Untold Media
Concept-7: Power Card Art - Grapple, 2nd week of November
We're continuing our new regular series here on Untoldthegame.com; it's one that will give a bit of insight into how our awesome artists go about doing their inspiring work and will hopefully delight your eyes along the way. It's called "Concept-7", because we're going to expose some of our concept work to you (to let you see what's coming down the pipe for Untold) by asking the artist who did the piece 7 questions about that piece in particular.
We hope you find it engaging and interesting! Please let us know what you think by posting a comment or responding in our forums -- we'd love to hear from you!
This week, we're getting a super sneak preview of some concept art from an upcoming Power Card for Untold. It's a Power that's well known to most RPG'ers and it's called "Grapple". Basically, it's the ability to grab someone and hold onto them; we gave this iconic Power to one of our newest artists to illustrate. A charming fellow by the name of Moshik Gulst, who contacted us out of the blue no less! (There's a lesson in that for all you would-be illustrators - NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED!)
Early on, we'd decided to have all of our Power Card art to feature our iconic characters, and we selected Barnabus, the second High-bred we ever created, for this particular Power. Here's the Art Direction, or AD, that we sent over to Moshik:
"Barnabus grapples with a copy of himself. We need to see that the "Evil Barnabus" is just that – obviously evil (red irises, pointed teeth, etc.). The "Good Barnabus" is behind the "Evil Barnabus" and has the "Evil Barnabus" in a choke hold. We can see that the "Good Barnabus" is straining to hold his twin in check while he reaches with his other hand towards a holstered pistol."
And here are the questions!
Q1. Regarding this piece, how did you come about your initial design?
A1. Well, the basic design for the character was already done but I tried to emphasize the "desert-ish" feeling of the character. I'm from the middle east so it wasn't that hard (j/k). This card deals with the same character but from different perspective of morality and I didn't want to do the good and bad versions too far from each other so I took the color as the main difference between them
Q2. What or who inspired you for this piece?
A2. That's a question that it's always hard for me to answer because I usually don't take inspiration from something exclusively but I think the illustrations come as a mixture of old and new stuff that runs in my head over the years. So right now I have on the shelf some old Joe Madureira stuff, Tomer Hanuka and Ashley Wood. I guess that's the closest thing to inspiration although I'm not sure you can see it in the illustration itself. When I colored it I noticed it reminded me a little Jim Steranko style, so I guess you can add that also to the mixture.
Q3. What do you think is the best part of this piece; what is its most striking or impressive element?
A3. I liked the faces of the struggling characters and the black ink that is increasing it. Also I like the hands of the good Barnabus - they are big and muscular and it emphasize the struggle.
Q4. How do you hope this piece will make your audience feel?
A4. "Where is my little brother? There's something I need to show him…"
Q5. If you could change one element of this concept, what would it be?
A5. Doing the bad Barnabus a lot scarier, twisted and terrifying, but then again he will be hard to be recognized as the bad side of himself on this one-shot.
Q6. What medium did you use for this piece and what drove that selection?
A6. Pen and ink for the B/W and digital color painting. the black ink was chosen to give dramatic expression and mood and the color was influenced by Jim Steranko thing that turned up in my mind, as I mentioned before.
Q7. How long did this piece take you to compete?
A7. Well I'm not sure because I didn't work on the illustration in one step. I guess a day's work.
And the finished piece:
We're very thankful that Moshik was able to sit down with us for our November Concept-7 interview. Moshik's a very busy guy who's WOW'ed us with his broad and varied styles and talents. He's done with his short stint with Wandering Men Studios and Untold for now, but rest assured that he'll be back! Once he's done with his current big project, he's promised to come back and do some more awesome work for us!
We're looking forward to that, suren, but in the meantime, be sure and keep tabs on what Moshik's up to by visiting his blog, checking out and befriending his Flickr page, and (if you read Hebrew) reading his weekly web-comic, entitled, "A Seconde Before It Spills!"
As you can see, Moshik is one talented and busy guy! We're honored to know him and have his work as a part of Untold history! If you want to see even more of Moshik's awesome art, be sure and subscribe to our newsletter - you'll be seeing more of his stuff inside!
Concept-7: ASEAS Tiger AI - 2nd week of October
We're continuing our new regular series here on Untoldthegame.com; it's one that will give a bit of insight into how our awesome artists go about doing their inspiring work and will hopefully delight your eyes along the way. It's called "Concept-7", because we're going to expose some of our concept work to you (to let you see what's coming down the pipe for Untold) by asking the artist who did the piece 7 questions about that piece in particular.
