP stuff was great.

I have to disagree about Christopher Shy. I think his dark, brooding, moody art would be excellent for TNE. Cemetary worlds, burned out planets, forgotten tech. It would look great!

If money is no problem, Jim Burns and Tim Bradstreet. Love Jesse to do the ship/tech designs in 3D.

My 2creds.

-S.
:cool:
Click to expand...
I agree on Blair Reyneolds.

If you want dark, brooding and moody, yet still clear artwork, at least for the cover, then I would suggest trying to get Brom. His style fascinates me, and he can do non-fantasy/horror yet still incredibly dark art like noone else.

Simon Jester
file_23.gif
 
Unfortunately, we cannot hope for Blair Reynolds. Some of the companies that produced Traveller (he did not specify DGP or GDW) still owe him money therefore he will not illustrate anything that makes money for Traveller. So if anyone can master shades like he can...

I would have to concur a darker vision is perhaps in order. However, I think that Brom & Chris Shy's work best in colour being spoiled from what I see Transhuman Space. Plus, I am hoping that Jon and company are going to use the work to illustrate a gorgeous Milieu 2100 sourcebook. Who did the art for the Phenoix Rising, that was pretty foreboding, now we need to see some more of the Empty Worlds and Shattered Imperium to compensate for the hope that supposely the 4I represents, if the idea of a corrupt power has not fired MJD's imagination...
 
Just my 02Cr.

For space scenes I'd like to see Jesse DeGraff's work - he has redefined my view of space vessels. One thing I would not like to see is starships like T4 - just too 60-70's SciFi cover for me.

I can't comment on the T20 artwork as yet because I haven't managed to unpack that far yet (just moved)
 
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