Week 2 officially begins in a few hours and we are so close...like so close. So...wanna help us achieve a milestone? Back today and we at least get to claim the fancy "funded in one week badge". Plus! That means stretch goal territory begins and that's where things REALLY start adding on extra content for everyone.
This week, we will have two updates for you. One today, and one this weekend. The Tuesday one, is about the unsung heroes of the TTRPG industry:
Layout.
I'm going to let Nikki Tantillo have the floor for most of this post, and some of the design process will be hidden down into that exclusive "must be a backer" area. Nikki will walk everyone through all the steps that came up during the design of The Festivals of the Forgotten.
Before we get there...studio allies and friends of the Forge have been helping us spread the word. So we'd like to return the favor.
Hi all! I'm Niki, your resident layout artist here to give you a tour of the design process for Festival of the Forgotten. With each layout I create for Storytellers Forge, the same 3 steps are used from from research to final concept.
Step 1: Research and Ref Building
Before any drawing takes place, I spend a LOT of time on research. Like with The Black Ballad, I wanted to bake the world and themes directly onto the pages. Doing this involves reading and taking notes from the campaign, understanding its underlying themes, then looking at real life examples for inspiration. For Festival of the Forgotten, I studied how carnivals and festivals were represented throughout history, fantasy literature, and modern video and tabletop games, as well as some side topics like jackdaws, textures/materials, layouts, etc.
The end byproduct of this research is a mood board packed with inspiration and textures to test out (will get to that later), a mind map to tie some concepts together, and some early sketches for layout asset pieces. The mind map is great for picking out pieces from the title to decide what elements to use more literally or figuratively in the final run.
Step 2 Concept Mockups:
During research, some ideas for a layout direction started to solidify:
A purple overall color scheme to compliment the art already created for the campaign.
Iridescence materials/colors as it ties some figurative and literal themes together. The literal being the jackdaws and their feathers, cosmic/eldritch influences over the setting, and the colorful environment of the carnival itself. The figurative being the ever-changing nature that is iridescence when viewed upon at a different perspective. The concept of what is good and evil is constantly twisted throughout the campaign and is heavily dependent on the perspective of the player.
A mix of grit and unease without feeling run-down or horror-like.
The big challenge in all of this would be (and was) the how and well….I was stuck on this…for a while.
The mockup process involves a mix of photo bashing and painting to get a “feel” for the idea. I take references that I’ve saved over time in the mood board, paste them into a photoshop mockup with some text, then cut and mold into multiple different iterations until something starts to take shape. The images used in the mockup stage are NOT used in the final. Everything is reference only and the final assets are always painted from scratch.
Here is an example from The Black Ballad:
To see the rest of the design for Festivals of the Forgotten and the continuation...sign up and pledge your support! All the Festivals behind the scene goodies are below!
