Art Process: Commissioning a witch
Here at Curious Lynx we’re phenomenally proud of how well received the aesthetics of Which Witch? and our cast of crones have been. I personally adore all the illustrations Kerri, Jaqueline and Elyssa have made for us.
Today I’m going to take you behind the scenes and walk through the process of working with an artist to produce one of the illustrations.
Finding Artists
Finding artists you want to work with is easy. ArtStation, Cara, Instagram, even DeviantArt and Pinterest ~ you can find people making illustrations you’ll love for sure. Finding an artist you can afford, who has the time to work with you, is much harder. My advice though is to find people whose work you love and reach out to them. If you can’t afford them, or they don’t have the time right now, don’t despair, other projects will happen. I’m collating a huge book of artists I might use in future projects.
Draw me a witch
For each of our witch illustrations the artist and Curious Lynx Games drew up a contract, which laid out the expectations, the required sizing and details on how the finished product should be supplied, along with all the legal stuff and fees. The fun part though is the description of the character.
This is [approximately] what I sent to Kerri to describe Pincoya.
The Work shall consist of an illustration of a character named “Pincoya”. An adaptation of a character from Chilean folklore. The illustration is to be done in an art nouveau aesthetic.
The foreground depiction should show a beautiful woman of South American heritage, though, she is a water spirit, so her colouring can be more fantastical (mermaid/piscine features are fine but not necessarily required).
She should be depicted in the sea (either emerging from it, or underwater). In game, she has an Octopus familiar, though background elements of any kind of aquatic creatures is fine (as in
fish/whales/cephalopods/crabs ~ not so much otters/seals/penguins).
Her mood should be friendly and generous. She is a spirit beseeched for plentiful fishing.
Her core colours are sea blue and bright orange. The card in which she’s depicted will be framed in these colours; the illustration should suit this surrounding.
Less formally, I asked her to avoid anything that felt like The Little Mermaid.
Sketches
Getting a set of sketches from an artist feels like Christmas. You have ideas in your head, but especially when you’ve given someone else you trust some freedom, you can’t wait to see what they come back with.
In this instance Kerri came back not just with sketches but flats as well, and a bunch of notes on her thinking. From these, I identified which of the poses I liked best, and highlighted any elements I felt were notably strong / weak. In this case:
I felt 1, 4 and 5 had a little too much wistfulness/melancholy, so discounted them
6, 2 and 3 had much more of the attitude, movement and playfulness I wanted for Pincoya
Having seen options both with and without the tail, I felt the tail was more interesting, and different from the other illustrations in the game
I highlighted that I loved the octopus tentacle peeking in on illustration 2, and the scale textures on her skin
I asked that the seaweed feel more like clothing and less “drapery” as I wanted to avoid it possibly feeling “pin-up”.
In this case, this led to Kerri sharing a few more mock-ups to make sure the seaweed clothing was matching my expectations.
With all my notes, Kerri could then move on to the colour mock-ups. And if getting the sketches in your inbox feels great, this next stage feels even better!
Colour Roughs
Not being the first witch she’d drawn for us, Kerri had an idea of the frame that the art would sit in, and provided that as a reference guide to me, for double checking size/posture.
On the colouring, I got to make more decisions:
I really liked the 2-tone, slightly more "blotchy" appearance of options 2-4. I preferred how the higher contrast of her scale-blue to sea-blue works better in options 2-4
I found choosing between 2/3/4 really hard.
Option 2 has the coolest tail end - the deep spots look cool and the fiery tip is great, but I felt the fully blue tail was the least interesting of the 3.
I think #3 has gorgeous vibrancy ~ the rainbow effect on the arm fin, the bright orange tail, I love it.
4 has an interesting colour fade, and some of the best patterning from the mixed palette, but I felt the slightly more muted feeling was less appealing
So we went with option 3. I also emphasized how great the motion in these is, and that I think the bubbles are great! The subtle scales peeking out from behind her hair are cool too; I hadn't picked up on them in the flats but I think the shimmer tying her back into the sea colours is clever.
Already these are looking great, but now I’m back to waiting for…
Final
A few weeks later the final piece arrived in my inbox and I’m blown away!
I love it!
Is it exactly what was in my imagination? Of course not. It’s better. It’s sparked from my initial thoughts and requirements but we’ve worked together to get the piece I need for Which Witch?
This is Kerri’s Pincoya, and it’s bloody brilliant.
Art Direction
As someone used to being the artist, art direction can be hard. When you feed back, you need to be clear what your requirements are, and your choices, but you also want to make sure you’re leaving the artist the space to be creative. You need to make sure the art fits the style/brand of your project, but you don’t want to try and make them draw what you would draw. A commissioned artist is creating to your specifications, but importantly, they are the one being creative.
“Restrictions breed creativity” (Mark Rosewater), and you want to make sure your initial description is clear in what should be included, and also what not to include. In her first sketches for Morgan le Fey, Kerri included a crow which I had to ask her to remove. Not because the drawing wasn’t great, but in Which Witch? Morgan is a thief and has a potion ability, whilst crow familiars are associated with the Morrigan. It was no problem, that’s why you go through sketches, flats, roughs, colours etc. Like anything, the more descriptions you give, the better you get at defining your requirements.
Which Witch? Artists
Want to see more fantastic art? Here are the Portfolios and Instagram of our 4 artists.
and finally, me: Nathaniel James (Artstation) • Instagram profile
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