When we started making TTRPG live streams at MagiRPG, we were paying for all the art of our characters ourselves. We are now at a point where through fan donations and advertising, that we don’t have to pay out of pocket anymore, which is amazing! However in both cases, if we wanted unique and original character art, we needed someone to network and direct the artists we commissioned.

Since I had experience managing artists during my time at Corsair, I stepped up to the role. I have worked with dozens of artists since we started, but all the art you will see on this page was done by Saint Cinder.

Each character started off as a description, reference images and possibly a 3d render from HeroForge which was great for describing the generic details of the characters but did not capture the specifics. In the case of the Purple Slaad monster you see above, that was an original monster created for our Avernus campaign. It started off as too close to existing slaads designs in the Monster Manual, but through a series of revisions, draw overs, and phone calls, we got to the psionic mastermind we wanted!

Some characters like Zira above, went through dramatic changes throughout the campaign, requiring more art that conveyed the characters rage in moments of combat. The first sketch we received was too calm and didn’t have the action we wanted, so reference photos were shot (blurred out for modesty) and we went back to basic posing, came up with weapon designs, tweaked the skin tone to match the original and finally arrived at our finished product ready to RAGE!

Finally you have this wonderful character, Lohse, a Paladin of Sune who was the embodiment of the magical girl trope from anime like Sailor Moon. So naturally this character needed a glow up, better yet, make that two glow ups! You can see we went through carefully to note the aspects we wanted to keep of each design to maintain continuity, and what aspects we wanted to change to convey the characters growth and development.

Not counting any other artist I have worked with, I gave the art direction for over 50 unique art assets drawn by Saint Cinder, and have seen him grow as an artist over that time. Because ultimately when you work with an artist, you are building a relationship, you learn to speak each others languages and learn to navigate each others strengths and weaknesses to make the best product you can.