The Redesign of Eberron

Redesigning Eberron's visual vocabulary one piece at a time!

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Elven Jewelry

Just like with elven clothing, I wanted to explore the cultural connotations of jewelry in Aereni & Tairnadal life. For elves (and of course it depends on each particular family) jewelry is a way to express wealth and devotion to the Undying Court. Deathmasks are common in many Aereni family, with varying compositions of jade, gold, and mystic woods like darkwood & soarwood. In fact, those materials are what make up the vast majority of elven jewelry, with gold being reserved for the higher classes and darkwood used in greater frequency among lower class Aereni.

A common pattern in elven jewelry is linear designs, with either geometric or floral influences. Also popular is representative jewelry, either representing animals or elves. When depicting elves, the representation often takes on more of an iconic feel, pushing towards the gaunt ideal of the deathless.

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Elven Clothing

This was a fun page to do! Living in the jungle and steppes would necessitate light and loose clothing such as skirts and wraps. I also decided that, based on info about Mayans and ancient Egyptians, clothes would be more class-based as opposed to gender-based. In addition, I defined some example patterns for clothing, using motifs established in the weapons as well as references.

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Aereni Architecture

I figured I would start my exploration into the Aereni, the primary elven culture in Eberron, with architecture! Since I’m using both ancient Egypt and Maya as cultural touchstones, I tried to come up with motifs that were present in both. As such, steps and ziggurat-style structures became prominent features of Aereni architecture. Most buildings would be multi-level ziggurats or family estates, which consist of several smaller houses.

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Back on Schedule!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently; the end of a busy semester coupled with holidays caught up to me. However fear not! I have been drawing when able, so I’ll be queueing up posts to go up starting tomorrow. I’m really excited about the stuff I’m working on and I hope you all enjoy it as well! Thanks for understanding, folks!

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Elves pt. 2

This was my exploration into the cultures of the Aereni & Tairnadal, more commonly known as the Valenar, through the lens of war (which is how most people would interact with the Tairnadal, at least). The hardest part was trying to make the Tairnadal feel like a subculture of the Aereni, which is something I feel that the original art didn’t do well. I feel like I succeeded well enough on this front.

The text talks about how most elves would wear armor made from darkwood, which is lighter than metal armor but still offers the same protection. After looking at both ancient Egyptian and Mayan armor (primarily artistic recreations of the armors), I determined that a scale coat, sometimes supplemented by a darkwood breastplate, would be the best look, and the decision that this sort of scale mail would be a distinctly elven thing will help differentiate it even more from mainstream Khorvaire.

The Tairnadal will often be astride their horses, which I figured would be reason enough to give the longer scale coat. Aereni soldiers don’t rely nearly as much on their mounts, so shorter coats and unarmored joints would be crucial for jungle maneuverability. The scarves are a nod to the Moorish influence, which can be used to block out dust and sand, as well as serve as cloaks to mitigate the heat that comes from wearing dark armor in the steppes or desert, as well as providing camouflage for the soldiers.

The weapons are pretty straightforward - there are some motifs that I feel are pervasive enough in the various cultures to declare elven motifs. The Valenar double scimitars actually needed a bit more of a redesign from the original art - as it was, the handle was too short to really work, so (taking inspiration from bo staff fighting as well as Darth Maul) I turned it into something more usable. The only problem is how it’s stored - it’s too long to go in a sheath, and storing a bladed weapon on your back like that would be risky. I think when mounted they’ll have a sheath, like one for a lance, but they’ll just carry it when unmounted. It supports their “always ready for battle” mindset, as well as reinforcing other people’s wariness around them.

I’m planning on tackling how elves look when they’re not armed and armored next, so stay tuned!

