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Artist Guidelines We don't care if you've never been published before or whatever. None of us were until we started this. If it's good, it goes in. Payment currently is $50 for a b&w full page. Payment terms are half on completion, and half on publication. You also will receive a copy of the published work. This will hopefully go up as production increases. I may ask you to do a comp piece in the Battlelords universe before I assign anything. I won't ask for more than one though. Some of our art is used in electronic documents only; so let me know if this is a problem. We accept, and prefer to take, online art submissions. Send us the URL of your art, or email your artwork directly to us (jpegs please). Battlelords is a science-fiction game, so please submit sci-fi artwork if at all possible. We need to find artists capable of rendering aliens (If you want, you can use the race pictures for Battlelords as a guide. Find them at the bottom of this page, under "What kind of freak would you like to learn more about?"), futuristic worlds, spaceships, and vehicles. Please keep this in mind when selecting pieces to send. I cannot promise that a submission containing only fantasy (medieval) artwork will be seriously considered. Payment for art is upon publication. Please read, and follow the artist guidelines below before you submit your artwork to us. If you have any questions about what to submit or about the guidelines, please contact the Art Director, Michael Osadciw (mOsadciw@SSDC.Com) SSDC, Inc. is a game company that produces role-playing games (RPGs). Currently we produce Battlelords of the 23rd Century, a sci-fi RPG and Blood Dawn, a post-apocalyptic RPG. Interior illustrations for Battlelords are black and white using pen and ink, ink wash, pencil, watercolor, or combinations of the above. Blood Dawn's interior illustrations will be pencil and/or charcoal or the like. At the moment color artwork is only needed for front and back cover art. Consequently, not much color work is needed at the moment. We are also producing many supplements as electronic documents also. Check out the catalog for more information on this. The guidelines below will relate to Battlelords exclusively. They should also only be used in regards to interior black and white art. Cover art is a different story. I will make an announcement on the website if cover art is needed. We at SSDC strive to put a lot of detailed art into our RPGs. Sci-fi games need a lot of art to get across their ideas of totally alien venues. Lots of people know what an elf looks like, but how many know what a Phentari looks like. The strength of Battlelords is the depth and uniqueness of its player character races. In the last ten years many of the player-character races have developed a consistent look (There are now 28 PC races). Battlelords is unusual in that it is not a human centered game or "us vs. the Aliens" kind of thing. Humans are merely a small piece of the big galactic puzzle, and should not be given any more importance than the other races. Some races are still in development, but the finished ones need to look the same, like Phentari, Eridani, and Ram Python. Many races have distinctive looks and characteristics that need to come across in the illustrations. Orion Rogues are always flashy and flamboyant. Eridani are gaudy in a militaristic sense and always carry swords. Some newer races characteristics are not known yet. I have no idea what an Ikrini Geomancer will wear for a night on the town. We have eleven books worth of background information on Battlelords now, and we encourage anyone doing art for us to use these references and ask a lot of questions. No, this does not mean you have to buy eleven books to work for us (although we'd sure appreciate it ;-). We'll xerox what you'll need. As far as the subject matter goes, it's a whole universe so it's totally wide open. We may have a few specific pictures in mind that have to be done a certain way, but sometimes there will be something assigned with a description like "We want a picture of a cool floating city". When it's vague like this, we encourage you to go nuts with the idea. Do what you want. If we think it's cool it goes in. When giving people weapons and armor, check out what I've (Mike Osadciw) done so far. Look through Lock-N-Load for weapon ideas. Gamers like to see that connection. That way they can point to a picture and say, "Ooh, he's holding an Able 3 Omega Cannon. That's cool!" We also want to avoid the common syndrome in the hobby gaming industry of "generic gaming picture #7". Even on small drawings we want some kind of spark and something to do with Battlelords. |
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I encourage you to work within your own style, but try and mesh with Jim Carlton
and myself. We use technical pen for our pen and ink and also ink wash, marker,
and other stuff. You can go your own direction but we still need the book to
have a cohesive feel. A few things I don't want. No Anime looking figures
please! I know it's popular, but big eyes and messy hair doesn't work here. A
comic book style also has limited use in our game. We want to minimize the
comic book heroic quality of the figures. Not every being you draw has to have
the body of a god and the great hair to match. It's fun to throw in some
ordinary people now and then. Also, some of the races don't quite match up to
the human physical ideal. For example, Mutzachans are not muscle-bound. They
are very frail beings and should be drawn that way. You don't have to have big
biceps and a washboard stomach to harness the power to wipe out a planet. Now,
on to the touchy subject of depicting women. We know how gamers are and we know
that "babe art" sells books. The thing is drawing pictures like the
babe on a certain other sci-fi games cover, who comes to the gunfight in her
hot-pants and bikini top just doesn't work well in the Battlelords universe.
Bikini tops have very little bullet resistance and wouldn't make much sense to
the smart adventuring female. Please show some restraint and common sense here.
Combat in Battlelords is very deadly and very intense. Pictures of combat
should be gritty and realistic. And above all, there should be a sense of humor
involved every once in a while. Remember this is a game and we're all having
fun right?
Spaceships and vehicles should have a distinctive look in Battlelords. I follow George Lucas' design credo of a "used universe." Ships and vehicles should look kind of clunky and dirty. Battleships can have battle damage, soot marks, and the like. We like to see the "Star Wars" and "Aliens" kind of look in our stuff. Nothing is as smooth as Star Trek except maybe Mutzachan stuff. However a lot of races' ships haven't been developed yet. To summarize, here is what we look for in an SSDC artist:
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