Wednesday, February 27, 2013

SF Citybook Rough Sketches

 I love posting up preview art. Here are a couple of illustrations by Amanda Webb and John Picot which will illustrate San Francisco 2107.First, Amanda's rough inks of the Rhinehart Tower, a massive living and shopping complex in the heart of 22nd Century San Francisco's financial district. It's an Shadowrun-style arcology, really a mini-city in its own right. Amanda made it a lot more organic and frankly WEIRD than I had intended- I had envisioned Rhinehart Tower as a more conventional futuristic skyscraper, but I like the organic, chaotic look. A similar design evolution occurred with Felipe Gaona's cover to Frontlines of Choice, where Felipe made the Choicer abortion clinic a far stranger building than I had pictured. Something about Choicer tech and culture really lends itself to bio-technology.

The middle image depicts a Baby, Belly, Blankets retail store which will be illustrating the chapter on San Francisco's Lifer Enclave, which is located in the Hunter's Point area. She's been working more on her backgrounds, and it really shows in the detail of this frankly surreal image.

The BBB chain, by the way, is inspired by a real baby store with similar decoration I saw when I was living in Japan. When I saw it, I frankly stole the concept for use in Otherverse America.

Finally, we've got an Asatru heroine, by John Picot. I've been working with John and Amanda to come up with a cool mix of low-tech and high-tech that will define the Asatru faction. As you can see from the cover image I posted a few days back, there will be a ton of information about playing Asatru Choicer characters.

Also, sometimes when I write about Choicer neo-paganism, I get little bouts of synchronicity, similar to how a lot of practicing magicians report odd coincidences, strange dreams, and little omens in the days after they do a working. Lately, after working on the Choicer's Norse-faction, I've had a lot of Asatru related coincidences, not the least of which includes meeting several guys up here (or just passing through Kerrville on work) with Asatru or runic ink (both actual pagans which is awesome, and a couple of Neo-Nazis, which is less pleasant) which is itself deeply unusual this far deep into the Bible Belt. We also had record high winds, topping 45 mph, the other night, which caused all kinds of havoc down here, ripping off rooftops, toppling signs, taking down some powerlines and street lights, ect.

Anyway, enjoy the art,
Blessed Be,
CHRIS

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