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Elves pt. 1

There are four main elven cultures in Eberron: the Aereni, who worship their undead ancestors on the island-continent of Aerenal, the Tairnadal, who seek to emulate the legendary deeds of their ancestors through battle, the drow, who stalk the jungles of Xen’drik, and the elves who have assimilated with Khorvaire’s society. The latter two are different enough culturally that I’m saving them for later (the Khorvaire elf might get rolled up with when I cover human cultures, to be honest), so for now I’m locking in on the Aereni & the Tairnadal.

In terms of cultural touchstones, the Aereni remind me of ancient Egypt & the Maya or Aztec*. The focus on worship of the dead screams ancient Egypt to me, and the idea of a jungle-based kingdom where death is a huge focus points to Central American cultures.

This page is, well, it’s basically me using photo reference of people and adding elf ears to them. I was looking at the Afar people in Ethiopia (who have strong visual similarities to depictions of the ancient Egyptians), as well as modern day photos of people in Aztec garb. From here I’m going to figure out the features these photos have that I like, accentuating them and making them look more elven. For example, I’m digging the really high and prominent cheekbones. I’m also going to look at artifacts & jewelry to build a reference stock.

*I haven’t decided which exactly yet - the drawings are references from people in traditional Aztec garb, but I might use the Aztec as a touchstone for the goblinoids.

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Cultural Touchstones in Eberron

The world of Eberron has a very “international” feel to it, with different cultures mixing and mingling, emerging and dying out. For each race in Eberron, I’ll be attempting to lock in the various real-world cultures for each race to draw from in terms of clothing, architecture, and and outlook. As always, the text will supersede what’s written here; this is merely my plan to make sure it doesn’t end up as standard European fantasy. Furthermore, each culture in Eberron is going to have multiple real-world touchstones to make sure it doesn’t feel like “here are the Egyptian elves and the Italian gnomes”. I’m also going to pay attention to how the cultures mingle in the text so I can mirror that in the art.

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Armor Studies pt. 1

One of the core visual elements of the setting was the design of armor, which posed an interesting challenge in and of itself. The overall feel of the setting is distinctly mid-1800s, but weapons like swords and crossbows are still predominately used, so I had to figure out how to integrate military uniforms with armor. Overall I’m pretty happy with the result!

The standard military uniform consists of a shirt & pants, long-sleeved chain shirt, and a military coat. Heavier armor is often layered over that, including a piece that’s a cross between a gorget and a breastplate, pauldrons, gauntlets or bracers, greaves, and a helmet. Cold weather coats would go over that if needed.

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Dragonmarks pt. 1

Here’s the first part of my (probably very long) exploration into dragonmarks. Basically this page was me just noodling about, trying to create interesting forms within a framework. Basically I made “boxes” out of rectangles, circles, and triangles, and made linework designs within them. I decided to go with linework because as the marks evolve I want them to literally build, so new lines would be added as the marks progressed into Lesser and Greater marks. Some of these marks (like E2, C5, and G4) are more successful than others, so I plan on analyzing them to figure out aspects I’m drawn to in order to further lock in a methodology for creating the marks.

[crossclassgeek]

So, I’ve always felt that like the dots-and-commas of the Kzinti in Niven’s known space, the calligraphic look of the dragonmarks came from the idea that Dragon’s claws could be used to write/etch/carve them on various surfaces in the distant past. Whether intentionally or accidentally most of these seem to fit that idea. 

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Thanks! The calligraphic look actually was a happy accident (I was more focused on how they should be able to build on themselves to become Lesser & Greater marks), but I was thinking about how they were manifestations of the Prophecy when I created them.

[eberron-art-redesign]

Dragonmarks pt. 1

Here’s the first part of my (probably very long) exploration into dragonmarks. Basically this page was me just noodling about, trying to create interesting forms within a framework. Basically I made “boxes” out of rectangles, circles, and triangles, and made linework designs within them. I decided to go with linework because as the marks evolve I want them to literally build, so new lines would be added as the marks progressed into Lesser and Greater marks. Some of these marks (like E2, C5, and G4) are more successful than others, so I plan on analyzing them to figure out aspects I’m drawn to in order to further lock in a methodology for creating the marks.

