Hello from drizzly Seattle, where a recent Facebook post that got shared ‘round stated “We leave tomorrow for Seattle, our first time there, and it looks like it will be raining all week. I really wanted to visit the parks. Can we still go? Will they close?” 

While the parks don't close for rain in Seattle, the Vault Late Pledge will be closing in two weeks. What does this mean? BackerKit’s Late Pledge option has been working well for us, with lots of new backers continuing to pledge, but it also comes with some behind the scenes complications. How do you know if you're a late pledge backer? If you've been receiving a “complete your survey” email over and over, even after completing the survey, you're a late pledge backer (that's a Backerkit bug and we've alerted them to it). Our plan is to close the Late Pledge and move to a Pre-Order-style storefront that you may have seen before on BackerKit. We also plan to update the pricing on Pre-Order to be an "on sale" price of our final retail pricing. If all goes well you should still have access to the pledge manager for late pledge orders. 

This update does not require any action if you've already completed your Survey. If you haven't: now's the time to do so!

The Vault of Mini Things is more than “just” hundreds of gorgeous full-color minis. It also contains starter terrain for Dungeon, Wilderness, and Town environments. And as demonstrated by this projects Add-ons, we're expanding on this sampling of terrain with more extensive and diverse environments in the Vault product line. Every square inch of that terrain is hand-drawn by the Vault's illustrious illustrator Marshall Short. Below, Marshall showcases his recent explorations for the Graveyard environment. 

In his own words:

Hey Everyone!

Marshall Short here. You can learn all about me in Update #7. My apologies for the lack of art updates lately, I’ve been working deep in the art mines, growling at anyone who tries to interrupt me. However the team managed to haul me back to the surface to show off and walk through the art process on some of the larger Map Tiles available in the Vault and the Terrain sets.

Quick note before we get started, these images are of my prototypes that I’m working with to visually and tactilely review colors, readability, general vibe (does it feel good) and to playtest general usability. These prototypes don’t have all the bells and whistles of the final product; for instance the large tiles shown below are only 8”x10” while our final versions will be 10”x10”, and I’m just using simple paper bases instead of the fancy clips and pog bases we’ll be using in the final product, some colors may change, etc.

Okay! Let’s dive right in.

We talked a little bit about the smaller map tiles in Update #6, but I’m going to be using the Graveyard set to walk through the art side of the larger map tiles. 

Here’s a quick shot of a few bare tiles,

So right off the bat one of the big things that was important to us when we designed our map tiles was modularity - it was important to us that Game Masters are able to rotate, flip, mix-and-match, and rearrange tiles together to create a myriad of different layouts. 
 
For the Graveyard this meant we wanted to provide path segments, grassy fields, transition from path to field, and then a larger structure for narratives to be built around.

Another thing we knew going into making these map tiles is we’d be providing lots of props and terrain pieces for folks to place on top, so it was important that we provide enough space for Game Masters to flesh out their encounters. That also means not painting things like gravestones, coffins, etc. directly into the map tiles because that would limit the use cases (maybe you want to use these graveyard tiles for overgrown forgotten ruins and not a graveyard at all!) and conflict with the gravestone and coffin props the Game Master will be placing themselves..

Here’s a look at the same tiles from above combined with a bunch of the Graveyard props and terrain,

Here things really start to get fun! I always know we’re on the right track when I’m playtesting stuff and my Game Master creativity starts firing,

“Ooo, what if I place an orb here on the dais, and when the character’s enter the graveyard  it starts glowing and undead rise up from the ground until the character’s disable the orb?”

And you can already see how even just a few wall segments can really redefine the space - suddenly the lower half of the map is cut off from the top half and only accessible via a choke point at the gate, which can dictate the flow of the characters through the encounter and setup challenges for them to over come - perhaps there’s ranged enemies on the other side of the wall firing arrows through the fence?

Of course, just because we know we need empty space for folks to place props and terrain over the map tiles we still want the map tiles to have enough visual interest to stand on their own, to that end I try to place fun little details here or there that hopefully don’t interfere with any Game Master’s narratives,

Speaking of fun little details, as the sole artist on this project I can’t possibly draw every unique brick or patch of grass (as much as I might want to) in a reasonable amount of time so I have to get tactical. For each map tile set I have to plan ahead for what kind of textures and materials will be present and then draw/paint specific tiling textures I can use to flesh out the space.

Let’s take this map tile as an example, 

I knew I’d need multiple brick tiles, something for the main dais, then rough flagstone for the roads. Since we were using more traditional green grass in the Wilderness set I wanted to go with a yellowish-orange dead grass for the Graveyard set, in addition to the rocky dirt ground texture. 

Here’s the tiling textures that I ultimately created for this tile,

These textures were created with the same process I use for the miniatures (line art and three tone shading) to keep the art style consistent. The grass is an exception however as I found from lots of experimentation that line work on the grass blades just gets too noisy and distracting, so I drop the black line work and use a highlight color to help define the grass blades.

Once all of the textures are created (with lots of little test collages to make sure they work together) I start blending them together to flesh out the map tile. 

Here’s a quick and dirty breakdown of those textures being applied, much like painting except instead of painting with a singular color I’m painting with “mud texture” or “grass texture” and trying to blend them all together so they feel natural.

After the main body of the map tile has been fleshed out with the blended tiling textures I go back through zooming into each section to clean them up - making sure grass blades correctly over grow rubble, and placing little bones or other debris neat little details.


Here’s a close up of that tile that shows how those elements all come together, 

Okay, now let's place some miniatures on there and see how it all feels,

Fun right?

As much time as I spend thinking and designing these miniatures, props, and map tiles, it’s really all about how they feel when you place them on the table top and start playing with them. If as I’m picking up and moving miniatures around I suddenly feel the same excitement I did as a kid just discovering D&D then I know I’ve done something right.

Alright, I should probably get back to the art mines, but before I go here’s one last shot of the party encountering a Werewolf featuring the Graveyard assets that I thought was neat.

 

Thanks everyone!
-Marshall (and Mike, Chris, and Lane!)