More on the Monster Stock Art Kickstarter Project.

I find myself checking into Kickstarter on a daily basis, to see how the projects I'm supporting are doing.  The latest Adventurer Conqueror King System expansion has already hit it's first stretch goal and is closing in on it's second.  Way cool.

Just as cool, but maybe in some ways even cooler, is the Monster Stock Art (& Minis).  With this project, you get new stock art from the core OGL monster list.  Depending on the amount you decide to pledge, you can choose the number of at pieces, web or printing quality images and of course, the laminated minis.

I'm in for the complete collection of whatever they produce at print quality.  Now, I'm not publishing anything these days and I don't even have anything on the burner.  I might have something on the countertop waiting to be put on the burner.  I figure it's best to be ready, and when the time comes, art will be one less thing I'll need to hassle about.  Besides, I can also use the art on my blog.  It will most certainly get used ;)

Some new stuff from the Kickstarter:

Backgrounds

The images of each monster have transparent backgrounds.  Included with the project we'll create at least eight background images. A couple of these may be basic (just a swirl of colors) but some will be a dungeon or a wilderness area.  These backgrounds will come as layered PSDs (photoshop images, openable by GIMP as well) so you can place a monster or a few in the image with some foreground items in front and the main background behind the creature.  This gives you more variety.  Combine that with the fact that you may modify the images (as long as you don't purposely make the artwork look bad--something called the artist's "moral rights") and you can easily get a much different look than someone else using this same art collection.

Here's a sample/example with just a basic background. As mentioned above, we'll have several more varied/interesting backgrounds as part of the project.

The lower left dragon is the original.  Some color shifting and a background made the green dragon version in the upper left.  The lower right simply lowered the saturation of the dragon and darkened it.  The upper right was back to the original with a different background and a slight darkening of the dragon.  By the way, this isn't the green or black dragon for the project.  They will each be new art.  But it is helpful to see you may be able to change some to fit other colors in case you don't like the one of the others in the set.