Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

V5 is now up. I added a couple of images that I put together from public domain photos, and woodcuts. I like em, and think they add some flavor.

If anyone is playtesting, I would love feedback. So far Dimi, Chi, and Longman have given great input and I think the focuses are moving toward balanced.

K

Next image to add.

Alchemist Image - Hard at work over his crucible, forge in the background.
Unarmed Master - Preparing to take on a gang of thugs on the street
Temple Guard - Standing watch

Did you draw this k_ba? If so, it's FANTASTIC. Very old school feel, almost like something from the 2E PHB (the earlier printing, not the later one).

Some of the artwork in the later printing, was, well....

k_ba's image appears to be a photograph that has been "cartooned" using Photoshop or Gimp. We'd need to know the original source of the image before we could use it.

All of the images are an amalgam of at least two images, or more. I used lithos from the British museum that are creative commons licensed, and photos from Wikipedia that are open license and photos that Google deemed royalty free on the search.

All the pics are altered significantly also. I can't draw, but I am good with the Gimp. It isn't JUST a filter being applied.

I stripped the background out, desaturated, sharpened, ran the simplify filter, hit it with cartoon, added in a layer, dropped in the background from the British museum, flattened, cartoon again. Faces, beards, hats, clothes, were altered to some degree or another in each image.

The unarmed master is a public domain picture of joe heenan from the 1890s, altered and cut out, then laid over a layer of a john flowers litho from the british museum.

the temple guard is a picture of the korean royal guard. there are scads of them floating around. I blurred and blanked out the backgrounds, and altered it a bit before flattening it down.

The alchemist started out as a blacksmith pic, the hat was altered significantly, the clothes were simplified, and the background was removed. it is also against a john flowers litho from the british museum.

I am making doubly sure it is free. I have a thomas hovendon print from the 1800s that will also serve, that I know to be public domain, but I believe it to also be free and clear.

Updated with provenance of images, etc. I understand that we can't use protected images, much like using protected source when coding open source code.

I get that it needs to be tracked, and am trying to make it clear. Apologies if my fairly defensive reply doesn't express my enthusiasm that you like the image, I did work really hard to get them the way that I wanted them.

Added the other two images inline in my post above.

K

Alchemist 2.0.

I am CERTAIN that everything in this one is clean. it also has the flavor and variety I like for my parties and games.

I combined 4 images to make this one, and all were clean sources with no debate.
Edit: Reworking this one also. Posted early, but am not loving the level of detail. Am driving the detail out of the face to make it cleaner when it prints.

Got it! Thanks for the info.

The US Fish and Wildlife has a public domain image section, as does NASA.

For those Americans on the board: you already paid for those images.

I like the general style of the images you are making. I would prefer that your particular procedure could be refined more so that the images are even closer in "style". Right now when presented together, they have a dissimilar "look" to them, even though they are clearly created in a similar fashion. Am I conveying this intelligently?

I totally know what you are saying, and am trying to get them to be more similar.

I haven't gotten it pinned down yet, but am working toward it.

The key, I think, is getting the sources to a consistent level of detail / lack of detail and getting the color balancing right before I begin running them through the process.

I will try to codify it so that it is easily reproducible by anyone. Heaven knows, the Gimp and Paint.Net are the right price, and they are all that I use.