Monday 15 February 2010

Talisman the Highlands

Another cover of mine has just been announced. This time a further expansion for Talisman - The Highlands.

Acrylic, 11" x 11", Original Artwork SOLD.

I have had great fun working on a succession of covers for Talisman, the board game. They are uniquely challenging in that I am working to create a unified image that involves very different existing characters. This time around they are battling a giant eagle as they approach the aerie lair of the Eagle King - at least the vampire won't feel the cold!


The Line Sketch.

The product details, and image with trade dress, can be found here:

9 comments:

  1. Great stuff. Love it. Care to name the other characters? ;-)

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  2. Wow! This is really great picture, and great to see your sketch work too - just the perfect amount of information in the sketch to paint from. I really like this one, it has the spirit of the old D&D covers, but looks very fresh and modern too.

    Q. Your images always look really light, clean, and crisp on screen, I work traditionally myself and would really like to ask how you achieve such a great quality transfer to digital. I have all sorts of seemingly random problems – things look darker (opaque paints especially), illo board & paint texture catches shine, bits of dust, reflections etc. It would be great to hear how you consistently overcome these problems and what equipment and methods you use and apply when transferring your work from a traditional to digital format.

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  3. Anon; The full line- up is: Alchemist, Rogue, Valkyrie, Sprite, Vampire, Highlander.

    David; Very pleased you like this.

    I don't think I do anything fancy in the transfer to digital.

    I have learnt to invest in a good scanner. Mine is A3, which also helps in having to 'stitch' together less parts. I then make any changes necessary in Photoshop, this includes removing spots of dust, and other unwanted marks. I tend to use the clone tool as much as possible. That way I keep the original texture - I try to introduce as few truly digital marks as possible.

    Once I have cleaned up the image I will then adjusts levels, colour balance, etc, before considering whether to tweak specific areas with dodge/burn or the like.

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  4. Thankyou. I've been trying to save up, and was looking at getting myself a really good digital camera to try photographing my artwork with, but it looks like the answer lies more in a better quality/size scanner. I can definitely see the advantage there in not having to mess about trying to set up each image's lighting too.
    Can you recommend any good ones for scanning paintings? There's a heck of a lot to choose from out there, and I'll probably only be able to afford one shot at it. :)

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  5. Ralph, Thanks for the list of characters. Sorry, I don't have a profile and picked the easiest option of Anon.

    Must say I think all your covers for Talisman boxes are great. Do you sell prints?

    BanthaFodder

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  6. David; I have certainly found scanners to be very variable in quality. Too many of them are set up to scan holiday snaps, or just text documents.. The one I currently have is the Plustek OpticPro A320 - which I am pretty happy with.
    You do tend to get what you pay for.

    Bantha; Thanks, and yes I do sell prints. Email me at:
    email@ralphhorsley.co.uk

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  7. Thanks, I really appreciate the information. I'll check that one out.

    All the best,
    David :)

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  8. Great work, Ralph! Love, love, love the piercings and warpaint on that eagle. I like to add piercings to my characters with horns.

    Thanks for sharing!

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  9. Thanks Tyler, whilst I can't take the credit for the idea of piercings and warpaint, I've go to agree they add a lot of character to the eagle.

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