Me? I’m just happy to have a regular paycheck. I still have my freelance graphic art business and am working out of the home: that won’t change. But from 7 to 4, I am owned by the PDN.

This is a Tembian, an air-breathing aquatic alien race.

The Tembian spends most of its time floating on the surface, being able to fill the septa of it’s shell structures with air or water, like ballast tanks. It can move on land but only slowly and with great effort.

It filters its food from the water with the flagella structures on the underside. These also provide minor locomotive power. The forward tentacles are arranged so that four “thumbs” surround a single “finger”. Each tentacle can be used with precision against the central finger, but is fairly clumsy when used in conjunction with any other thumb.

There is no internal skeletal structure, though there is a cartilaginous system. The Tembian language is mostly whistles, grunts and clicks, vocalized through the dorsal blowhole (not shown). The Tembian does not have a conventional mouth.

The next in this series should be the Ipp, a symbiotic sapient race that feeds by cleaning the Tembian’s feeding flagella of a barnacle-like parasite. Dan gave me very little art direction on this one, only stressing that he wanted it to be “unusual”.

At the start of the project, I was given a description:

Mordeth are a stout, heavy race. They are shorter than humans, but significantly tougher and stronger. Their bones are thick and their muscles tightly packed. They are covered in leathery, brick red flesh. The Mordeth brain is located inside the chest, and like all the major organs, it is protected by their thick ribs and strong muscles.

A Mordeth’s legs are connected near the top of the blocky torso, with the body suspended from there.  This is somewhat analogous to a human’s legs being attached at the shoulders.  The arms are then floated in sockets connected to the top, outside of the legs.

As a result of their rugged build, it is difficult for most races to compete with the Mordeth in physical combat. However, the same features that make them strong and enduring also leave them clumsy and slow.

Mordeth possess senses similar to humans, but their eyes are located on a nimble stalk which allows them to see in 360 degrees. Their thick skin prevents them from having a well-defined sense of touch, but developed nerves on their feet allow them to feel the vibrations of creatures moving around them.

Like most races, Mordeth have both males and females, however to most races they are utterly indistinguishable. Females will deliver live birth to small litters of Mordeth — usually one to three. The young will immediately be removed from the mother, assessed, and incorporated into the order of society with an assigned rank and task for their life.

Mordeth are omnivorous, but prefer plants to meat. Though they are physically powerful, they are neither swift nor witty enough to hunt most animals native to their homeworld.

Armed with this description, I worked up a page of preliminary sketches. When doing a project like this, I want the anatomy to be as convincing as possible. That means figuring out how masses relate to each other, how bones and muscles (if there are any) are arranged, how such a species would wear clothing, etc. This alien was far more challenging than the Asta (the previous Featured Art piece), since the design was non-humanoid. I needed to create an armature for the unusual leg and arm joints. The torso is suspended from the legs, and the arms are mounted just above and behind.

Here is the sketch page:

After this, we then do a number of back and forth emails, refining the concept. You can see from here that compared to the final work, one of the things that Dan requested was much beefier muscularity. He wanted these things to look like they could casually tear you apart, even though they are shorter than the average human.

Once we worked out the details, I started on the final image. Here was the first proof, basically a work in progress. A lot of details are not yet present.:

The gist of the response to this was that he wanted a redder color. This is pretty simple to do with Photoshop’s Hue and Saturation controls.

The second proof was far closer to finalized:

Dan wanted two specific changes. One: remove the teeth. Not difficult. The second request was a bit more challenging. He felt (rightly) that the eyes looked a bit too much like Googly Eyes. He wanted something more alien. So I did some reading up on the various types of eyes found in  nature, trying for something A) alien, and B) useful. In general simple eyes (like ours) are better than compound eyes, at least in terms of resolution. However, really large compound eyes could approach human acuity. Then I discovered the Mantis Shrimp, which has possibly the most complicated and remarkable eyes in nature. The Mordeth doesn’t need to have exactly the same eyes, since that level of anatomical detail is pretty specialized and beyond the needs of an artistic conceit. But they could echo the design, perhaps possessing a few of the same qualities as mantis shrimp eye. To begin with each eye has three separate imaging systems, giving each one independent trinocular separation. It is theorized that the mantis shrimps eye complexity makes up for it’s miniscule brain power by doing a lot of the image interpretation “up front” as it were. For the Mordeth, this would make sense for a creature whose eyes are so far away from its brain.

