Art & Illustration for TTRPGs

Writeup by Thomas Novosel

A big cost that can come up when designing and producing a Tabletop Role-Playing Game (or supplement, or anything) can be the graphics, illustration, and visual design of a TTRPG. Illustration is not just useful for getting the visual style of the world of your game (what do the player characters and environment's look like?), but can also be used as part of the layout to denote a 'mood' for the world and the publication.

While it is easy to say (not for anyone's wallet) that purchasing paintings, and commissioning illustrations for a game is the best path forward. It may not be! Because that illustration still needs to be put onto the page, and doing so may require more than just having a picture drawn. It may involve more visual design. And we all want as many pictures as possible, so what should a game designer/producer do?

• Illustration commissions: Benefits are original art and paying an artist you like to make sure they can get food. Cost, money and also acting as an art director for asking for art.
• Illustration/Art Packs: Many artists in the gaming sphere also release art packs, which contain stock art that can be used for commercial purposes as long as they are used following some form or set of attribution guidelines (varies from pack to pack).
• Use public domain imagery: so much art and printing plates are in the public domain and available online. The OSR and Sword Dream movements have latched onto this choice well and hard, as the art is plentiful and cheap and can be modified to suit multiple genre and tonal needs.
• Use photography: Photography can be found in multiple places and can bring a more modern and colorful tone to a work. This can allow architecture to be used for art, people in costumes as characters, and also make good covers and act as art for spreads.
• Mix multiple options: To satisfy multiple needs, such as wanting both colorful work (can be attained through photography), and also fantastical imagery (mixing public domain works with illustrations that are commissioned) is a way to, as a designer, stick your finger in all of the pies to make one super pie.

Public Domain Art

Here are some resources linked on the wiki that go to public domain art resources:

• Sword & Source
• British Library's Flickr
• GameablePublicDomainArt
• Mikhail Vrubel
• Ukiyo-e
• Random Rijks
• Infernal Dictionary
• Artvee

Photography Packs

• A Place Without Bodies
• Adam Bell's "Stock" Photos
• Unsplash
• Smithsonian Open Access
• Green Pics