D&D 5E Hep with art

[Lanliss]

I want to do art, for my world and such. Do any of you have good sources for help on making Fantasy world maps, or info on Fantasy race Anatomy that I could use to help get into drawing those more?

On maps, I am looking for the the whole package, I want to draw towns, cities, forests, mountains, and up to regions, Kingdoms, and continents.

For races, pretty much the same. I want them all, maybe even some old races that aren't in 5E. Any old Anatomy books that may have come out in the past?

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Cartographers Guild ( www.cartographersguild.com_) for RPG map making is particularly nice. Lots of different ways to tackle map making; you could use use a specific program for it (Dunjinni, NBOS Fractal Mapper, or Campaign Cartographer, etc), or you could use a paint program (ArtRagePro, Photoshop, Serif PhotoPlus, Corel Painter, etc)...or, most likely, a combo (Campaign Cartographer for the rough black/white line art and layout, then export as png and import into PhotoPlus). Most of the "pro-looking maps" on Cartographers Guild tend to be combo or 'paint program only' (frequently Photoshop).

Learning to draw anatomy? Hhehe...dude...prepare to be learning for *years*. But, the best way is to grab a package of HB and B2 pencils, a white eraser, a kneaded eraser, and a stack of photocopy paper...then draw stuff. Just draw...stuff. Whatever you feel like...stuff around you, or try and imitate a picture you like, and, yes, even tracing a picture can and does help. Drawing is mostly about training your fine muscle control of your hand and internal 3D imagination. You can also go the digital rout, but you will be investing a lot more cash; you need ample RAM, a decently fast system, and a quality graphics tablet (start small...you may not like drawing on a tablet; Wacom (brand) is the standard and easily worth the price, but for a tighter budget you can pick up a Huion brand one for about half to a third of the price of a similar Wacom).

Depending on if you want to go hard-core realism or if you want to go more comic-book 'as long as it looks cool', you can try and find a couple of books I've used. Look for "Hogarth ; Dynamic Anatomy", "Bridgemans Complete Guide to Drawing from Life", and "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention". Read them. Also, you may want to sign up for a life-drawing class/course. Many free'ish life drawing "groups" (like, $20 for a few months of weekly 2 to 3 hour sessions using actual live models) can be found by just looking in your papers classified ads.

If you want more comic-book style, there is simply nothing better than Stan Lee and John Buscema's "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way". Get one. Hell, get one even if you want to go the more realistic route. Easy to understand, entertaining to read, clean, big picture examples, and words of wisdom from two of the most iconic names in comic books.

Lastly, buy art books. "Coffee Table Books" as they are usually called; you know the ones...heavy, expensive, high-quality colour art books that are typically titled "The Art of [insert artist/game/movie name]". Obviously you will want Frank Frazetta, duh, but others like Brom, diTerlizzi, etc might fit the bill. Basically, any artists you like.

Oh, and don't discount spending hours scouring the net and youtube for tips. One guy on YouTube that I quite enjoy listening to is a guy called "Borodante" (here, https://www.youtube.com/user/dante88s ). He has a quirky personality, and really thinks through his art...and he describes what he's thinking and why. A plethora of digital painting tips have made their way into my brain.

Oh, ONE more thing. Start a "Reference" folder. If you search around enough for tutorials you will find quite a few 3D and 2D artists that will espouse the virtues of having your own personal "Reference Library". It will get big. VERY VERY big... I have one specifically dedicated to female form, for example, that is about 3GB in size (when you consider most pics are compressed and between 100k and maybe 2MB...that's a LOT of pictures!). But I have other catagories too..."Rust", "Old Wood", "Water", "Concrete", "Stone", "Space", "SlimeyCriters", "Winged", etc, etc, etc. Get yourself a 'cheap' digital camera...no, not your phone. Get an actual camera. Take it with you whenever you can and take pictures of things you fine interesting or cool...for colour, texture, shape, uniqueness, whatever. To help you organize your pics, there are many programs out there for it. I use one by Serif called "SerifPhotoStack" lately...but there are others. I used to use "ACDSee" waaaay back, but haven't in probably over 4 years or so.