Anyway, here is what I came up with:

Once these details were worked out, I presented the final proposed anatomy:

But we weren’t yet finished. This is an ongoing project, which will eventually contain a large number of alien designs. Not all aliens run around without clothes, and clothing is an important cultural artifact. We decided that for humanoid aliens such as the Asta, a detailed surface anatomy wasn’t really necessary. But for a decidedly non-human physiology, we needed both anatomy and clothing. So the final step was to envision how such an organism would clothe itself. This was added as a number of separate layers in Photoshop.

The Mordeth have a view of life similar to the Elizabethan Great Chain of Being, where everyone has a place, from Kings to peasants and down to rocks in the field, and that the universe works best when everyone recognizes and is happiest in their place. As such, I felt it was important that the Mordeth should have cues to other Mordeth as to their station, the equivalent of the different between coveralls and a power suit.

Here is the final illustration. I am omitting the sketch preliminaries here, since there were few if any differences between concept and final:

The patch on the “breast” is something I envisioned as a sort of “Here is who I am” kind of badge. It contains a number of symbols and writing to indicate station. Beyond that, the Mordeth wears a simple undergarment and an ornate tabard (Dan’s idea).

The Mordeth and Epoch of Rysos are © 2009 Dan Repperger, all rights reserved

The subject is an Asta, a member of an alien race from the Epoch of Rysos, ©Daniel Repperger.
I’ve linked to the first video in the series (there are 12, plus a conclusion). The whole series can be found here.

This post is for suggestions on how to reduce the stress that many of us feel around this time of year, and perhaps re-capture an appreciation of the things that are good about it. I’m using Christmas in my examples, but feel free to apply this to other holidays which cause you or someone you know stress. If you have more solutions, please post them as comments.

1) Christmas is not a calendar date.
We were being really dragged down by the amount of traveling we were doing on what is ostensibly a day of celebration and enjoyment. One of the best solutions we have found is to make the day AFTER Christmas (Boxing Day) the day for visiting family. We don’t have to rush out the door, the child[ren] get to play with their toys or just play and be with immediate family.
We did not opt for the day before, because our daughter needs her sleep, which is hard enough on Christmas Eve without adding in hours in the car and getting excited by playing with cousins all day.

2) Spread out the presents
This is for families with children.
Some families have a rule about presents only being opened on Christmas morning, others allow one present to be opened on CHristmas Eve. My suggestion is to spread the presents out, particularly if you have lots of adult relatives mailing in kids’ gifts. If you are a parent, or around small children, you have probably witnessed Present Shock, the sensory overload that comes from opening too many presents too fast. Tags get mixed up, the child only remembers the last present opened, and then is faced with too many choices about what to do next. For a week before and a week after (or some other time period) open a present a day. Make a little ritual of it, doing it at the same time of day if possible.
The child gets to really appreciate the gift, and if you have them write a thank you card the same day, that task is spread out as well, and the child does not have to be reminded who gave them what.
Save the big family or Santa present(s) for Christmas morning (you know, the bicycle or video game system or what have you), as well as the stocking. But that board game from Uncle Max might actually be played and a cogent thank you note written if that is the only present for the day. Even the smallest present gets appreciated.

3) Stockings
This may not be for everyone, but it helped in our house growing up. Stockings are kid-distractors for parents who want to sleep late or cook breakfast before the morning rituals. A stocking is a “gift from Santa” whether your family embraces the tradition as “real” or not. Parents do not need to be present. Put in toys, puzzles, dexterity games, Rubik’s cubes, etc. in there to give you time to have a leisurely morning.

4) Commercialization
Do your shopping early, throughout the year if possible, or on-line even. Unless going to the mall and listening to Muzak Christmas carols and seeing Christmas displays is what you need to get your Christmas Spirit moving.
Mail out Seasonal cards. If you do this early enough, and regularly, far-flung relatives will realize that you are not getting them an expensive gift, and they don’t need to get you one. Christmas presents are for kids, really. Adults can buy the things they want. Closer family members can get simple gifts. Communicate this honestly and early and you might be able to reduce a sense of dreaded obligation. Hopefully, you don’t have a Christmas Zealot in your family to deal with, but coordinated action from the rest of the family might be able to reduce even this.

5) Married couples: Compromise
Be understanding that your spouse is different from you inside and probably has a different list of what they need to make the holiday enjoyable. Give them space if they need it, or follow them on some of their Christmas rituals. Give and take, and be honest with each other. Don’t make ultimatums or use guilt as a weapon. If you have a strong marriage, you probably already know this one, however.