We hope you find it engaging and interesting! Please let us know what you think by posting a comment or responding in our forums -- we'd love to hear from you!
This week, we're getting a super sneak preview of some concept art from an upcoming Minion Card for Untold. This guy is called An ASEAS Tiger AI and is one of the many frighteningly powerful Artificial Intelligences employed by the ASEAS High-bred group, situated in South-east Asia. This piece is being done by an old friend of the Wandering Men - none other than Thomas Babbey!
Q1. Regarding this piece, how did you come about your initial design?
A1. The initial design was quite simple; Head to the zoo and watch the tigers! I cheated a bit, to be honest, and watched/sketched the lions instead. While doing so, it occurred to me that a big cat's slinky, flexible walk would be near-impossible to replicate in the aesthetic already established for the ASEAS faction. The solution? Bio-mechanics. Between those armor plates is a flexible, silicone-based synthetic muscle tissue that makes up most of this robot. The heavy dependence on synth tissue in this bot makes it more agile, flexible and stealthy than your average ASEAS, at the expense of making it more vulnerable..Tissue shreds easier to bullets than armor plates do, of course.
Q2. What or who inspired you for this piece?
A2. Once again, I'll have to credit part of the inspiration to the lion exhibit and it's neighboring jaguar exhibit at the San Diego zoo. I should probably credit illustrator Keith Thompson with inspiring me to constantly re-think the "norms" of the sci-fi/fantasy genre, and give a head-nod in the direction of the Terminator movies, too
Q3. What do you think is the best part of this piece; what is its most striking or impressive element?
A3. Once I flesh it out (pun intended? I'm not even sure anymore..) I think the most striking part would be the tissue in contrast to the armor plates. No gears, no pistons, minimal wires..Just the stark contrast of synthetic tissue and metal.
Q4. How do you hope this piece will make your audience feel?
A4. I'm hoping it will make people feel slightly unnerved, to be honest. Semi-organic robots have always been a bit unsettling to me, whether it's a Blade Runner Replicant or an ASEAS AI. There's that border where the familiar and the completely alien meet, were one simply feels uncomfortable; that's what I'm shooting for.
Q5. If you could change one element of this concept, what would it be?
A5. Hmm, that's a tough one, as I'm having a lot of fun with this guy. Maybe I'd like him to be a bit more lanky, with a more emaciated feel to him. Really stretch those limbs out, and tuck that stomach just past the "ribcage" even more, to add to that uncomfortable vibe I mentioned; It could really push that look even further, the look of something unnatural, based off of the natural.
Q6. What medium did you use for this piece and what drove that selection?
A6. For the sketch you're seeing, I used Photoshop. It's a quick tool, and that's really the only reason I'd ever use it; speed and exploration. However, I do have a sketchbook I keep of all my animal studies, many of which I used to help me with this design. Although many artists prefer to work entirely in digital, I *highly* recommend keeping a real-life sketchbook for life-studies, as the knowledge you get from such a practice is priceless.
Q7. How long did this piece take you to compete?
A7. When you cut out all the time sketching, gawking, and fiddling about at the zoo, the sketch itself took me around thirty minutes.
We're very pleased that Tom could take a moment from his schedule and sit down with us for a Concept-7 interview. Tom's other clients (guys like Topps, Upper Deck, and Blizzard Entertainment) keep him really busy, so we're honored and humbled that he spares us some time to work on Untold. Be sure and visit Tom Babbey.com and check out some of his other works and let him know what you think of what he's doing! Tell him the Wandering Men sent ya!
Tom's working on several pieces for us currently, so if you'd like to see more of his mind-blowingly phenomenal Untold art before anyone else, be sure and subscribe to our newsletter - you can be assured that we'll have some more of his stuff therein!
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Concept-7: ADF Specialist - 5th week of September
We're continuing our new regular series here on Untoldthegame.com; it's one that will give a bit of insight into how our awesome artists go about doing their inspiring work and will hopefully delight your eyes along the way. It's called "Concept-7", because we're going to expose some of our concept work to you (to let you see what's coming down the pipe for Untold) by asking the artist who did the piece 7 questions about that piece in particular.
We hope you find it engaging and interesting! Please let us know what you think by posting a comment or responding in our forums -- we'd love to hear from you!
This week, we're taking a gander at some concept art for an upcoming Minion Card for Untold - the ADF Specialist; this piece was done by the tremendously talented artist, Patricio Marcello Balanovsky!
