Morels: Porcini

Here's the fifth card I worked on for Morels. The Porcini. Game designer, Brent Povis, had a fairly specific vision for this card: "During the day, there are tiny sailboats in the sea and maybe a cruise ship on the horizon? ...What if the ruins become “whole” again with ghostly whispiness adding to the stone to complete the structures under moonlight? What season for the illustration?  Late summer…August. It does need to be somewhat near a tree or small stand of trees, but I’m thinking for this illustration that the trees are a very minor element.  This will keep the focus on the ruins and the porcini. Paper Birch would beautifully complement the classical feel, plus I imagine it would be interesting to illustrate."

So here's the rough sketch followed by the approval sketches. The process, basically, is that I do a quick rough to set placement of the elements, get that approved, then do a more polished sketch, and send that in for approval. Most of the time there were very few major changes. In this case, though, Brent really wanted mountains in the distance, so I added those in. You might also note that I forgot to draw the cruise ship in the rough, but it worked out because at the sketch stage Brent decided a cruise ship was unnecessary anyway. Nice when things work out that way. 

I use the pencil sketch to guide the colors. Sometimes, as in the case of the distant mountains, the pencils were too obtrusive so I ditched them to let the colors do the work.. 

Just layering in colors a little at a time. Note how the clouds mysteriously stop at that point in the sky where, perhaps, they might have passed behind, say, a cartouche of gameplay elements.

After adding in the night sky (and ditching the boats), I recolor the other elements to reflect the time of night. The color shift is most noticeable in the paper of the birch that moves from a warm sienna to a cool blue. We also decided that, at actual size, the "ghostly whispiness" that "repaired" the ruins might be confusing, visually, so we opted for a subtle glow instead. 

If you'd like to try the game out for yourself, feel free to stop by the Two Lanterns Games site and order a copy. -v