Everything’s Illuminated

By
Richard J. Luschek II

Finally getting caught up after my time in Indianapolis at Gen Con– the largest gaming convention in the world. It is something to behold really- 60,000 or so folks descend upon the city for gaming, imagination and full-on  nerd action- sometimes in outrageous costumes.

No, I was not in a costume.

A shot of the booth just before they opened the doors to the exhibit hall.

My goals for this convention, were to have an impressive booth for the Columbia Games and to have some nice looking, new products for sale. I feel it was a successful convention for us. Of those new products, (Orbaal and HârnWorld) we completely sold out. We definitely wanted to get a good intro product for introducing the 30 year old product to some a new crowd.

We also met a lot of Hârn fans and we are gathering a good list of people willing to help run games next year and at other Cons.

As we were publishing the new HârnWorld and HârnDex, I wanted to do some medieval manuscript images for the cover.

HârnWord Cover, Pen and Ink, digital color, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

I have been trying to move the medieval art used in Hârn to a more accurate manuscript style for a world based on 12th -13th century Europe. I found an old manuscript image that I used as a template and built my covers on that adding Hârnic elements in the design.

The cover shows a creator of sorts mapping the Island. The medallion has the Hârnic script for the initials NRC for N. Robin Crosby.

Here is the initial sketch and test layout. I did a pencil drawing, inked it, used actual parchment and gold leaf textures to finish the final image in Photoshop.

For HârnDex I decided to keep a similar look, but wanted to show the beginning of an adventure heading off in the year 720.

HârnDex Cover, Pen and Ink, digital color, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

For the back of both publications I wanted to do something based off the standard for the back covers of most of our publications.

Here is the typical look for a back cover, which as been around for at least 30 years.

HârnDex back Cover,  Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc.

Here is the new back cover strongly based of the above but with a manuscript style.

HârnDex Back Cover, Pen and Ink, digital color, Copyright © 2014, Columbia Games, Inc. and Richard Luschek

Both will be available for sale on the website soon. HârnWorld will be available in hard copy in the typical binder.

The Dex is over 150 pages and is available as a PDF download.