Q1. Regarding this piece, how did you come about your initial design?
A1. As with all of my commissioned work for Wandering Men Studios, I begin by reading the brief.
I'm gathering visual information from the given description, be it a specific demand (‘Australian uniform’ for example) or be it something more in the lines of a personality emerging from the text. Perhaps also some clues as to visual elements I can deduce from the brief. After that I look for visual references where needed (weapons or uniforms, hair styles or equipment, etc’). Then it’s a matter of merging all that I know of this character with what it is I want to emphasize and capture.
All the way through I keep in mind the pose, body proportions, head-to-torso-to-limbs ratio, silhouette, light and shade and color. Coming gradually and surely to an initial design that will first and foremost please my own demands of it, and then - as importantly – the requirements of the brief and art directing. After some well needed critiques from the client / art director, some minor adjustments and modifications are done.
With this character a feel of old technology against new technology was the main frame in which the design was formed. Creating a curious and intelligent persona that is also a battle experienced warrior was also a useful tool in reflecting this idea of old versus new, primitive versus modern. Mind versus matter. His attire is that of a near future soldier who use science to his advantage and combine a steampunk-ish weaponry and equipment with futuristic (perhaps unknown to most) higher technologies. He’s a fighter and a thinker, a perfect combo. Some aborigine indications of his personal believes and life style of choice were added, but just as a suggestion. Not overpowering, so that it’ll compliment the character as a whole rather than look out of place or redundant.
Q2. What or who inspired you for this piece?
A2. I look for inspiration in the brief. Certain words or phrases can trigger a whole set of mental images and ideas for design and approaches. Some pictures of Australian native people I found also inspired me to use their body paint look for this character’s symbols and warrior-like decorations on His face and arms. I thought it would look very cool.
Q3. What do you think is the best part of this piece; what is its most striking or impressive element?
A3. No doubt the weaponry stands out for me in this illustration. It took me some time to come up with something that’ll satisfy the art directing as well as my own vision of this near future gear. Combining those two very different styles were a bit of a challenge.
Q4. How do you hope this piece will make your audience feel?
A4. They should feel it’s a real person – within the context of the game itself, of course. If they feel some sort of connection - on any level – to the character, I know I did a good job. They need to see his past present and future. Know that this guy have a story to tell, a history.
Q5. If you could change one element of this concept, what would it be?
A5. Well in regards to the final visual, I wouldn’t change a thing. It is what it is. As far as the initial conceptual idea of this character, I could have changed some things. But that’s interfering with the given brief and vision of someone else… and that’s really not my place to do so.
Q6. What medium did you use for this piece and what drove that selection?
A6. I used PhotoShop CS3, which is my usual weapon of choice. It’s intuitive, it’s comfortable, and it’s a very flexible tool.
Q7. How long did this piece take you to compete?
A7. From the initial sketch to the corrections & adjustments stage to the finished piece – about 6-7 hours, give or take.
We'd like to thank Patri for his participation in our Concept-7 interview. With all of the various and sundry projects that Patri is involved in, we were very lucky to get a moment of his time. If you'd like to see more samples of what else he's working on, be sure and check out his blog and conceptart galleries at the following links: http://www.artofpatri.com/ & http://conceptart.org/forums/member.php?u=20534.
As you can see, Patri is a quickly rising star in the art world and we're proud and thankful to have him as a part of our Untold art team. If you'd like to see more of his awesome Untold art before anyone else, be sure and subscribe to our newsletter, we often feature his bold brush strokes therein!
Untold on the Aimee Stanton Show @ Gencon
We've been waiting to show you folks this for some time!! While we were at Gencon, we were approached by a very nice lady, Aimee Stanton, who was impressed by Untold. At first we thought she wanted a demo, but we were surprised to discover that she wanted to feature us on her Youtube Show! So, we sat down for a few minutes and talked a bit about Untold. Please excuse Ashy's voice in the video - he had nearly lost it by this point in the convention, he'd been talking so much!
This was only a part of the whole interview and we're not sure if the rest will be posted. We'll check and let you know. Please leave a comment below, in our forum, on Aimee's Youtube channel, or on our Facebook profile and let us know what you think!
Special Saturday Update: Untold Coloring Process!
One of our Untold Artists, Christabel Sevilla, surprised me earlier this week when I discovered that she'd created this cool video of her coloring process as she worked on one of our new creatures, the Storm Dancer. The Storm Dancer is a L'na originally inked by John Gonzalez and I am so geeking out on this video. In fact, I'm hoping that Christabel will do some more of them for us!!
