Ravenloft Artbook of Talon Dunning

[DoctorMoreau]

I've had stuff I mailed to Canada seized and opened at the border for no apparent reason, so who knows what the deal is. Sometimes it seems that it's harder to mail stuff to Canada then it is to cross the border myself.

-Talon

It's clearly the name, they suspect you of being one of Vlad Drakov's agents.

[steveflam]

TBH I have ordered too many times to count from ebay, Noble Knight etc and I have never had a problem whatsoever!

I think I need to take an inventory and see what I want or do not have moreover

[HuManBing]

Question for Talon - when you were working on Azalin's portrait, what made you decide to go with his undead face?

By that time, there had been two "official" portraits of Azalin in the core rulesets for Ravenloft - one by Fabian for Realm of Terror in 2nd ed., showing him full-faced as a living human wearing the Iron Crown, with one side in shadow (and a malevolent burning light in the unseen eye socket). The 3rd ed. Secrets of the Dread Realms features a three-quarter portrait of Azalin by an unattributed artist as undead with a crown of bones.

When you drew the Gazetteer II's portrait of Azalin as a full-faced portrait of an undead lich, what influenced you in that decision? Had you considered a living face, after Fabian's example, or was it more challenging/interesting to go after the supernatural horror aspects?


(I ask this as a DM who's had to rummage around for a player-safe human picture of Azalin that wouldn't immediately reveal his secret lich status... in the end I just had to resort to drawing it myself )

[Joël of the FoS]

And HB forgot to mention we have his drawing here

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Port ... Sketch.jpg

Joël

[HuManBing]

...in the same thread as Talon?! Sacrilege!

[Talon]

Question for Talon - when you were working on Azalin's portrait, what made you decide to go with his undead face?

I'm not sure I realized that he had a human face. I know the Fabian portrait you're talking about, but honestly, I never realized it wasn't supposed to be "undead." I just figured Fabian took artistic license with the "lich" concept and made him more fleshy and less rotten. I went for a middle ground. He's mostly skull, but not a bare skeleton. I have to admit that I haven't read the backstory of every one of these characters. When I got my assignments, I was given a brief description of each character and then looked up their old portraits in my own Ravenloft material and drew what I found in accordance with the art-notes. Having run the old Grand Conjunction modules (or was it "Great Conjunction?" I always confuse it with The Dark Crystal), I was familiar with Azalin as a lich, so that's how I drew him. It may also be possible that my art notes specified that he be shown in his undead form... It's been a good number of years now since that assignment and I don't remember the specifics of it now.

-Talon

[The Giamarga]

And HB forgot to mention we have his drawing here

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Port ... Sketch.jpg

Joël

Hey that's an excellent pic, HMB.

[HuManBing]

Thanks Talon for the insights into an artist's craft! You're clearly able to put together portraits quite quickly, as the turnaround on the original drawings for each individual artbook order demonstrates. Did you ever have difficulty timewise when working on projects like the Gazetteers? Is there balance in between wanting to get a piece of work just right vs. and thinking to yourself "I have to stop working on this one in order to get all the others done"?

Given that the last Gazetteer was released in 2005, how do you look back on your prior work, five years later? Do you ever feel you'd have done anything differently, or are you happy with the results?

Also thanks to Joel and Giamarga for their kind words! But this should be the thread about the pro, not the amateur

[Talon]

Thanks Talon for the insights into an artist's craft! You're clearly able to put together portraits quite quickly, as the turnaround on the original drawings for each individual artbook order demonstrates. Did you ever have difficulty timewise when working on projects like the Gazetteers? Is there balance in between wanting to get a piece of work just right vs. and thinking to yourself "I have to stop working on this one in order to get all the others done"?

