Art of Francis Tsai » Dungeons and Dragons

art from the new Monster Manual

Francis Tsai — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:32:50 +0000

Some new recently published artwork – these pieces were done for the new Monster Manual Dungeons and Dragons game book from Wizards of the Coast. Artwork is copyright WotC!

[See image gallery at teamgt.com] [See image gallery at teamgt.com] [See image gallery at teamgt.com]

testing out the new gallery installation

Francis Tsai — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:24:46 +0000

Posting an old piece from Wizards of the Coast…

[See image gallery at teamgt.com]

Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide – chapter illustration

francis tsai — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:05:28 +0000

copyright Wizards of the Coast! This came out so dark in the book; a lot of the interesting corpse details got lost. Sometimes this digital to analog print process drives me nuts.

[See image gallery at teamgt.com]

Raistlin for Devil’s Due Publishing

francis tsai — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:24:53 +0000

Cover art for Devil’s Due Publishing. This was from a while ago – I don’t remember the exact title of the book that this appeared on… one of their Dungeons and Dragons tie-in books I believe.

Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt

francis tsai — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:28:26 +0000

Here are a couple of the character illustrations I did for the book A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt. I haven’t received my comp copy yet but apparently it’s a big coffee table type book about the characters created by author R.A. Salvatore. i did a total of 8 but these are the two I liked the best.

a review of 100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures

francis tsai — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:12:37 +0000

ImagineFX magazine recently reviewed my book. Click on the image to see the article full size.

4th edition Dungeon Master’s Screen

francis tsai — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:16:16 +0000

Hi! Earlier this year I worked on this giant piece for Wizards of the Coast. It is the artwork for the new 4th edition Dungeon Master’s Screen. This piece is huge, over 40 inches in width (13200×2550 pixels). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, trying to figure out how to make that many characters inhabit the same space in a way that is not TOO contrived (you can be the judge of whether or not I succeeded in that). There were some interesting problems to deal with, such as where the folds hit and which panel would be used as the “cover” when placed on the store shelves. Also, towards the end of the process I had to incorporate a few extra inches on either end to accommodate some last minute dimension changes. This provided an opportunity to add a couple of creatures to each end. I talk a little more about the making of this piece in the forthcoming “100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures” book.

my art book

francis tsai — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:49:13 +0000

hi everybody –

My book “100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures” will be out in stores around end of October/beginning of November, and is available for pre-order at your favorite online booksellers. The basic approach for this book was to look at 100 different concepts/skills/things-to-think-about/etc. that you might run into as you’re designing and illustrating fantasy-based characters. The book grew out of some of the articles I had written for ImagineFX magazine, and in fact the publisher approached me after seeing some of them.

Anyway, a lot of the illustrations come from work done for Wizards of the Coast and a couple of other clients, and are used to illustrate the various points in the book. This isn’t a real hardcore art fundamentals book, as I kinda learned what I know by flailing along as best I could. What it does represent are some of the things I learned along the way, and the main issues and problems/solutions that I seemed to encounter most often as I worked.

If you’re at all interested in doing fantasy type illustration work, it might be a good resource to see the sort of things you’ll want to think about when putting together a portfolio. Or, you could also just point and laugh.

Here’s some photos of an advance copy that the publisher d00ds sent me. Please pardon the crapness of the photo quality.

“Dusk Hag”

francis tsai — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:30:28 +0000

Here’s a recent illustration for Wizards of the Coast, from their “Keep on the Shadowfell” online dealio. I’ve been experimenting a bit with a more line-art intensive style on some of the recent stuff for them. I think there are instances where it works, and others where a more painterly approach is more appropriate.

I will say that it’s trickier doing line art directly into Photoshop than it is with pencil and paper.

Worlds of Dungeons and Dragons cover art

francis tsai — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:44:23 +0000

Here is some cover art work I did recently for Devil’s Due publishing, which is now up on their August solicitations page. The editor asked for a piece reminiscent of the Hammer vampire films from the 60s/70s. (70s? Not sure…)