Joel Pigou

Illustrator & Concept Artist

[joelpigou]

Haven’t posted anything for a while... but I painted Ythryn for the dnd game I’m running and wanted to share.

[joelpigou]

A dragon breaks through the clouds!

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[r-n-w]

Hi I'm new to the DM scene and was wondering what you use for maps. I was thinking to use those giant rolls of graph paper teachers use but it's hard finding one the proper dimensions... TIA for the help!

Your question made me realise that I don’t seem to have a go-to base for setting up a map at the moment. I just went and got out all of the maps I’ve made recently for the campaign I’m running, and each one is completely different, with a different starting point! I’ll try to explain each of them starting clockwise from the 3D model:

3D Model - I made it from this book (”Make This Medieval Village" by Usborne Cut-out Models) and omitted or added features relevant to the story in this town. This is actually still waiting for the next session, so I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s very time-consuming, so not something I’d imagine is possible for every session.

Book - How to Draw Fantasy Art & RPG Maps - this is so good, I just bought it last week and I’m really enjoying flicking through the tips and ideas!

Map with burned edges - This was the end result of me playing around with these cartography Photoshop brushes (by @joelpigou). I like how quick and easy it is to drop these down and create a whole landscape in a short amount of time. 

Rivermeet Map - I was messing around on this site which generates town maps. It’s a really useful tool that lets you input basic info, and toggles for it’s appearance. I played around until I got a shape I liked, then printed it out and traced it by hand to give it a bit of my own style.Isometric Dig Site Map - Shout out to r/IsometricDnD/ for inspiring me to give my own iso map a shot. I printed out an iso grid from Google and drew out the area in pencil until I was happy, then went over with pen adding details. This is quite time consuming, and I was frustrated that there were large areas you couldn’t see because of the view angle.

Top Down Map - This was the inside of a cathedral/monastery the players were visiting. This I drew on top of a dotted grid I also printed out from Google, and went over in pen for the final details.

Finally, there are times I just free hand maps, especially if I need to just quickly make up stuff or the setting isn’t too important. For those times, I use either a pale grey grid I’ve printed out (you can tape multiple pieces together), or forget the grid completely and use a roll of lining wallpaper. You can pick up a whole roll of the really basic stuff for under $5, and tear off and use to your heart’s content!

[joelpigou]

Series of quick landscapes sketches

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[joelpigou]

Horse study done on stream, the puns were awful and great.

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[joelpigou]

a far away place

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[joelpigou]

Some icy speedpaints from the stream.

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[joelpigou]

Another one!

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[joelpigou]

Some magic weapons from the stream! They are so fun to paint, I’ll be making many more in the future.

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[joelpigou]

Travel

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[joelpigou]

robohead

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[joelpigou]

Warp

45 m sketch from the stream

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[joelpigou]

That red sun we had in the UK yesterday.

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[joelpigou]

Wanted to have a go at painting one of those amazing cumulonimbus clouds being lit by a sunset.

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[joelpigou]

The Forbidden Graveyard

In our Dnd game one of my friends plays a Forbidden Graveyard Warlock, from the Compendium of Forgotten Secrets. I gave a quick go at trying to depict it in a painting. Might have to revisit this one again with a stronger composition. 

spoopy

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[joelpigou]

Travel to the spire.

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[joelpigou]

Acererak Strikes! 

Painting from the stream, inspired by our game of Dnd where we lost two awesome npcs :(

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