Creating the Imperial City (Patreon)

Like many others, I've got a complicated relationship with TESIV: Oblivion, which celebrates its 13th birthday this month. 

Announced not long after I really became involved in the Elder Scrolls community, it was the first game whose release I've anticipated and discussion of which I was involved in prior to release. The Oblivion Game Informer is the only gaming magazine I recall buying (it's a really fascinating artifact, in retrospect, because it highlights just how much changes in development). One of my most beloved possessions is a hoodie with the Oblivion logo, gifted to me by my parents for Christmas, which still gets me compliments just about every time I wear it. Back in the day, it announced to my classmates that the shy, unremarkable girl wearing it was actually a huge damn nerd, and lead to conversations that lead to friendships. I fondly look back on the absolute giddy excitement of coming home from school to see the box on my doorstep, installing it, and sitting at the edge of my seat as that bombastic opening movie played... only for the game to crash as soon as it got to the character generation screen (instead, I spent the night reading and transcripting the Pocket Guide to the Empire for the Imperial Library and Tamriel Rebuilt). A new videocard for my birthday a few days later fixed that, and I spent far too many hours immersed in Cyrodiil, and, later, modding in Hammerfell. 

At the same time, as I learned more about the world and began to regularly participate in the lore community, it became impossible to ignore that the Cyrodiil presented in game was not the Cyrodiil we were promised by lore. For me, and likely many others, it was the first instance of the truths of the world objectively not being true. The lack of jungle and rice fields, of Nibenese/Colovian tension, or of moth priests shrouded in clouds of ancestors wasn't a regional difference (as many of the Daggerfall to Morrowind changes were), or an example of an unreliable narrator (as is the case with the Pocket Guide's description of the province of Morrowind) -- they were a retcon. And if it was possible to completely ignore most of what we knew about Cyrodiil, then how much of what we knew about anything in TES could really be trusted? The fact that PGE Cyrodiil was, for many of us, a more interesting depiction than what we got in game just added fuel to the fire. I would go so far as to say that had Oblivion not depicted such a radically different imperial province, the idea of "obscure texts" would not have gotten as big as it did, and the canon/noncanon arguments would not be as big a deal as they became in the subsequent years.

The Cyrodiil I depict in my art and writing tends to be closer to the PGE's description of the province, but with game elements thrown in to various degrees, not just because I ultimately liked Oblivion, but because it genuinely did introduce some new and interesting lore. No matter my problems with it, it played an important part in my life and in the history of the series, and I wanted to do something to honor it for the anniversary this month.

I began by deciding that I wanted this to be a single color print focusing on depicting form and shade with linework. I quickly came up with three ideas: a Nirnroot, the Imperial City, and a birthday cake sweetroll, all imagery introduced in TESIV. The Imperial City seemed like the most interesting idea, so I chose to go with that. 

I scanned the sketch, lightened and enlarged it to the proper scale, and then printed it back out. I'd normally do the final drawing in Photoshop and print it out, but my tablet was throwing a fit and I didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. Instead, the final drawing was done on top of the printout with a sharpie. Next, I traced it on some tracing paper using a soft pencil, which then allowed me to rub the design straight onto some easy carve lino. 

I added a border, carved, and then did a test print with some gold stamp ink before making some final adjustments and printing a run of the completed picture with a mix of blue and black waterbased ink, seen in the heading above.