Question on future new modules/sourcebooks

[Olefin]

There has been considerable debate on a facebook forum raised by a few people who have said that they consider the new releases not be up to the standard of the original GDW releases due to the lack of artwork in them.

That they considered that lack to be a reason to not even consider buying them as the artwork was the reason that they had originally loved the game and that without it that the new modules had somehow debased the expected level of what a Twilight 2000 canon work should be.

I would like to hear from those hear on this forum what they think about that as to where we go with new releases. Neither Raellus or I are artists - we are writers and designers foremost and used photos to tell our story as we dont have access to the artistic talent that GDW had back in the 80's and 90's. Also we dont have the budgets to be able to pay for artwork as GDW did and we both did the best we could with our two releases.

Personally for me while the artwork was amazing I played the game and bought the modules and sourcebooks for their content and not their artwork.

Not looking for comment on what we have released but looking for input as to what people are expecting in the future.

There are a couple of people who have reached out to me and Raellus about possibly doing artwork - one who wanted a very large fee (which is not something either of us can afford) and one who was willing to do so for free.

Is there any strong feeling one way or another about whether or not there is artwork in new releases for the game or is content and storytelling what you are looking for?

[Ewan]

Artwork is fine if it backs up the narrative but if is just pictures to cover up space or to fill pages why bother. I would rather have meaty content and few pictures than poor content with lots of pictures.
As for the GDW releases of the 80s and 90s the covers were excellent (Pirates of the Vistula being my favourite) but the interior drawings were at times lacking.

[Draq]

No art is better than poor art. use your imagination if you need pictures... These works are just as good as the original material, with or without art. Besides I farm images from tons of sources for use in my campaigns.

[Olefin]

Keep in mind that pictures we use have to be ones that can be used for works that are for sale. Thats one reason that the fan canon free works can use pictures that we cant use if we make ones for sale. Same goes for artwork - it has to be free of use for us to use. And looking at what Marc Miller posted at his site the old GDW T2K art is most likely off limits as to using it.

FYI just to give you an example of what I mean by the scale of what the original games had to use as resources versus what Raellus and I had

Red Star Lone Star - Design: William H. Keith, Jr. Development - Loren Wiseman & Frank Chadwick Art Director - Rich Banner Associate Art Director - Barbie Pratt Interior Illustrations -Steve Venters, Tim Bradstreet and Liz Danforth Cover - Steve Venters

Rooks' Gambit - Raellus

East Africa Sourcebook - me (with credit to Raellus and a couple of others including Frank Frey for info here that was discussed years ago that I incorporated into the book)

[Benjamin]

Art's fine but public domain maps, location shots and weapon systems are better. If it's not artsy enough for some people, run through a filter. My biggest beef was that it looks like it was put together on Word without much thought towards ascetics. They need a unifying artistic look and some of the cover dressing that other T2K works used.

To be honest, I really liked Kenya sourcebook but didn't buy Rook's Gambit. I just don't need adventures. Sorry.

Benjamin

[Olefin]

Actually it was put together on Word. I dont have InDesign or some of the other publishing software out there mainly because its close to 20 a month and this is something I do because I love the game and want to get new official material out there.

I originally did have the Twilight 2000 logo on the cover but Marc told me to take it off - have to ask him but not sure if he owns the rights to the logo (FFE site does mention that they only have the rights to a few pieces of the artwork and not sure there).

Marc did send me a template that I may use for future works that will allow the PDF to be a POD (print on demand) and has a template for photoshop cover - will look into it for sure

[Draq]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Actually it was put together on Word. I dont have InDesign or some of the other publishing software out there mainly because its close to 20 a month and this is something I do because I love the game and want to get new official material out there.

I originally did have the Twilight 2000 logo on the cover but Marc told me to take it off - have to ask him but not sure if he owns the rights to the logo (FFE site does mention that they only have the rights to a few pieces of the artwork and not sure there).

Marc did send me a template that I may use for future works that will allow the PDF to be a POD (print on demand) and has a template for photoshop cover - will look into it for sure

The material is what caused these works to be adopted as canon and sold with the originals... Not the format or (lack of) art... Keep up the great work boys.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Draq

No art is better than poor art. use your imagination if you need pictures... These works are just as good as the original material, with or without art. Besides I farm images from tons of sources for use in my campaigns.

What he said. I'm fine with the public-domain photos, but what I really want (in adventures) are maps!

[kato13]

I am pretty sure that Open street map can be used in commercial products as long as it is attributed.


https://www.openstreetmap.org/


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/O...r_similar_work

Not an attorney but they are certainly worth a look.

I might be able to make unit location maps using the openstreet map as the base. I built the font for mapping units and I would certainly give you permission to use it. If you are interested maybe pm me. No promises, my code is years old and may not still work, but it might be a nice addition.

[Olefin]

definitely interested in that Kato

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by kato13

I am pretty sure that Open street map can be used in commercial products as long as it is attributed.


https://www.openstreetmap.org/


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/O...r_similar_work

Not an attorney but they are certainly worth a look.

I might be able to make unit location maps using the openstreet map as the base. I built the font for mapping units and I would certainly give you permission to use it. If you are interested maybe pm me. No promises, my code is years old and may not still work, but it might be a nice addition.

I need an open street map for the past -- like about 1995 or so. I'm going nuts (no pun intended) trying to find detailed street and topographical maps for South Texas in that time period!

