Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Pulp => Topic started by: Wirelizard on July 28, 2010, 02:41:11 AM
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I've had a dodgy internet connection at home the last month or so (bloody wireless...) so I've been forced to do things on my computer other than just surf LAF and random sites. Shocking, I know.
Mostly, I've been exercising my Inkscape chops, with occasional use of GIMP as well.
This one is based on a 45A game we played last year, roughly in the style of 20s/30s magazine covers:
(http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8080/ohiosmithdinomen.png)
The infamous "Red Lily", real name unknown, is one of our recurring characters, along with various henchgoons from her "Red Air International". She's an air pirate, saboteur, and international troublemaker. Here's a WiP sheet of various versions of her air pirate insignia:
(http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1093/redairpirateinsignia.png)
This just might be one of the zeppelins she skulks around in:
(http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/70/zeppstorylogolessredraw.png)
This image started out as a diagram from an old book I found on Internet Archive in PDF format, cleaned up and converted to SVG in Inkscape.
Finally, Rich of Rattrap Games might recognize this building:
(http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7294/newcommmusstickersample.png)
Pardon the SAMPLE disfiguring of it, but it's still WiP. It's part of a series of period-style travel stickers I'm working on - the sort of thing you'd put on the side of your travelling bag to show how well-travelled you are. I've done London, Paris, Rome, and New Commerce City so far, and have plans for Cairo, Arkham, and various other pulpy destinations, both real and other!
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No feedback here, but people are viewing these things, so here's another one...
Creating tobacco ads feels odd, even if they're fictional.
(http://a.imageshack.us/img821/3659/aviatorcigs.png)
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Very impressive! The Red Air International especially is beautiful.
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Love the pulp comic/book. How easy/difficult is that to do? Is the software available for free?
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Love the pulp comic/book. How easy/difficult is that to do? Is the software available for free?
The main program I used for all these images is Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/), which is free (Open Source, in fact) and available for Windows, Mac & Linux. It's a vector graphics program, so closer to Illustrator than Photoshop.
Working with vector graphics is a bit different from Photoshop-style graphics work, but once you get used to it it's incredibly powerful. Vector graphics are infinitely scalable, for example - I could print that Aviator Cigs image out big enough to cover a tabletop, and it'd be as crisp as an image the size of a cigarette pack. Try that with a JPG!
The "book cover" has been in progress for far too long, since just after the game it's supposed to commemorate sometime in mid-2009! That said, it wasn't a diffficult image to put together, I just kept fiddling with it, leaving it for ages, then coming back again. There's parts of other projects in there too - the Red Air International insignia behind the red block introducing Red Lily the Air Pirate, for example. I do that a lot - never delete a file, keep them all and let them cross-pollinate!
Good authentic fonts are an important part of a period look; using Times New Roman/Arial/etc just wouldn't give the same "look". One awesome source of free 20s/30s fonts is Zapatopi's Fonts (http://zapatopi.net/fonts/); half a dozen fonts sourced directly from period publications and digitized. I'd have to check, but I think all the text in all the images here are in various Zapatopi fonts. Dafont (http://www.dafont.com/) is another favourite font-source; there's some good pulp-era stuff, and lots of fun things like the comic-book special effects font]http://www.dafont.com/sound-fx.font]comic-book special effects font (http://www.dafont.com/sound-fx.font) that provided the "explosion" graphic behind "Explosions, Mayhem & Thrills".
Inkscape has great tutorials built-in, and SVGs (the native format of Inkscape) are easy to "disect" or pull apart to see how they're made. Give it a shot, and just play for a while.
I can put the SVG originals of some of these graphics up, if anyone wants to poke at them in Inkscape. Let me know!
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Three more for fun.
Aviator Tobacco makes another appearance:
(http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/8800/aviatorwallsign.png)
Some advertising, possibly for the side of a hangar:
(http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/5657/biplaneltf.png)
And the first obviously alt-hist/World More Pulpish piece of advertising:
(http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7624/ampacairshipco.png)
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These really are excellent. As you say, people are looking, but not leaving many comments, so I'll join the few and say, well done that chap!
I'm glad to see Inkscape working well too, I've used it a little but my machine at home is so old and in need of scrapping that I haven't dared to try to download it here (I've used it at college though). Perhaps it's time for me to try something a bit creative with it...
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I always love it when people do well thought out alt/pulp/vsf advertisements and the like. I love that zep. advert 8)
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Thanks for sharing.
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Wirelizard they are great! Print some up on good photopaper and I'll buy some to decorate the toy room. :D
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These are really nice.
I run a lot of pulp RPGs and I use a lot of handouts for clues.
I have improved the quality over the years, but They arent up to the snuff of your work yet.
Have I mentioned that I am computer challenged?...
Keep up the good work!
Wraith
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Wonderful graphics! I love 'em. Very well done!
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They are getting better and better.
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I've been pushing pixels again. Two of these are a substantial rework of old projects (reworked to the point of being a whole new project, really), one of them is entirely new.
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1370/5168420073_9e1d2a1a48.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5168420073/)
Fighting Tales: The Bridge of Doom (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5168420073/)
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4153/5168420591_e8c3677ae1.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5168420591/)
Fighting Tales: Lost City of the Dino Men (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5168420591/)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1437/5169020394_de8f6c4b71.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5169020394/)
Fighting Tales: Peril in the Far Pamirs (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelizard/5169020394/)
(Nov. 13 Update: All three graphics replaced, to correct typographic errors that had crept in while I worked on these on two different computers...)
I'm much happier with these than the earlier attempts at a magazine cover; they're much closer in style to real pulp-era magazine covers than before!
"Dino Men" and "Bridge of Doom" are from games we played in the last year or two; "Far Pamirs" is from a scenario that hasn't even gotten past the 'basic concept' stage of planning! (I don't even own more than about half the figures needed for "Far Pamirs", for starters...)
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Well done, you! Great links to some very useful resources.
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Great work, and thanks for the links!
I really appreciate your use era-style fonts. And it is so nice not to see another 'Indiana Jones' looking font. lol
Dave-
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Great work, and thanks for the links!
I really appreciate your use era-style fonts. And it is so nice not to see another 'Indiana Jones' looking font. lol
I don't even have an Indiana Jones-style font installed on either machine I'm doing this stuff on, actually. :D I've got other movie-inspired fonts, but not currenty an Indy one. Faking a period look also isn't so much about the flashy fonts, as about the quieter ones used in subtitles and body text. Get those right, and you're a long way toward replicating a pulp-era look.
One more source for fonts that is highly deserving of mention: HPLHS Prop Fonts (http://www.cthulhulives.org/toybox/PROPDOCS/PropFonts.html) - more retro revivals from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. There's a bunch of nice free fonts, and a CD full of even more fonts to buy.
I also started a Pulp-Era Fonts & Graphics (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=8959.0) thread here on LAF a while ago, which has some additional resources.
One design trick I've seen on a LOT of period text, and which is easy to replicate no matter which font you use: an outline in black or a contrasting colour around the letters. Very common, easy to do, think of it as a "cheap and easy retro-look". (Easy in Inkscape, anyway. Just change the colour of the Stroke (outline) of the lettering. Have I mentioned I love Inkscape?)