Melderyn- The Wizard’s Isle

I just finished the art for the Columbia Games new release of the Melderyn Kingdom module. It should hit the presses very soon for  HarnQuest subscribers.

This one was tough for me. For some reason I had an easier time getting into the mind set of the Rethem Kingdom module- not sure what that says about me. For one thing, Rethem is anything but subtle. Melderyn is a bit more mysterious and subtle with influences from many sources on Ketheria and beyond. I did my best to sneak in those influences without it being to high fantasy and over the top.

I am having a great time adding more color to Harn releases. The following image from page 3 of Melderyn is one such example.

Bringer of Storms, pen and ink and digital. Copyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc., Richard Luschek

I did a very rough sketch in the space left to me just to test out the idea.

Melderyn page 3 layout sketch, Copyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc., Richard Luschek

After refining the sketch, I then shoot some reference shots. I thought this character needed to be very handsome and powerful, so I posed for it myself. I did find the bald spot to be a bit upsetting. Thankfully, I don’t get to see myself from that point of view very often.

I did not have a wind blown cliff overlooking the ocean on which to pose. Since Columbia Games was too cheap to fly me to Ireland for accurate reference shots, my wife’s dressing room worked just fine.

The great actor and illustrator- Richard Luschek

I am pretty excited with how the kingdom came out- probably my new favorite. Of course I say that almost every time don’t I?  We even changed the settlement pages with a color heraldry symbol on each page. This was done in Kaldor using the full heraldry symbol- though it was in B&W. This idea was dropped in Rethem to make room for text. This time by using only the shield part of the coat of arms- and some artful layout design by Brent Bailey, we were able to fit the art, heraldry and keep all of the text.

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Melderyn page 61 (Zuilos), Copyright © 2012, Columbia Games, Inc., Richard Luschek