I like doing these black & white illustrations, I prefer doing those over doing advertising storyboards/layouts/packaging concepts. I’m wondering if there’s a way to keep doing such illustrations and earn money. So far I’ve only come up with creating creature illustrations and other vignettes that I could bundle and offer via Gumroad for ttrpg-enthusiasts. I did this one to test how such a creature-illu could look like if I do it.

I had a different sketch prepared for today but couldn’t make it work when inking. Thankfully listening to music cleared my mind. You can listen to the “Crying Freeman” Soundtrack on the composer’s website, so I listened to that a few times and took inspiration from my memory of that movie. Unfortunately, afaik you can’t buy the mp3-version of the album, which sucks.

I watched “Hawk – the Slayer” for the first time on the weekend. Peak 80ies Sword & Sorcery movie that had me laughing hard. I frequently had to pause because it was distracting me so much from doing my taxes. Full movie is on youtube, if you want to watch it.

It loosely inspired this illustration. Watching “Hawk” reminded me of playing a first epic RPG campaign.

Looking for Sword & Sorcery fiction I came across a magazine called “Tales From The Magician’s Skull“. A German store called Sphärenmeisters Spiele even carried some issues, so I ordered the three available ones. Today I read the first story from issue No.5 called “Pool of Memory” by James Enge and used it as inspiration for today’s illustration. I’m still experimenting with how I’d like to illustrate such stories, finding my blend between the old Pen & Ink drawings, a more modern look, details vs. abstraction, etc..

Also, side note. I appreciate that “Tales from the Magician’s Skull” is printed on heavy paper. It was a nice surprise, and it made reading the magazine a nice tactile experience.