Urialis - City Intro (Patreon)

I need to start sharing this work outside Patreon to start getting people interested in this project more broadly outside those lovely few who support me financially. I've been talking with friends about ways to attack this problem and there are a few options on the table. I'll likely explore all of them, but one of the first I'm going to attempt is these little intro pages with a mix of art and text.

I had a lovely chat with Simon, the creator of a project called Monsterguarden that has blown up on Youtube. I definitely think I should start taking these notes and share them in video form if possible. The more I can get the word out about this thing early before I'm pressed to try to sell people on the eventual RPG this is all leading up to.

Priest and Knight of Matarial - One of the key tenets that are forming under the project is that the designs need surreal or inhuman elements, even for plain old humans. Trying to figure out what those gimmicks will be is the hardest design decision challenge throughout this project.

Overall, I like the idea of Matarialis drawing inspiration from Japan, but both this Shinto-inspired priest and the Samurai-like knight are a little too close to their inspirations for me to be satisfied. I also feel like I have not created a unique enough gimmick to make them feel like part of Angelarium. I'll keep iterating and see where it goes.

Blood Knight - Setting Raphailis as the center of the religious world in this setting gives me a lot of direction for building its inhabitants. I'm happy with this guy's weird mix of grotesqueness and divinity. I want to show the ways power corrupts people. By showing a bit of darkness cracking through the people closest to power, I hope to depict the underlying forces that make people act selfishly. A defender of the Temple of Holy Blood is a noble position in an institution that heals people, but its authority creates incentives for abuse.

Knights of Verdancy - I drew the fat one first but I wasn't satisfied. Just covering him in overgrown vines wasn't enough to make him feel unearthly enough. That's why I chose to make the tall guy really tall and unrealistic in his proportions. I like the idea of Angelic power warping some people physically. Those who are fully dedicated to their order may begin to show signs of growing beyond their human limitations. This is an idea I need to explore further, especially if the physical alterations affect people differently depending on which Angel's power they absorb.

Emissary of Flame - Many of my favorite designs are super simple but my reference folder is filled with super complex paintings. Thinking on this contradiction, I want to try to challenge myself to periodically keep some of my designs stripped back to their bare essentials. If I can do more with less, I think I'll ultimately be more successful than if I draw a million doodads on every guy.

One of my learning lessons from this week is how the relatively complex Knight of Uriel pairs well with the relatively simple priestess from the same order. The context these characters exist in is more important than how they look standing around in isolation. As I progressively work through this worldguide, I need to keep their context in mind so I don't just make a bunch of random pretty designs that don't fit together.

Thanks for reading! More next week :)

-Pete