More LotFP contest results: Pro-Am category

By: Unknown on 11:08

Nearly everybody being judged today did their best to tell me how they were really not a professional game artists, but the fact remains that their work was published somewhere prior to the contest.  I created a separate category for these folks to avoid scaring doodlers away from entering the competition, but that really worried some of the entrants here.  What can you do?  Anyway, check these out.

Doc Rotwang!, who totally needs to update his blog, got a laugh out of me here by riffing on Raggi's weird choice of picking a header font with old fashion long s.

Craig Brasco's work here is technically good and I'm as fond of hot dark-haired sorceresses as the next het dude, but from an art direction point of view I just don't see the connection between the text and the illo.  Great pic, but I wouldn't put it on this particular page.

Felipe Budinich's tromp l'oeil approach is a great break from stock fantasy art and the execution is great, too.  Like the witchy gal above, the connection to choosing a name for your PC is a little obscure, unless Felipe is attempting to comment on the strange metafictional nature of RPG characters.  Whether there's a message here or not, I'd love to see a whole game illustrated this way.

This submission from Wille Ruotsalainen leaves me doubly frustrated.  I want to see the whole illo free of the text and I sure as hell want the text without the illo under it.

Here's another one from Wille.  I like both pics.  Fantasy RPGs need both more princesses in pointy hats and more samurai throwing down with bigass apes.  And I love the choice of a swan on the tabard of the fallen knight.  The discarded helm is a nice touch as well.  The only thing I don't like is that there are two separate illos side-by-side.  If I was the publisher and Wille was hired for art on this page I'd want a redo combining the two pictures.

I love, love, love Jennifer Weigel's pic bugs crawling all over this page.  They remind me of this old Homestar Runner cartoon.  But I hate, hate, hate the idea of covering up the text.

This other Jennifer Weigel illo is just about the best thing ever.  It nicely illustrates one of the spells on the page as well as winking towards Call of Cthulhu.  Cutesifying Cthulhu has gotten really played out in the last decade or so, but Jennifer brings a freshness to the subject that I find irresistible.  And that's why she gets the blue ribbon for this category.

Congratulations Jennifer!  Send me an email with your mailing address and your choice of whether you want the Minibox of Mystery or the Preposterous Miscellaneous as your prize.