Andreas @ ArtifyrSHop - Etsy
A bundle I purchased for icons and small art elements titled, “5000+ Dark Fantasy RPG Icons…”.
RPG-Awesome created by Daniela Howe and Ivan Montiel
https://nagoshiashumari.github.io/Rpg-Awesome/
Aaron Jackson + Public Domain
“Aevryn” - main title image in whole or parts throughout the site.
TL:DR – The Process of a Mediocre Visual Creator
To try to create my vision for what Aevryn looks like, I took portions of hundreds of public domain images – landscapes, ruins, buildings, water, waterfalls, plants, etc. – and cut out portions of them that I liked. I focused mostly on “painterly”, “grease pencil” and “field journal” styles.
Some of them (like the little rocky outcroppings), I doubled up, resized, placed them in various places on the lines I wanted to create for the various levels of the horizon. I layered and compiled them in Adobe Photoshop, maintaining most on their own layers. I took water, sky, nebula, and aurora images and placed them in the backgroundBackgroundThe experiences that shaped your character before adventuring. When relevant, invoke them with the GM to negotiate information, bonuses, favor, or opportunities for Story Points. behind all the terrain and building elements I had strewn about.
I then color-matched everything and used Photoshop Filters to blur and remove things like brushstrokes from the original pieces, since they were of vastly varying style and brushstrokes. Then, it got flattened and exported to a PNG file and moved to workingWorkingA spell-like effect achieved by working the Thae. A starting Working's Difficulty Tier cannot exceed your Willpower Proficiency. in Procreate on my iPad with my Apple Pencil.
In Procreate, I began making all of the connections between elements on their own layers using quick rough, sketchy strokes that I would refine later. I would select and distort the size and proportions of things and move them to their own layers for more stacking and visual layering.
I found sections of those original public domain paintings that I had color-matched that I liked the texture, shadows, or highlights off and began to copy and paste them, distort them, and lay them on top of other similar elements. I ended up jumping back to Photoshop for this, because I could turn those textures into Layer Masks over specific shapes, then delete when the original texture overlapped from rocks to water, for example. Then exported it again and moved back to Procreate to keep tying things together.
I used the quick color picking tool in Procreate to change what my pencil would draw, and the eraser, and used color to tailored the textures more precisely within the element I layered them onto.
Next, I manually added highlights and shadows to all elements. After that, I added the mist. Then I used the pen, and the wonder of quickly picking a new color from what was already on the drawing, to bring the auroras properly up to the horizon and edges of structures. I used the smudge tool A LOTLotA special cast-lots result: CRIT, WEAL, WASTE, WOE, or FUMBLE. on these - especially as I got closer to the edges of things.
Lastly, I pulled it back into Photoshop and began using its “Filters” and “Layer Masks” (and a lotLotA special cast-lots result: CRIT, WEAL, WASTE, WOE, or FUMBLE. of YouTube tutorials) to improve the lighting effects.
I’m pretty sure all of that is legal… If not, this is my sworn affidavit… and official apology.
The funny thing is, when I was finished, I posted it to my personal facebook and it showed up as “AI Info”. That led me to find several sites that were designed to detect generative AI images. They ranged from 0% to 99% synthetic, with a lotLotA special cast-lots result: CRIT, WEAL, WASTE, WOE, or FUMBLE. of 60-75%. I was baffled. Then I paid for one of them to give me a heat map and official explanation. Most of it spoke to “re-used textures” (Yep, did that), and “surreal lighting that wouldn’t occur naturally”. (Uhhh - yeah. That was the point.)
Feel free to see see my “Use of AI” disclaimer in the Acknowledgements section.