[eberron-art-redesign]

Warforged Studies pt. 1

Two of the largest components of Eberron are the intersection of magic and humanity, and the impact of the Last War. At the center of both of those concepts are the warforged, sentient constructed soldiers without a place in the world due to the end of the war two years ago.

I want to invest a lot of effort into making the warforged feel visually distinct from the existing interpretation, and I think I’m inching towards making that a reality. I’m trying to really emphasize the different materials that are used to build a warforged, from heavy stone skeletons to obsidian eyes to a silver “nervous system”. Furthermore, I want to figure out the internal structure of the warforged as well as less-effective alternatives, to provide a visual narrative of how the warforged became the constructs they are today. The last thing I want to emphasize is how inhuman the warforged are - they’re designed to be soldiers, not people. Hence modifying a gorilla skeleton rather than using a human base, and focusing on helmets as heads rather than giving them faces. Expect further experimentation with that, and seeing how far I can push that inhumanity.

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Tada! The first page of my sketches! I wanted to start off with something integral to Eberron, the intersection between people and magic, and wands seemed like a fun place to start.

The idea is that wands replaced the development of guns, and so offensive spells behaving like guns was a logical place to start! In addition, wands would have seen heavy use in the Last War, so adapting them as sidearms (with defensive additions like crossguards for parrying) felt natural. I also wanted to focus on making wands feel industrial. It should ideally seem like these would be easy to manufacture in batches or in bulk. Finally, I wanted to explore how the spell bound within a wand would change how it looks and functions. The fire wand is made of charred wood, the wand of identification is made of glass so you peer through it to see an item’s aura, and the wand of sleep has a sand capsule at one end (which depletes with each use, making it an effective counter of how many charges it has left).

Regarding the image quality, I’m going to either further mess with the settings in Photoshop and re-upload them or digitally recreate them in the future.

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Purpose Statement

Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name’s Gio and I’m a huge nerd. Specifically a nerd who wants to improve his art. In order to accomplish this, I’m going to redesign the visual vocabulary of the Dungeons and Dragons setting, Eberron. I love the setting to death, and I wanted to challenge myself artistically. Allow me to unpack this really quick:

The What

I’m going to make an entirely new visual bible for the setting. It’s going to be Eberron, but I have a feeling it’ll look distinctly different than any Eberron portrayed before. It’ll be really interesting if I’m able to pull this off. One other thing: I’m ditching the fact that it’s a D&D setting, which means nothing remains just because it’s in D&D. Sure, chainmail and crossbows still exist, but there’s no longer a reason to keep them visually clashing with the distinctly late 1800′s/early 1900′s aesthetic that the setting is pulling towards.

The Why

I want to do this for a number of reasons: first and foremost, I want to use this project as a way to improve my artistic skills, as well as my skills in artistically interpreting text. I also plan on gathering a large number of finished pieces from this to use in my portfolio. Finally, I want to create and solidify an artistic process for myself, as well as planning out works for cohesivity; i.e. everything should have a consistent tone and style.

The How

To do this, I’m going to utilize the text of the Eberron books without utilizing any of the existing artwork. I’m going to draw my own conclusions from the text. For example, it might mean that Talenta halflings ride scientifically accurate velociraptors, which then leads to interesting visual questions about how, maybe, they incorporate feathers into their clothing. However, if the books don’t give a description of it in the book, I’m free to look at other artists for inspiration; I don’t need to redesign the elf, just take into account how elves would look different if they were living in a jungle and worshipped their undead ancestors. I’m also going to use LOTS of references, keeping in mind the historical context of each. If there’s a 14th century sword next to an 18th century sword, it’s because there’s a gap between the age of the swords. Finally, I’m going to make this process transparent. Everything I make will be posted here: sketches, finished pieces, and everything in between.

That about wraps it up! Expect a good amount of content on a regular basis.