If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you may know that my husband, Isaac, and I are starting a publishing company for our stories and games. Well, I’ve talked a lot about the stories, but today I’m going to give you a peek into one of our games-in-progress: Battle Decks.
I’m not going to give a whole lot of detail on the game just yet, but I will say this: it’s a fantasy pseudo-steampunk table-top card game, where there are two battling factions and your goal is to take out the opponent’s hero cards. We’re considering the catch-phrase of “Dragons, dinosaurs, and dirigibles, oh my!”
Anyway, at this point in time, we have the basic mechanics of the game, stand-in cards, and we’ve played it on and off between ourselves over the past couple years. Currently, we’re in the process of creating the art for the actual cards. For the typical card, Isaac creates the base image with pencil on sketchbook paper. Then I go in and add the details, smoothing out the line art in the process. We then scan the page onto the computer. I retouch the pencil art in Photoshop CS6. Isaac does the basic coloring. Then I do the final touch-ups to the coloring and shade the image. That completes the basic art, up to the point we add them to their actual cards.
We’ve already ordered one proof of the first few cards, and there are tweaks to be made for readability. But it’s coming along, slowly but surely. There might be a set of stories planned around this game, too…
Your sneak peek is one character from each faction. 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 