Anyway...yeah...I don't mean to overwhelm you, really, but it takes dedication and commitment to really get better at drawing. For a bit of inspiration, here's a guy (mostly a 3D guy) who uses Blender (a free 3D program), but wanted to get better at drawing, and how he managed to do it, as well as 'tips' from pro artsits: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-habits-highly-effective-artists-bcon-2016/

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Lanliss]

thanks for the help. On anatomy, I was looking specifically for things like "Gnomish Skeleton structure", or "Tiefling horn styles, and their progressive growth", or "Dragonborn Musculature", not just normal anatomy.

 

[77IM]

For a world map, I recently made one using Inkarnate. It's a bit cruder than many map-making tools, but it's easy to use and produces really great-looking results.

 

[Lanliss]

For a world map, I recently made one using Inkarnate. It's a bit cruder than many map-making tools, but it's easy to use and produces really great-looking results.

I more meant Cartography tutorials/How would a world realistically form.

EDIT: Sorry for the short original response, was a bit rushed. I know of a few of the mapping programs that exist, but was looking for tutorials on how a world realistically grows and such.

 

[Lylandra]

thanks for the help. On anatomy, I was looking specifically for things like "Gnomish Skeleton structure", or "Tiefling horn styles, and their progressive growth", or "Dragonborn Musculature", not just normal anatomy.

You'll have to adapt for those topics, though there are some 3e books that detailed a bit of (monstrous) anatomy in their art. ´Lords of Madness, Draconomicon, Races of X all detailed on certain races and species.

Generally speaking, true humanoids have roughly the same skeleton structure, so you may want to pick up books on human anatomy which also include children (they are perfect for gnomes!)
Quadrupedal monsters or avians are usually based on real life animals (living or extinct), so you can start and work from there. For example, the 3e dragons are loosely based on cat anatomy, giving them grace even tough they are pretty big. Get creative!

Same thing with horn styles: Look at animals that grow horns similar to Tieflings (sheep, goats, bovines etc.) and study their development.

You don't have to reinvent nature when you can simply copy so much from her

 

[Lylandra]

I more meant Cartography tutorials/How would a world realistically form.

You'll want to separate those two. Knowing where a mountain range would form is not the same as drawing it. For the former, you can refer to books on earth history that go back all the way to early Pangaea. Continental drift, forming and the form of continents and geographical features is pretty self-explanatory once you make a slide-show out of the various stages (I even found a thumb theater on drifting continents in our library)

 

[Lanliss]

You'll have to adapt for those topics, though there are some 3e books that detailed a bit of (monstrous) anatomy in their art. ´Lords of Madness, Draconomicon, Races of X all detailed on certain races and species.

Generally speaking, true humanoids have roughly the same skeleton structure, so you may want to pick up books on human anatomy which also include children (they are perfect for gnomes!)
Quadrupedal monsters or avians are usually based on real life animals (living or extinct), so you can start and work from there. For example, the 3e dragons are loosely based on cat anatomy, giving them grace even tough they are pretty big. Get creative!

Same thing with horn styles: Look at animals that grow horns similar to Tieflings (sheep, goats, bovines etc.) and study their development.

You don't have to reinvent nature when you can simply copy so much from her

Fair enough, I was just hoping some of the work had already been done for me on that. I will check out those sources.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Fair enough, I was just hoping some of the work had already been done for me on that. I will check out those sources.

There are 40+ years of D&D books alone (not to mention other fantasy and sci-fi works) containing art that shows every single thing you're talking about. You might look at those for reference too.

 

[KahlessNestor]

For how continents form and stuff, just look at a world map. Note where mountains are. Look how rivers flow, how physical features effect political boundaries.

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