Be sure and leave us a comment below (on our Youtube channel, or on our Facebook profile) and let us know what you think. Be sure and visit Christabel's blog as well and let her know how much you enjoyed the video and drop by John's deviant art gallery and tell him how much you like the art!
Here's a preview of the finished art!
Untold Stories - July 2009
But, we do it anyways...
So, to continue this proud tradition of self-inflicted degradation, we'd like to give you last month's newsletter today for free! Sure, it's about a month behind and you may have seen some of this already, but hey - if you want to see it when it's "hot off the presses", then simply subscribe to our newsletter today! The new issue will be out very soon and it's at least one hundred point three times (100.3x) as awesome as this one!
And, just so you know, the odd formatting in this .pdf file is NOT indicative of the quality of the newsletter - the actual newsletter is SSSSOOOO much more uber-awesome that your monitor, mind, or both will explode from just glancing at it! So, without further ado, here's the link you've been wading through all this jibba-jabba for:
July 2009 Issue of Untold Stories (PDF)
July 2009 Issue of Untold Stories (Web)
Everyone knows that we have the COOLEST NEWSLETTERS in the universe and if you don't feel the same way, well then I guess that MEANS WAR!!! And where there's war, there's the Krieg, so looks like yer in trouble, pal! Let us know how you would handle yourself in a fight with a Krieg by posting a comment or sounding off in our forums!
Krieg Art by Aviv Or
Gencon Goodness Contest!
We know that not everyone gets to go to Gencon, and believe me, we sympathize in a MAJOR way... So, to help an ease those "I didn't make it to Gencon" blues, the guys from Wandering Men Studios want to give our fans a little something - basically the same thing we were giving everyone we saw at Gencon!
At Gencon, we were giving out new, fully functional Race Cards to everyone we saw - lots of folks were stunned by the beautiful cards and many of them asked about the game as well. Of course, we can give you fully functional cards online, but we are running a CONTEST TO WIN SOME!!! Check out the sample cards below - this is only 12 of the 36 different kinds of cards we were giving away. If you'd like to win some of these groovy cards, check out the contest details below!
Art: John Gonzalez
Faceless Monk Race Card (front)
Art: John Gonzalez
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Dynemite Race Card (front)
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Art: Laura Sloan
L'na Dawn Race Card (front)
Art: Laura Sloan
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Gear Gnawer Race Card (front)
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Art: John Gonzalez
Gree Gree Race Card (front)
Art: John Gonzalez
Art: Laura Sloan
L'na Twilight Race Card (front)
Art: Laura Sloan
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Kilk ROller Race Card (front)
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Klik Tripod Race Card (front)
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Art: Laura Sloan
L'na Dawn Race Card (front)
Art: Laura Sloan
Art: John Gonzalez
Ruinstalker Race Card (front)
Art: John Gonzalez
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
L'na Dawn Race Card (front)
Art: Anthony Cournoyer
Art: John Gonzalez
L'na Dawn Race Card (front)
Art: John Gonzalez
Pretty nice, eh? So, if you want to take part in our contest, it's simple! All you have to do is select one of the cards above and write a story (at least 500 words in length) about the race! That's it - submit it here (in our forums) and we'll select the best stories and send them some FREE Untold Race Cards (randomly selected)! Looking forward to seeing your submissions!
Podcast with Dustin Sanders
Dustin played in our first Untold Demo at Gencon 2009. As I say in the podcast, his enthusiasm about the game speaks for itself...
Podcast with Rich Perkins
Rich Perkins sat in on one of our Saturday Untold demos at Gencon 2009; he was more than happy to tell us EXACTLY what he thought of our game!
Two + years of Con Love from the Wandering Men!
We've talked about them a few times in the past and in truth, I think that our Men: the Wandering cards, in a strange way, set the stage for Untold. Way back in the day, the guys from Wandering Men Studios (even before there *WAS* a Wandering Men Studios, in fact) were going to conventions selling our first fantasy novel, Skein of Shadows, published by Dark Quest Games and we wanted a way to give back to the Con-goer, something that they would like and yet would make an impact for our product.
We came up with the idea of making con-specific cards that we would give away (NEVER SELL) and on each card, we'd tie that back to our novel in some way. Of course, being the joke-sters that we were, we decided to poke fun of a certain well-known card game and thus the "Men: the Wandering" card line was born! It was after we saw the popularity of those cards that we often lamented - wow, it sure would be nice to be able to sell these puppies, but of course, not wanting to be sued into oblivion, we chose not to do so...
