Greetings readers! This week, I’d like to take some time to
talk to you about how to direct artwork and artists in the RPG industry. I
first started working as an art director when I joined Fantasy Flight Games
full-time in 2008 as the Senior RPG Developer for the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay
line. Since then, I’ve done art direction for a number of additional projects,
including Dust Warfare, the cancelled MMO Dark Millennium Online, Darksiders
II, Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers, and my (at the time of this writing) newest RPG
project, Accursed. I’ve been very privileged to work with talented,
professional artists, and I have several such artists as personal friends in
many gaming groups I’ve been a part of.
I’d like to share here some of the things I’ve learned during
my career with regards to art direction and managing artists—but first, some
important caveats. First, the things I’m going to discuss here are in regards
only to RPGs (and possibly miniature battle games books), not for any other
type of game or use. Second, I don’t have all the answers, nor am I a
professional artist in my own right. This is just sharing what I’ve learned in
my own experience, so YMMV.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s dive in and talk about
RPG art direction!
The Art Description
A very dynamic piece from Wayne Reynolds. |
Once you’ve got your list of art you need (and ideally a
budget of what you can actually afford), you need to write some art
descriptions so you tell your artists what you want them to produce. And, IMHO,
this is actually one of the trickiest parts.
The key, in my experience, is to provide the artist with
clarity and balance that with freedom.
When I say “clarity,” I mean that you need to give the artist a solid idea of what you’re looking for him to draw. I’ve seen a lot of people write different art descriptions in my time, and here are some of the most common errors. First, when you’re imagining the image in your mind, remember that there’s only one point of view, one “camera,” and it cannot move. Don’t write an art description with phrases like “we then see the arrow sweeping across the battlefield,” because that only happens in actual videos.
Keep your descriptions short and to the point—don’t get
bogged down in unnecessary detail. Lastly, make sure to provide as many
references as you can—I like to hit Google image search and insert links (i.e.,
“The hilt of his sword should look like this reference (providing a link)”).
The key here is to never assume the artist knows exactly what you mean without
you having to explain it – make sure you’re as clear as possible on the parts
of the image that are the most important and it will save you time going
through revisions!
Keep in mind the purpose of the piece: you don’t want the “camera”
pulled very far back if the art piece is supposed to showcase a particular
character rather than an event. This is also applicable to the size of the
illustration in your book – small sized illustrations (for example,
quarter-page) are not going to be well-suited to show a huge battle scene. When
you’re writing descriptions for specific characters, make sure to note the
iconic important bits (hair color, eye color, pointed ears, wings, etc.) so
that you have consistency of that character’s look across all the illustrations
(and illustrators!).
It is important, however, to make sure that your art
description has a good balance for the artist’s creative freedom. What I mean
by this is that few artists enjoy being placed in a straightjacket and allowed
only to illustrate within very tight restrictions. Artists are artist because
they enjoy being creative, after all! My suggestion is to leave some of the
details open to the artist’s interpretation. My personal favorites are to give
the artist free reign in the pose or expression of a character, or to tell him
to “go wild” with the background theme elements. If you make sure to leave the
artist some room to be creative with your art description, the artist will
appreciate it, and your art piece will be much better in the long run.
Ultimately, what you want to give the artist is an inspiration and a vision for
the work, not a paint-by-numbers recipe.
Choosing an Artist
I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with companies like
FFG with an established stable of artists, and through my work, I’ve gained
connections with lots of talented illustrators within the industry. If you need
to find new artists or haven’t made a lot of connections yet, my suggestions
are these:
- Use online portfolio sites such as Deviantart to identify certain artists (or to grab some references) you’d like to use on your project
- Many conventions also have an “artist alley” that you can check out to see several portfolios and different styles – and usually these artists are also looking for work!
When you pick an artist for your work, try and match the
artist’s style to the mood and tone of the work you need for your project. For
example, if the artist’s portfolio is filled with pictures of superheroes, he
might not be the best choice for gothic fantasty, but he’d be an excellent
choice for a book about supervillains!
Next, when you contact the artist, check on his availability—some
artists are quite in demand and only have small windows that they can do work
for your project. Don’t count on getting more than 3-5 pieces from any
individual artist. If you need 8 pieces all done by the same artist, you really need to make sure he’s got the time to commit to that.
Review Steps
In any assignment with an artist, you want to build in
review steps so you and the artist can communicate about how the work is coming
along. It can be heartbreaking on both sides to get to the final stage of an
art piece only to find out it can’t be used in the project!
My advice is to schedule two review steps: the first is the
initial pencil sketch of the art piece and the second is the colored final.
Only when both of these steps have been approved does the artist send in the
hi-res final art and receives payment.
The pencil sketch is the most important step with regards to
feedback. The art director should carefully scrutinize the pencil sketch and
give clear feedback on what, if anything, needs to change.
(As a side note here, my favorite artists that I work with
are the ones who actually have a third review step, sending in some thumbnail
sketches of the subject in different poses before committing to the
fully-detailed sketch, allowing you to find a pose and/or composition you both
really like!)
A fantastic example of a pencil sketch next to a color final, by Nikolaus Ingeneri |
Keep in mind that the final color image (if you are using color image, final black and white if not) is the absolute last time you can give feedback, and you should strive very hard to keep your revisions very small at this stage. The artist has put a ton of time and effort into that final work, so asking him to completely change the pose, subject, or composition is a huge pain! Ideally, any necessary changes should be very small (i.e., “Please change the gun in his holster to look like the reference I sent you.”).
Revisions and Feedback
Clear feedback should involve any changes to details, the
character’s pose, proportions, etc. “The head needs to be about 10% smaller,”
is good feedback. “Make it like this, but better,” is not.
Try not to have more than three revisions of the artwork
(meaning three revisions TOTAL). Having to do the same art piece over and over
is a surefire way to kill an artist’s passion for the work! Your goal as the
art director should be to absolutely minimize the number of times the artist
has to revise.
If you’ve hit three revisions with an artist on any individual
art piece and it still isn’t acceptable, my advice would be that it is better
at this point to switch the art assignment with another piece rather than push
the artist for “just one more pass.” If you end up with a great artist that no longer wants to do
business with you because of too many revisions, that’s a major blow to your
project—you’ll have to start all over again with a new artist from scratch.
Growing Artists
Some of the amazing work of Matt Bradbury. |
Typically, the most valuable artwork on your project is
going to be the cover art, followed by any major interior work (chapter
frontispieces, character portraits for the PC options, etc.). Larger pieces are
more expensive than smaller ones, and color is more expensive than black and
white. My advice to anyone doing art direction for the first time is to keep
track of your artists over time, and reward the artists who turn in quality
work on time with bigger and better assignments.
In Conclusion
Art Direction can be a fun role when working on a project,
but it can also be exhausting and time-consuming to get all those details
right. I hope that by reading this you may discover that writing art
descriptions is a lot more involved than it first sounds! Similarly, I hope
that if there are any professional RPG artists and art directors out there who
read this, please chime in in the comments section below and let me know what
you think of my advice here. I’d love to hear from you.
I know Mr. Watson doesn't need a cred booster, but, as one of the artists he has directed, I was always pleased to see his name at the top of an art solicitation. That's not true for many other art directors! Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nikolaus!
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