Monthly Archives: November 2010

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EK Website – Region maps

Tir Mara map
Northern Region map
Central Region map
Southern Region map

These started life as fairly mundane supplied maps with local SCA land groups marked out, and I was asked to “period-ify” them for the EK site. My first thought was “HOLY HANDBAGS I don’t have time to get materials and draw these things out, marking the baronies and cantons and such!” So I put it aside.

A little later, I realized that because I know the Photoshops, I might be able to work with the borders in the original, but refine them back from “clearly digital in nature” to “looks like ink”. I did a few tests, and combined with a lovely old paper texture I have in my creative arsenal, I found a relatively quick and painless way to go from modern map to ancient cartography. The group names are typeset in a lovely font called Dei Gratia. The images were produced with clear backgrounds so we only needed to code one popup with the background in it, and the four separate maps are includes based on which link is clicked.

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East Kingdom Outfitters art

EK Outfitters Zazzle store banner
We're from the East - We're friendly.

I produced several items for East Kingdom Outfitters, an on-demand swag store benefiting the EK Royal Travel Fund. The idea was to offer imprinted items with Eastern images, things which would instill kingdom pride (much like sports team apparel). I was tasked with creating some original art, and also re-purposing existing art (like group heraldry) for the site as well. Among other things, I created an image called “We’re From the East – We’re Friendly” and the logo for the site.

The logo was done completely digitally, but the “We’re Friendly” art was much more involved. It began as an ink line drawing, which I scanned and cleaned. I set type in Illustrator and painted it in Photoshop over the course of many days (two hours a day of train ride is useful for that).

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Griff’s Order of the Salamander scroll (2009)

Griff's salamander scroll

Our local barony’s service award is the Order of the Salamander. Members of this order are recognized for a career of exemplary service to the group, and wear a medallion of a salamander on a red ribbon.

A good friend was to receive this honor, and Annys and I were given the scroll commission. We based it on a sixteenth-centry example of a writ for a knight of the Order of the Garter, both in text structure and in format. We thought it would be a cool touch to replace the seal of the Garter with something more appropriate to our sea-faring and foppish friend, whose baronial title (one of many) is Admiral of the Bhakail Navy. I found an Elizabethan-era example of what they thought sea-going vessels looked like, and based our “seal” on that, complete with sail art for the award and his personal arms.

Note: because he has a letter of marque from the barony (also one from the Kingdom, but that’s different), he is a privateer, if you please. Call him a “pirate” at your own peril, especially if he’s standing on the deck of your ship, pointing out how nice it is of you to donate so generously to the Baronial Coffers.

Arches hot-press watercolor paper; calligraphy in black, sepia, and red ink, illumination in gouache and ink.

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Yule menu scroll (2009)

Yule menu 2009

For THL Alesone’s first feast, she opted to recreate a multi-course above-the-salt/below-the-salt English manor feast, firmly within the Elizabethan traditon. In addition to doing copious research (that research earned her the baronial Arts and Sciences Championship), she commissioned a traditional menu card for the tables from my wife Annys and me.

When we work together, Annys handles the calligraphy, and I do the “makin’ pictures” part. Between us, we produced this piece – complete with multiple period spellings (or mispellings, as it were), in-jokes, portraits of Their Excellencies Bhakail and the Marquessa of Black Icorndall, and a portrait of the Artist as A Young Party Crasher (Hi!). For some reason, people now expect all of our scrolls to have a flamingo in them.

Closeup of feast scene

My biggest regret on this was that my plan to ink over the painted art failed miserably (at least in my mind). My actual statement was along the lines of “Well, $&*#. It was a fantastic painting, now it’s a ham-handed mess.” Everyone I’ve spoken to about this violently disagrees with me, though.

Arches hot-press watercolor paper; calligraphy in black and red ink, illumination in gouache and ink.

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Griff’s Salamander scroll – Process images

boat sketch

Initial sketch with notes to myself

I shot the series that follows as I painted the boat for the Salamander scroll in the previous post. This is partially for my benefit, and partially because it’s kind of neat to show how this image went together. They’re cameraphone quality, so I’ve left them humongous to preserve any details that managed to get in there.

Continue reading →

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2009 Known World Academy of the Rapier/Known World Costuming Symposium website and swag art

KWAR/KWCS swag art

I built and co-maintained the website for KWAR/KWCS 2009, designing it to look as if it had been illuminated and painted. This was a pretty decent challenge, as I’m not a painter, and this was going on the web. The base images are ink drawings, digitally painted in Photoshop. Once we had the site laid out, I designed the image which would eventually grace the event swag (see above.) This was produced on-demand at Zazzle.com.

The real site is long gone, but here’s the sample site. Unfortunately, it looks like the “penguin cam” link is dead too, but I keep holding out hope.

EDIT: Wonder of wonders! The penguin cam is working again! Life is the tiniest bit better today because of it.

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King’s Champion book – cover art (2007-2008)

King's Champion book cover art

A joint project between JP and myself, this was a book intended to house the names and arms of the King’s Rapier Champions going forward from JP, who used up the last space in the lid of the old regalia box.

He did all of the bookmaking, I contributed the art for the cover. My part was produced using a combination of napkin scans and Adobe Illustrator.

JP’s biggest nit to pick with this project is that while my maker’s mark is on the shell guard of the cavalier’s dagger, he neglected to include his own anywhere in the book.

 

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Collin Monro’s AoA

Collin's AoA scroll

This is (I think) my first scroll illumination. Notice my acute lack of understanding of Period leaf forms. Sigh.

I did the illumination and wrote the text; the calligraphy was done by Christopher Jameson, an excellent scribe in Bhakail. This scroll has the distinction of having been given three times, once at one Kingdom event, once at a local event, and again (by the same monarch) at a different event while it was locked in a car in the parking lot.

 

Gouache on watercolor paper.