Adding Jazz Hands to an Illustration

A repost from our Harn artist’s blog.

by Richard Luschek II

Reworking some old art of my own is often a very wonderful experience when I get the chance- especially when I get paid to do it.
On the upcoming HârnQuest I one of the articles I had to rework was Taztos.

“Taztos is a fort maintained by the Ramala Legion of the Thardic Republic. It sits on the Salt Route that links the western Hârnic realms with the kingdoms of the east.”

The next HârnQuest will include:

• Kelestia (10 pages)
• Fort Taztos (12pp)
• Gardiren #10 – Jug Inn (6pp)
• Cherafir D5 – Clothier (2pp)
• Shiran E14 – Bull Ring Tavern (2pp)

The early draft had the original art done by Eric Hotz. I thought of redoing it, but I like this one. I had to color it anyway, so I thought I would just tweak it a bit to give it a bit of a dynamic layout.
It does feel a bit sacrilegious to rework art done by another artist, but being a fan of Hotz, I do what I can to show respect to the original. Basically, I use the Hippocratic Oath when working on old Harn art.
Here is my final treatment.

Taztos, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc., Eric Hotz and Richard Luschek

Below is the original by Eric Hotz as it was in the original Hârn publication in 1987- The year I graduated from High School.

Taztos Original- placed in article, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc., Eric Hotz and Richard Luschek

I did not change it too much. I imagine if you did not see them side by side you would not even notice I had done anything.
I thought it would benefit from a better angle. The original is a bit static and straight up and down and looked a bit “peace symbol” like. The river bank was too much like what you might find in a manicured theme park. So I roughed that up a bit as well.

Taztos updated B&W, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc, Eric Hotz and Richard Luschek

One other issue was that the keep and the plans did not exactly jive, so I had to make a few adjustments so it more accurately matched the maps. I was a bit tricky keeping all the parts in the right place. I had to cut the art into pieces, skew the background and then place all the parts back in the new background. A few things needed to be added and adjusted, but basically it has the flavor of the original.
This is waiting for review by CGI and should be shipping fairly soon.