Shadowcore: April 2012

April 23, 2012

Halls of Undermountain

Halls of Undermountain, the newest adventure supplement for Dungeons & Dragons, was released last week and I had three pieces in the book. In addition to this release there was an accompanying article in Dungeon magazine last week, Trobriand's Machinations, that expanded on the threats of Undermountain and I had one piece in there as well. Bring on the monsters...

Wroot the Goblin

Snake Curse

Darktentacles

Scaladars

I had a ton of fun with all of these and wish I could have taken on more since the local and situations offered up so many fun possibilities. I have a special place in my art heart for D&D so I relish anytime I get to work on a D&D project. Being able to design new monsters for the D&D universe is just an added bonus. Though I have contributed to both Dungeon and Dragon magazines in the past few years it has been three years since I got to contribute to a bound D&D book, so these pieces were of special significance to me. Thanks goes out to Kate Irwin for getting me involved in all of this monster fill fun and for offering up great direction!

April 12, 2012

Mage Wars

About a year ago Arcane Wonders contacted me about some illustrations for a game they were developing called Mage Wars. I was hesitant at first, as I've had some bad experiences with independent publishers. But, they were up-front with a contract, and they're a dream client to work with. The development team had concise ideas for their archetypal mages (and combat arenas), but they also gave me a lot of free reign in designing the characters and environments.

They asked for a much more vibrant palette than I usually use, and it was a lot of fun to amp up the color and let the sparks fly. The box set comes out this summer, and I'm looking forward to working on the expansion packs.

Play testing has been incredibly successful at conventions (they even printed HUGE banners of my cover work! :), and I hope the game does really well. Not just for my future employment, but for a wonderful team who is truly dedicated to making an innovative new game.

www.magewars.com