RPG-Creatures

[Cloister]

Hi

My name is Nicholas Cloister and I'm a freelance illustrator/concept artist.
I'd like to inform everyone about my Bestiary Blog, that is currently in motion.
If you like RPGs, and if you enjoy creatures in particular, I think you should check it out.

It is called RPG Creatures and can be found here:
What you will see are creatures that are illustrated and described to the best of my abilities. There are also system independant stats, that I hope are easily interpreted and transformed to fit your game of choice.

Here is an example creature from the site.



Welcome!

[misterecho]

Oh dear sir you are a godsend! Everything on the blog is free for non-commercial use? I read that on the first page, just wanted to clarify.

We love Philanthropy on 1km1kt "Dr Mr The Rob Lang" of the free RPG blog has a cool pic for sites such as yourself, consider it a mark of Philanthropy goodness. I'm sure he'd be very happy to see you use it.

I expect Rob to chime in with appropriate linkage!

[Sanglorian]

Those illustrations are fantastic! (I particularly like the pheasant-headed griffon). I'll be mentioning your blog on the next , for sure.

[Cloister]

misterecho: Thanks a lot! Regarding the "free to use", what I mean is that you don't have to buy, or pay for, these creatures to use them in gaming situations. However if you want to publish them in any kind of way (blog, website, pdf, print etc) you still need my permission. As long as you don't intend to make money from using them (and that includes income from advertising) I would normally say yes, but I can see situations where I would not. For example I don't want anybodly to copy the entire blog and change the stats to fourth edition D&D. Nor do I want people to release their own RPGs, and include all of my creatures, even if they give away the game. I have changed the text of introduction on my blog slightly, to clarify this, but I think I will also make a post and be more specific about it. In the meanwhile use the blog bestiary as you would a D&D MonsterManual that you purchased in the store. You can then use the creatures for gaming, but that doesn't mean you can reproduce them in any kind of number/situation.

I will check out that mark of Rob's. If it looks good and I'm still entitled to it I might use it. Thanks again!


Sanglorian: Thanks! If you mention my blog you deserve a big and delicious ice-cream!
Write me an e-mail at nicholas@cloister.se when it happens, and I will thank you appropriatly on my blog.

[sean2099]

Hmmm, I could see the confusion earlier in assuming your work was freer than you intended. Of course, not every picture would need the same amount of rights. In other words, maybe you could give away (or have looser rights) a pic or three as a calling card and then charge for other ones.

Another side point...you realize that your works are what I call yoinkable...they're nice, high resolution, (right click, save pic as) too easy to crop off the attribution and perhaps even mutable with the right software. INHO, you stuck between having a watermark which would mar the look and provide only a smidge more copyright protection verses being in the state you are in.

I could see uses for some of your stuff but I would feel bad asking for free or paying only a fraction of what they could actually fetch in an open market.

[Cloister]

sean2009: I will be very generous with the creatures, but I prefer people asking before publishing. About the "yoinkable" part, I'm aware of it of course. Many concept artists and illustrators have their work stolen at times. I have not yet discovered or heard about my images being subject to theft, but I guess it will happen sooner or later. I'm not here to fight piracy however, nor policing my art. I will continue showing my artwork in good quality, and I can live with the chance of the thief's guild getting hold of it. Thanks!

[Rob Lang]

@Cloister, the beasties are superb. I'll certainly plug them for inspiration.

The images will get stolen, you can count on it. I keep finding stuff from (especially the ) popping up on other people's web sites (and games). It's very annoying, especially if the person you've politely asked to take them down gets all defensive or tries to suggest that the picture they have was not mine but inspired by it. Ridiculous considering I render the images, so stealing them is super obvious.

The best way to avoid getting them nicked is to have a suitably low resolution image (about 300 pixels wide). Then when printed, it will look really fuzzy if made large. Also, you can try putting a watermark over the edge of the image, so it crosses a foot or hand. If you use a a colour-burn technique in Photoshop, you'll find that it's really hard to remove successfully.

[Cloister]

Thanks a lot, Rob!
And thank you for the concern/advise about watermarking etc.

I really appreciate it!

Here is a 300px size version of the latest creature:


A much bigger size version can be found on the blog