[Olefin]

Thats a common problem - i.e. how much areas have changed since 1995 - if you use a current map it most likely is way out of date for that area when the game time period actually happened - especially in Poland and Germany - lots of change in those areas since the Cold War

[kato13]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I need an open street map for the past -- like about 1995 or so. I'm going nuts (no pun intended) trying to find detailed street and topographical maps for South Texas in that time period!

For the US the USGS has and archive that is available and I believe (again not a lawyer) that as a product of the US government they are free to use (just like the HMMWV and the Nuke pic on the top of this site)

http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/

I checked for Chicago and they have 14 different historical topographical maps for chicago/chicago loop going back to 1890.

[ArmySGT.]

Some or most of the original art of the box set was traced from real photos.

I have seen the persons on the box in photos from Viet Nam, Grenada, and Panama, in addition too Reforger.

[Raellus]

I think that most of us who grew up with T2K, have a nostalgic appreciation for the interior artwork but, objectively-speaking, most of it's rather bad.

I'd love to have had an art budget, and been able to hire some artists to illustrate Rook's Gambit, but I didn't. The whole team- concept, writing, design, illustration, etc.- was just me, myself, and I, working in my time off from my rather demanding full-time job. I did the best I could with what I could find. Images on the interwebs labelled for reuse are fewer and lower in quality (and relevance) than what comes up without a filtered image search. I wanted to use a couple of diagrams of Malbork castle that I found in an online scholarly journal but the organization wouldn't give me permission to do so.

[ArmySGT.]

as a source, DeviantArt has artists that work commissions.

DeviantArt

I suppose there is the option to sell a with art and without art versions.. Art, of course, being more expensive and a better PDF or paper edition.

[Raellus]

Yeah, that'd be cool and all, but most fan-authors like myself don't have the budget to buy original art for our works.

[stg58fal]

If you're not doing it for profit, you could probably* do what I'm doing for a project I've been working on, and just use whatever art you find online. Pinterest and Deviantart are great sources for all kinds of pictures/artwork. Just Google whatever it is you want, then click the "Images" tab at the top, and away you go. You'll most likely have to click the pictures and go to whatever site they're on in order to get something with good size/quality, but that's what Right Click, "Open in New Tab" is for.

* I'm not making something for sale, or most likely even for public consumption, just for my gaming group.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stg58fal

If you're not doing it for profit, you could probably* do what I'm doing for a project I've been working on, and just use whatever art you find online. Pinterest and Deviantart are great sources for all kinds of pictures/artwork. Just Google whatever it is you want, then click the "Images" tab at the top, and away you go. You'll most likely have to click the pictures and go to whatever site they're on in order to get something with good size/quality, but that's what Right Click, "Open in New Tab" is for.

* I'm not making something for sale, or most likely even for public consumption, just for my gaming group.

His book is for sale.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Yeah, that'd be cool and all, but most fan-authors like myself don't have the budget to buy original art for our works.

Your option. There is hundreds of artists there and you are able to look at their work then make an offer. commissions are not often all that expensive.

[kato13]

I personally think the best option to match the original image style, would be to take public domain pics (from the US military for example) and run them through a pencil sketch conversion. There are some online sites that do this or it can be done in photoshop with
many (6-20 depending on the image) simple steps. The steps can be scripted though.

http://www.picturetopeople.org/photo...to_effect.html

http://photoshopcafe.com/sketch-phot...oshop-tutorial

Converting to a sketch also moves it closer to being classified as a derivative work which might offer some legal protection if the images are not fully public domain.

[Olefin]

Interesting links there

Definitely changes the photos to more like the original sketches

Here is an example - what do you think? I can update the Sourcebook to have these updated photo effects pretty easily if people would prefer them to the original photos

[kato13]

I think you might have to harden lines in a few places (example below) but I think it could work.

[stg58fal]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

His book is for sale.

Yes, I know. I bought it. I was meaning in a general way, for everyone ELSE.

[Olefin]

more pics using the software

[Draq]

Perfect

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stg58fal

Yes, I know. I bought it. I was meaning in a general way, for everyone ELSE.

Still gets you into trouble. Not making a profit (for yourself) doesn't mean the owner doesn't lose income generation from your use of their property.

Fair Use is a tough argument to hold up if you're not the owner.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by kato13

I personally think the best option to match the original image style, would be to take public domain pics (from the US military for example) and run them through a pencil sketch conversion. There are some online sites that do this or it can be done in photoshop with
many (6-20 depending on the image) simple steps. The steps can be scripted though.

http://www.picturetopeople.org/photo...to_effect.html

http://photoshopcafe.com/sketch-phot...oshop-tutorial

Converting to a sketch also moves it closer to being classified as a derivative work which might offer some legal protection if the images are not fully public domain.

A lot of 1st ed modules used military pics and movies for inspiration, "Armies of the Night had Arnold with an H&K94 from "Raw Deal" and the Geoffrey Lewis from "Night of the Comet".

[kato13]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

A lot of 1st ed modules used military pics and movies for inspiration, "Armies of the Night had Arnold with an H&K94 from "Raw Deal" and the Geoffrey Lewis from "Night of the Comet".

Yeah we discussed that in a earlier thread how you could get away with so much more in the 80s

Whole thread (shame Nates drawings are gone, some day I'll see if I can grab them as they are still on the site and click reload lets you see them)
http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=2556&

Raw deal comparison
http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php...6&postcount=30

[Olefin]

I noticed that as well. There were other derivative pics as well. In my case everything I am using is public and open for use - actually took photos out that I used in the original fan canon work because I couldnt use them for the release that was for profit. For instance the pic I had of a Buford tank - it wasnt a pic that I could use without getting permission so I had to get rid of it.