Vaechi Attack From Above!

Here we go, are you ready for another Terrain card? We have Land and Water already and now it's the turn of Canopy.

We decided the Canopy needed to be its own element per se, on par with Land, Water and Air, at least interms of Terrain.

So here is the new Vaechi image i knocked up today .. well okay a bit of it. The card itself is coming along. I'm sketching the final design element this very eve.

Thought you might like to see ..

Lo'Jou Attack from the Side!

Thought you might like to see the fruits of my first foray into photoshop...

While not my favourite of the few i've done so far, it's the latest, so as i finished it i grabbed this shot to post here. The final image will be alot smaller, which is why the teeth have been left to stand out.

It's for the reverse of a new troop card - for the Nuko deck to come out in February for the game War for Edadh.

Hope you like it.

It's of a Lo'Jou warrior, which previous posts may have allowed you to guess.

Needless to say i'm enjoying getting to grips with photoshop and wish i'd got it a long time ago.

Lo'Jou Attack from Above!

Work is underway now on the final stages of the Nuko Faction Cards, with illus and such getting wrapped one after the other.

Release of the expansion is some way away of course (the New Year) but then it all needs to be wrapped and ready to print a good two months in advance of that release date.

I'm currently putting the final tweaks to the Nuko Troop card design, ably helped by our Design I/C whose eye catches all.

Illu-wise, it's those lil' Lo'Jou, one of the two species that compose the vast majority of the Nuko'yr culture (with other Edadh species either not showing or in very few and random numbers when they do). The Troop type of this particular card use clubs in melee and atlatls in ballistic and charge. As they have four arms, you can imagine that their rate of fire is greater.

The whole tactical approach to battle for the Nuko differs from the Ang and Dzaa (as featured in the base set) and they tend to operate at charge and melee, though these guys are an exception. They still like to do the 'attack from the Canopy above' thing of course.

After the Conflict comes ..?

As you may know already, the expansion that follows the Art of Conflict decks is for the Nuko. AoC gave the Ang and Dzaa more Troops and Stratagems amongst other things, adding to the Ang and Dzaa armies that appear in the starter set - War for Edadh: the Beginning.

The art progression posts (scroll down a couple of posts to see) showed a serentine species known as the Lo-Seqqo. They do not have a verbal language of their own that anyone can understand but themselves, if they have one at all. So how did they become known as the Lo-Seqqo?

The Lo-Jou live amongst the Nuko, alongside the Lo-Seqqo. They have their own language, if basic in it's scope, but have learned the languages of other cultures to enable trade, spying etc. This is how the Nuko'yr got to naming themselves.

The Lo-Jou are four-armed and make the canopy their habitat, which is not exclusive, being no stranger to the ground.

There are many sub-species of Lo-Jou and probably they are the most diverse of all Edadh species.

Art of Conflict is here!

The first expansion set for the War for Edadh game has just landed on our doorstep, the last couple days and we'll be collating the preorders and posting them out next week.

How cool is that?! The starter game has done well and so the expansions were inevitable. The art looks great - the colours and clarity etc and you'd have to be blind not to be able to read them. But the thematic look is maintained so all's well and it's actually only enhanced because of the great work our new manufacturers have done on the cards.

The expansion decks (one Empire (Huaos-Dzaa) the other Rebel (Angueth)) offer more troops for each faction in the starter set as well as more terrain, stratagems and a new card set - the Conflict Card, hence the Art of Conflict moniker for the expansion release. These, as with the modular rules for War for Edadh, can be played with or not as the players decide, and for those that do they add another tactical twist to the core mechanic, the mastery cards, as well as allowing for eventualities like capturing the opponent's standard.

Good times ahead.

Nuko Sketch Alternative

Here's the alternative colourwork to the Nuko Warrior as covered in the art progression previously on Buffy. As you can see, it's a little different.

I've noticably changed the colour of the Lo-Seqqo as slightly less noticably added patterning to the edging of it's armour and shield.

For this edge patterning I chose stunted stripes that match the Lo-Seqqo's own skin patterning so that the armour would belong.

I still like the colours of the other one somewhat and will do a yellow Lo-Seqqo at some other point. I thought red seemed more aggressive, which to me fits the swordclub and shield weilder better.

For this version the sketch was scanned in again, this time at 600dpi, before colourwork began afresh.

Sketchy Nuko - step3

Okay, so part 3 commences.

Here I've have added colour to the shield and other armour as well as the clubsword.

It's looking more complete now, with the linework adding in detail like the ribs on the armour plates and shield. The base colour of these very similar to the scaleplates down the Lo-Seqqo's front which was done for integration purposes, much like the ribbing itself, making the armour and it's wearer belong together.

I wanted the edging to the armour to continue the earthy coloured theme, and went for a reddish hue as this guy is a warrior and red is a very warlike colour.

Now, i could leave the illustration alone at this point, but unfortunately i've just got a new pc which can handle pictures at 600dpi (all previous have been the bare minimum 300dpi cos they had to be) so i'll be redoing the whole thing.

Other than that, i could leave the colourwork as it stands, as it fits with the style i wanted to achieve.. which is? If we ever do animation, or comics, i want the look of Edadh to feel universal between the media, so you know you're looking at an Edadh thing whether it's an animated TV series or card art or whatever. That's the plan. I'll see how far i can push this when i get into doing full colour comics and epic colour canvasses of various places / events in the world of Edadh. (now i have the new pc, it's something to be attempted, but don't hold your breath cos i've got to teach myself from the ground up!)