I have brought my skills to the RPG-table to help build context in our latest setting. The result: two posters boasting the player-character's family business. Welcome to the sci-fi neo-Norse colony home of Erikssons.
I have been playing RPGs since I was 14 and done both fantasy, horror, sci-fi, modern and just about any genre you can imagine. For the past 6 months we have been playing Mars-based sci-fi in a proto eclipse-phase setting. Finally I feel visually at home. Many influences have been discussed internally in the group, and although this undoubtedly should be a separate post on the blog, I will quote a few movies to give the proper context for the illustrations: Rome & Juliet (Baz Luhrmann), Total Recall, The minority report and Moon.
The plot for our game revolves around the dysfunctional elite Eriksson family, who at the beginning of the story lost their (mad)scientist parents in a suspicious lab explosion. Thus the motive for the game is revenge, and the theme is that of intrigue. As gamers we try to tell a Mission impossible/Ocean’s 11 in space kind of story, but most often end up in a more complex, less action, borderline slapstick landscape – perhaps like Firefly, but without the Chinese and mostly on ground.
The Erikssons live in New Kalmar which is the neo-Norse colony on Mars. The Kalmar(t)ians are ruled by a consensus communicated via an AI known as the All-father. Needless to say the colony is heavily influenced by old Norse morals and structure, in a somewhat uneasy mix with social democratic elements. The Eriksson family is part of the greater Eriksson linage (ætt) which claim to fame is that their original leader (and genetical father) was the ship doctor/geneticist on the first Kalmar colony ship Wasa.
I digress - the illustrations in this post are both inspired by the Eriksson family business. The first is a recruitment poster for the Wasa colony ship - and sports a variant of the Eriksson family motto; (embrace) tomorrow today. In-game the poster is the best known icon for the colony expedition and an original hangs prominently in the Allting (Parliament) at New Kalmar.
Out-of-game I made the poster as an exercise in building complex raster images in Photoshop. The process involves converting images to bitmaps and then cutting and pasting blacks and withes together with different blending modes. The cloud picture is a personal snapshot, but the diver and the astronaut are from flickr-commons. Originally I was planning on doing a full scale (90x40 cm) silk print in magenta of the main motif without the text, but the course I'm attending don't accept size over a4 so that won't happen. But I have done some very nice printouts.
The second poster (which was made first), marks the present direction and mood of the Erikssons. Imagine tomorrow today points towards the next frontier of cybernetics meets genetics - > our ultimate goal is transferring the human consciousness from one body to the next, in practicality eternal life.
In contrast to the embrace poster with its retro propaganda feel the imagine poster follows a multilayered collage style with heavy use of sci-fi cheese. The main elements are galactic spectacles gathered from the Smithsonians rich commons collection on flickr. The poster was revised a number of times, and even included the diver from embrace, but presented here is the final piece.
This post is also published on my personal blog at leketoys feel free to sneak a peak for more artwork.
I have been playing RPGs since I was 14 and done both fantasy, horror, sci-fi, modern and just about any genre you can imagine. For the past 6 months we have been playing Mars-based sci-fi in a proto eclipse-phase setting. Finally I feel visually at home. Many influences have been discussed internally in the group, and although this undoubtedly should be a separate post on the blog, I will quote a few movies to give the proper context for the illustrations: Rome & Juliet (Baz Luhrmann), Total Recall, The minority report and Moon.
The plot for our game revolves around the dysfunctional elite Eriksson family, who at the beginning of the story lost their (mad)scientist parents in a suspicious lab explosion. Thus the motive for the game is revenge, and the theme is that of intrigue. As gamers we try to tell a Mission impossible/Ocean’s 11 in space kind of story, but most often end up in a more complex, less action, borderline slapstick landscape – perhaps like Firefly, but without the Chinese and mostly on ground.
The Erikssons live in New Kalmar which is the neo-Norse colony on Mars. The Kalmar(t)ians are ruled by a consensus communicated via an AI known as the All-father. Needless to say the colony is heavily influenced by old Norse morals and structure, in a somewhat uneasy mix with social democratic elements. The Eriksson family is part of the greater Eriksson linage (ætt) which claim to fame is that their original leader (and genetical father) was the ship doctor/geneticist on the first Kalmar colony ship Wasa.
I digress - the illustrations in this post are both inspired by the Eriksson family business. The first is a recruitment poster for the Wasa colony ship - and sports a variant of the Eriksson family motto; (embrace) tomorrow today. In-game the poster is the best known icon for the colony expedition and an original hangs prominently in the Allting (Parliament) at New Kalmar.
Out-of-game I made the poster as an exercise in building complex raster images in Photoshop. The process involves converting images to bitmaps and then cutting and pasting blacks and withes together with different blending modes. The cloud picture is a personal snapshot, but the diver and the astronaut are from flickr-commons. Originally I was planning on doing a full scale (90x40 cm) silk print in magenta of the main motif without the text, but the course I'm attending don't accept size over a4 so that won't happen. But I have done some very nice printouts.
The second poster (which was made first), marks the present direction and mood of the Erikssons. Imagine tomorrow today points towards the next frontier of cybernetics meets genetics - > our ultimate goal is transferring the human consciousness from one body to the next, in practicality eternal life.
In contrast to the embrace poster with its retro propaganda feel the imagine poster follows a multilayered collage style with heavy use of sci-fi cheese. The main elements are galactic spectacles gathered from the Smithsonians rich commons collection on flickr. The poster was revised a number of times, and even included the diver from embrace, but presented here is the final piece.
This post is also published on my personal blog at leketoys feel free to sneak a peak for more artwork.