Well, as a professional illustrator, I live and die by the deadline. That's not to say I didn't miss a few, but generally speaking, I did what I could to create good-looking artwork in the time allotted. Portraits were generally some of the quickest types of drawings I did (do) because they're relatively simple compared to, say, a full action scene with backgrounds in perspective. I didn't have much problem getting the usual work in relatively on time with Ravenloft, with the exception of the Tarokka deck, which was a massive undertaking. I missed the deadline by three months on that one, missing not only my personal deadline, but the production, print and release deadlines as well. It was a bit embarrassing, but that was a project I didn't want to rush. My art director at White Wolf was annoyed, but understanding enough not to dock my pay. After all, he wanted it to look awesome as well.

Given that the last Gazetteer was released in 2005, how do you look back on your prior work, five years later? Do you ever feel you'd have done anything differently, or are you happy with the results?

Well, there's a few individual drawings which I feel were less successful than others, but for the most part, I'm happy with the work I was doing then. It was, for the most part, the best work I could do at the time. Five years later, my skills have improved, and I can see some of the flaws in my Ravenloft work that I couldn't see then, but one can't judge one's own work through modern eyes. You have to take the level of skill you had at the time into account.

Also thanks to Joel and Giamarga for their kind words! But this should be the thread about the pro, not the amateur

Bah! Sharing artwork is always a good thing. I was happy to see it.

-Talon

[Scipion_Emilien]

I'm curious as to what you use as reference? Is there some book with good looking historically/fantastical reference that you could suggest?

[Talon]

I'm curious as to what you use as reference? Is there some book with good looking historically/fantastical reference that you could suggest?

I have a small library of them. Anything by John Peacock is great, including Costume: 1066 to the Present ( The Complete Fashion Sourcebook ( and The Chronicle of Western Fashion ( Actually, some of the best historical fashion references I've found are books of paper dolls and coloring books ( I recommend hitting your local Borders or Barns & Noble and heading over to the Art and/or Fashion section. You should find one or two of these, or any of the other dozen or so I have, there. If you want to draw historical costuming, I can't recommend these books enough. Illustrators have to wear a lot of hats (no pun intended). We have to be storytellers, architects, biologists, industrial designers, graphic designers and fashion designers all at once. It's one thing to draw a building, a gun or a costume, but it's another to design it logically; to know how that building is standing, how that gun fires or how the character puts that costume on. That's the mark of a great illustrator in my book.

-Talon

[Scipion_Emilien]

Thanx for the tips!

I already own John Peacock 1066 to present, but didn't knew about the complete fashion sourcebook. The Chronicle of western fashion seem great too for more ancient times pick.

Do you have any New France or France reference?

And also what do you use for the buildings?

[Talon]

Do you have any New France or France reference?

I'm not sure what you mean.

And also what do you use for the buildings?

That's a lot harder to deal with, mostly because I hate perspective. When I have to draw buildings, I'll often start with a Google image search and work from there. More often than not, you can find any reference you need on the internet. If you can find the right set of existing buildings at an interesting angle, then you can just copy them right into the background of your drawing and go. The pic I did of Necropolis (http://www.talonart.com/images/ww/ww004_l.jpg) was drawn from three or four completely separate examples of Tudor architecture all worked together in a single composition. Of course, if you happen to live in Europe, finding these old Medieval and Renaissance buildings is pretty easy. You can just walk the streets and take your own reference photos.

-Talon

[herkles]

I think what Scipion_Emilien meant by the new France or France reference, was do you use any references from France or french inspired areas, ie Quebec, in your artwork?

I could be wrong though.

[Talon]

I think what Scipion_Emilien meant by the new France or France reference, was do you use any references from France or french inspired areas, ie Quebec, in your artwork?

I could be wrong though.

Ah. Not specifically, at least, not that I went out of my way to do. While Ravenloft is largely based out of historical periods, it's still a fantasy setting, which means I didn't have to be strictly historically correct and was free to draw from any source that felt right regardless of the country of origin. I lot of my costume designs were combinations of various outfits from various sources. A dress here, a bodice there, a hat from somewhere else. I tried to mix it up so I wasn't just copying stuff directly out of the books, although occasionally, I did that, too.

-Talon