Artwork

[Clark]

feel free to post any  of my work, Clark.

So pretty much anything with 5 or 6 movement points? 

[Clark]

Copyright law in 100 words of less: if you were on the payroll at the time then it is a "work for hire" that goes to the employer.  The miniature conceptions would be outright assignments because it makes no commercial sense to do otherwise.  My understanding was that the other illustrations were second or third print rights as that was industry standard.

But I was asking to be polite, not due to any legal mumbo jumbo.  If no one sees a downside, then why not?

If there is new art to be done I will look to the old crew and some new crew we have here as a starting point.

I've read some online comments that suggested LOS needed a new look.  Some were on the order of not bad for 15 years ago.

[grendeljd]

If there is new art to be done I will look to the old crew and some new crew we have here as a starting point.

I've read some online comments that suggested LOS needed a new look.  Some were on the order of not bad for 15 years ago.

I'd be happy to jump into your "Art Department" if needed 

You do have a wealth of great stuff to just plunk into the 3e, but some new work by the old crew would be great to see. Is Yan Rozentsvieg lurking around here yet as well, by any chance?

On the subject of getting a new look... I hate to say it because it implies criticism, but I feel some things may need a 'fresh coat of paint' so to speak. I think greyscale art is the order of the day in most modern books, if you can get enough of it going to complement existing art, it wouldn't hurt. You guys were definitely on the right path with the blue box edition rulebook, using greyscale versions of older pics & the painted figurine art looked really good.

There is never a graphic designer credited in any of the rulebooks [tsk,tsk!], may I ask who generally did that chore? [I read the post about Planetstorm coming together over a weekend, that sounds like it was a nightmare]

I don't mean to toot my own horn too much, but I was playing with a few graphic ideas in the scenarios I've posted in the media gallery. Namely I was trying to establish a sci-fi feel with the look of the capsule boxes for each block of text. I think you need a more cohesive look like that to really sell the visual side of the rules. I also [>ahem< *sorry!*  ] was working out a new-ish LoS logo too...

[smokingwreckage]

AFAIK Josh did the graphic design and layout (and much of the art) for a very large (small press) gaming book of my acquaintance. Thorough, consistent, good readability. I'd love to see it with higher print quality, the on-demand stuff I have here is OK but nothing more than OK, I think it messed up the greys.

[grendeljd]

Pulling a comment from another thread;

A fair bit of the spot art for JP and Planetstorm was cannibalized from an LOS comic that never saw release.

That would have been awesome to see. I think adding a short comic into LoS3e would be a spectacular idea...

Planetstorm, or Typostorm, as Wes and I like to refer to it, was finalized and coallated in one epic Easter long weekend plagued with software malfunctions, lack of open copy centers...remember, this was in the infancy of desktop publishing.  The photos were taken on a "cutting edge" digital camera called a "Snappy" that was less than a megapixel...etc.,etc..

As I mentioned in a post above, sounds like a nightmare experience! Thank god there is much better software out there these days. Personally I use the Adobe CS5 Suite [InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator].

And yeah, SW, you got me - I did that which you speak of. I wondered what happened to the greys in it too, but never mentioned that to anyone. It could very well have been the on-demand print quality but I can't be sure - if you look at the art by James Forbes and even your own art pic I put in there, they all retain pretty good contrast compared to most everything else. Overall it did seem to have poor resolution though.

[Clark]

I have no idea what became of Yan but we all loved his crisp style which is why we kept inviting him back to do more.

Early on it was Derrick that typeset everything.  Later, my understanding is that it was Wes and in some cases Marco.

I know what I like, but the posse are the trained professionals who can comment on stylistic details.

I like the graphic design used in the Blue Box Rules of Engagement but there are a bunch of things in Planetstorm that I liked as well.  The earlier stuff is very readable but doesn't stand out (both of which might be good things).

[Clark]

Technology is a funny thing.  The graphics on the Black Box cost us something like $20,000.  The Blue Box was put together by Marco (and others?) on a PC that cost less than $5k.

[grendeljd]

The earlier stuff is very readable but doesn't stand out (both of which might be good things).

I have to say that I particularly liked the fonts used in the older books - most notably in the Advanced Rules & The Alien Sourcebook. My inner graphic design geek is telling me that Bank Gothic was the font used on both covers & the Adv. Rules interoir headers, though I can't confirm that...

Those two books have a nice consistency of style, and I think they look cleaner than some of the other supplements.

[Clark]

I recall hearing somewhere that serif fonts are more readable because the eye tracks the lines.  However, we went with sans serif fonts with some daylight between the lines of text.  If I had to guess I'd say it was simple Ariel.  I don't think I voiced an opinion one way or the other.

When we released a boxed set of Fantasian Stormtroopers I typeset the cover pic and used a wacky font that looked pseudo-cyrillic.