Pencils (and a little digital kiss with the tones) for the cover to the upcoming FRPG book Fantasy Craft, from Crafty Games Publishing, creators of the Spycraft role-playing game.

I'm pretty excited about being in on the ground level of a new FRPG publication. In addition to the cover, I should also be doing a series of interior illustrations which will be a chunk of fun.

The initial concept was described to me by Patrick at Crafty, and it included the unique viewpoint angle that I think really makes the piece. I did an initial rough in Manga Studio EX, and once it was confirmed I printed it out, taped it to the back of the board and popped on the light table. The actual illustration is rendered in good old HB pencil (my personal favorite, the Roseart no.2 school pencil) on Strathmore Bristol, at about 11x17. It was then scanned back in, and the tones were added in Photoshop, largely as a rough guide to the lighting. Ultimately they're just a placeholder for the final, fully painted colors.

Those paints are being done by a partner of mine at Fates Studios, the sweetly skilled Kevin Delucia, who also happens to be right here on DA. He's one of the painters at HTF, and he doing a great job with the colors on this. Check him out.

You can read up on the new Fantasy Craft game and check out some of their presentations at GenCon at the Crafty Games website, and keep your eyes open for more in the near future!