However, the fact that we knew that we COULD make these cards, I think, prepared the soil for the seeds of Untold to grow and flourish. So maybe, in a way, we all owe Untold the game to these silly little cards! Stranger things have happened, suren... ;)
A little known fact about our first batch of cards - they were made completely by hand! It took a TON of time and if we had not discovered a way of doing it faster, cheaper and easier, we probably would never have made another set! This first set, with art by Wandering Man Brannon Hall, featured all of the protagonists from our novel, Skein of Shadows! This was brand new art as well, as by this point, our fans had only seen the characters on the novella covers. Each one of the stories that made up Skein was originally released as a separate novella and the novel brought them all together. Neat, huh?
By the time we made it to Chattacon, we'd gotten much better at creating cards and we had a cool idea about getting a guest artists to do the character art for us. Order of the Stick was really hot when we went to Chattacon, so we got OOTS versions of each one of the characters. Sadly, we were not able to get Rich to draw them for us, but we found an awesome OOTS-ish artists on the Order of the Stick forums to do the art for us! Good things come from those who troll! ;) A little known fact about these cards - we, being the nerdz that we are, came up with a whole story for how our characters had suddenly become "two-dimensional!"
For Omegacon (a one-time attempt at a convention in Birmingham, Alabama that did not go so well - for the convention), we teamed up with an artist pal, Chris Fason. Chris has a comic series called Hero Happy Hour, which is all about what superheroes do when they're not fighting crime. It's good stuff and we decided to work that into the cards. So we came up with each of the character's favorite "fantasy drink" and created a drink recipe on each card! We had fun with it and Chris enjoyed the synergy! Interesting related note - we also worked with Chris on an ashcan comic for this convention called Stirring Shadows - it was a Prequel to our novel, Skein of Shadows, and it was a huge hit! We're also still working with Chris - he's done some Untold art for us - check out some of his work below!
Our first trip to Mobicon found us working with another old friend - Tom Babbey! Tom's a phenomenal artists whose done work for many of the biggest names in games and cards - and lil' ol' Ashy gave him his start, believe it or not! Tom graciously agreed to do our "Ookan" (Japanese for "Crown") series of our characters, which really blew us away! Tom's vibrant re-imaginings of the heroes from Skein really caught the eye of many a con-goer and we had folks begging us for a full set of the cards - what a rush! A little teaser here - we've just signed Tom on for a whole buncha Untold cards too, so expect to see some of his work on some cards soon!!! A little known fact about the cards below - the El'laa card is NOT Tom's work! It is the stunning work of our own Brannon Hall, who wanted to try and mimic Tom's awesome style; I think he nailed it - what about you?
Of course, as time went on and Untold was nearing release, we decided to feature Untold and its broad array of cool new races and critters on the cards. Folks loved 'em - so much so that a Roller - a race unique to Untold has now become the Official Mascot of Imagicon - Birmingham, Alabama's premier Sci-fi/Fantasy convention! What's even cooler - they're going to keep on using the character design!!! The Wandering Men's very own Hall was asked to design the convention's first logo - which we incorporated into the backs of our Men: the Wandering cards! SPIFFY!
If you've not already read about our now legendary trip to KWAKCON, you need to do so now! First, we sponsored KWAKCON, then we designed their logo, and finally, it changed Wandering Men Studios forever! It was an awesome trip and we're looking forward to heading back next year - it truly changed the face of Untold! Little know fact: KWAKCON was also where we hooked up with the AWESOME guys from True Dungeon!
On our return trip to Mobicon (2009), our focus was Untold, and that was reflected in our cards. We again featured some artwork from Chris Fason, highlighting some of the awesomely cool new races and creatures from our upcoming game! Folks loved the cards, so much so that many of them became our willing servants! (just joshin')...
Our most recent convention was this past weekend - Babelcon in Baton Rogue, Louisiana! It was a blast and we met a ton of new cool folks! We were again focusing on Skein of Shadows at this convention, and that was reflected in the cards...
So what do you think of all this insanity and craziness? Too much? Too over the top? Not enough? Do you like our Men: the Wandering cards or think they're just plain silly? Post a comment below and let us know, or sound off in our forum and let us know - we really do want to know what you think! If you want to get a preview of new cards we're making for upcoming conventions, be sure and subscribe to our newsletter! We'll be previewing some cool new designs that we're working on for Gen Con and Dragoncon!
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