6) Reducing the Gimme instinct in children
Organize some sort of community-benefiting activity. Helping with a charity drive, donating old toys and books, helping at church, anything that isn’t about getting. Make it just as normal, regular and important as the rest of the Christmas traditions. With any luck, regular exposure to this sort of attitude will instill good habits in later life and build a new young person with a good civic attitude. At the very least, you’ll be helping some folks who don’t have all the opportunities for happiness that you do.

Little Orphant Annie

If you missed last year’s offering, here is The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven

Pulp World 1935

In order to give these maps flavor, I decided to go with a period look. I wanted the maps to be interesting props, evoking the feeling of the setting as well as being an informative guide.

The first step was of course, the maps themselves. This proved to be no small challenge. There are numerous sources for maps with modern or recent boundaries, but when you start to dig into historical eras, you quickly discover that sources disagree—sometimes wildly—about place names and even the geographical extent of whole countries. Part of the reason is that national boundaries are nearly always in a state of flux; map makers of the period often had to make decisions on what source to follow (i.e. who to listen to for disputed territory). Also, place names rise and fall in favor. No one nowadays refers to Persia or Leningrad, though the places are roughly the same locations now that they are called St. Petersburg (again), or Iran. Peking is Beijing now, of course. These problems multiply enormously when you are dealing with sources ranging over the period of a decade or more, and when the maps originate from different countries.

This was probably the most educational series of maps I ever produced, since it forced me to learn quite a lot of history very rapidly. It also impressed upon me the enormity of the transformative event that was World War II. Just look at the part of the map depicting Africa and compare it to a modern one. WWII put Africa through a blender in more ways than one.

The production of the series was complicated, comprised of detailed maps for each continent, and a special time-spanning map detailing German Expansion from 1930 to 1939. For this article, I am presenting the world map, and the German expansion map.

I had continent outlines from the very helpful source of the Cartographic Research Laboratory of the University of Alabama. They were very nice to give me permission to use them for a commercial product. There are a lot more sources for such maps these days, but some sources are of doubtful provenance.

Of course, the continent outlines were only the start. I had to re-draw every border as painstakingly accurately as possible, using a 1935 atlas as a guide. The atlas was lent to me by the publisher for the duration of the project. It was extremely useful.

World Map without treatment

Once the base art was created (using the wonderfully period-feeling Copperplate typeface for the main titles), I needed to give it the period feel I mentioned earlier. I used two techniques for this project. The first was to create a textured surface to give the feel that the map was printed on an actual piece of paper. (Well, of course the map really was printed on paper, in the game book, but you know what I mean).

I took an ordinary sheet of bond paper and folded it map-fashion. I also carefully dog-eared some of the edges and corners. I then photographed it. I purposely did not scan it. A scanner uses a source of light at right angles to the scanned surface. This eliminates cast shadows. For this project I needed those shadows to be very prominent. The viewer needed to see the folds and creases very clearly. So I photographed it in bright sunlight, with the sun at sufficient angle to give me good relief. Then I took the photo into Photoshop, corrected it for lens distortion (a square is never really square in a photograph), removed all color, and heightened the contrast. This gave me an overlay I could drop on top of the map to give it a real folded look.

Folded Paper Texture

The second feature all of these maps had, was a prop. Each map had some real-world object sitting on it to give it some character and enhance the verisimilitude. I fortunately had enough things sitting around the house, or that I could borrow from friends, that looked like they might come from the era and area. The Africa map had a pair of spears my father had bought in Africa in the 1960’s. The map of the Middle East had an old-fashioned oil lamp (Aladdin-style), and so forth. The World map had an old bellows-style camera, to symbolize a world that was just starting to see the exotic sites of foreign lands through photography. This particular camera is likely from the forties, but it’s close enough.

Old Fashioned Bellows Camera

For the German map I had the extreme fortune of having a friend (Thanks, Kevin!) who had some props he had bought for a costume party: a replica luger pistol, and an SS dagger. I don’t know how accurate the dagger was, but it just looked perfect for the image of a nation gearing up for brutal conquest. I was particular pleased that the arrangement allowed me to do some foreshadowing by placing the dagger through France and the pistol pointed at Warsaw.

German Expansion, 1930-1939

These items were also photographed in bright sunlight, against a white illustration board background. In many cases, this gave me an actual shadow I could incorporate into the final composite image. Sometimes I needed to re-draw the shadow for better composition.

The maps were created in Adobe Illustrator. The paper texture and the objects were manipulated in Photoshop and dropped into place in Illustrator, so that I could move them around for best effect. Once the maps were approved, I output the entire image as one file, in Photoshop. This is the file that went to the customer. It’s safer that way, rather than sending a customer the working Illustrator file. There is far less that can go wrong before the image gets to the printer.

into this:

There really isn’t much more to the Photoshop file than the black and white image you see in the first shot. Each design element is on a separate layer. Each layer has a series of effects that control things like beveling, shiny-ness, color and gradient, texture, drop shadows and so forth. Once the base design is achieved, the majority of time is spent in tweaking all of these individual layers and their effects to achieve just the look you want. This same design could have been made to look as if chiseled on stone or carved from polished gemstones without touching the base art, but only manipulating the layer effects.

My first three sketches were as follows:

Sketch 1) I didn’t like MMA on the same line as “Warhammer” since it made the letters too skinny. Since the design would otherwise have a less than powerful “L” shape, I added them as a banner off to the right. Wasn’t entirely happy with it.

Sketch 2) Better lettering. Now it looks like that hammer is having to do some work.

Sketch 3) Here is where inspiration strikes. By writing out the full title, I can put them on an arc. This does several things. It clears up the ambiguity of the acronym, MMA. The arc gives the feel of the hammer swing in motion, giving a dynamism the former designs lacked. Finally, it pulls the design elements together into a unified whole, framing the main character and pulling the action from the face down to the body of the logo type.

I sent all three to the customer, however. Sometimes it helps to stack your odds of doing a design you really like, by including some of your early rejections. This can backfire if the client winds up liking a design you really have no confidence in, or affinity to.

This did in fact happen to a degree after the first round of proofs. The cusomer liked the design from Sketch 3, but preferred the spidery “weak” lettering from Sketch 1. His biggest complain however, was regarding the horns on the helmet. He was not a fan of the traditional fantasy Viking-esque helmet (as an aside, real Vikings did not wear horns, in defiance of Hollywood’s insistence), and asked for horns that pointed more downward. I gave him sketches 4 and 5. I really thought that the thinner lettering was wrong for the design, but you can’t really push something the client doesn’t like. So I gave him the new horn design, and offered to show it to him with the:

Sketch 4) Skinny lettering

Sketch 4) and the blocky lettering

Bingo. The client was now on board with the heavy lettering, but the comment that came back on the horns was “A little longer horns and it will be perfect.”. The art director at Empty Room Studios (my go-between on this), suggested, “I would go with something large and intimidating, Keith. Perhaps something ridged like a ram’s horn but curving down like you have them. I’m thinking something more “video gamish” instead of your traditional fantasy. Does that make sense?”

This gave us Sketch 6) The horns are longer, but still not enough.

The response was, “The client is still not sure about the horns. Can we try ram horns?”  This time, I took no chances. Instead of pulling horns out of the ether of my imagination, I did an image search on ram horns, looking through many pictures of Bighorn Sheep until I really stared to get a feel for them and what was possible.

Sketch 7) This was the hit. It got the thumbs up to move forward.

I will reserve the technical details of creating a digital painting for a different post, since this one is more about the evolutionary process of creating a design to match the client’s needs. Instead, I will skip to the rendered piece.

Final Painting 1) This has all sorts of textures applied to the lettering and to the arch. The big beefy barbarian at once looks powerful yet kind of goofy. This makes him engaging as a symbol while still retaining that “badass” quality the client specified.

The client liked the piece in principle, but still wasn’t quite happy with it. The comment that came back was, “He likes everything, but wants it darker. . . more evil I suppose. He mentioned the movie Pathfinder and the Deathdealer paintings. I think he wants something more “gritty”. He mentioned dark colors like grey, black, brown, and red as his favorites.”

For those not into fantasy art, The Death Dealer is a classic painting by the grandmaster of fantasy illustration, Mr. Frank Frazetta. Pathfinder is a pastiche of this painting by Michael Muller for the eponymous film.

If this were pre-digital, I would be up a creek. I’d need to re-do the entire painting. And it would be my fault for not going through the steps of color roughs first. One of my bad habits is that I don’t like to work on a piece in dribs and drabs. Once I am in the mood, I want to go! This is a bad instinct for a graphic artist.

Fortunately, changing the color cast of a piece is not that drastic for modern technology. The painting was on many layers and had some complex effects, so it wasn’t a matter of “pushing the darker and grittier button”, but it wasn’t a terrible task to re-work the color. It also gave me the impetus to change a few things I wasn’t entirely happy with, such as the teeth.

Here is the final piece as the client accepted it:

For those curious about the client, it appears that they now manufacture and sell martial arts apparel.