Damocles Files 2: Seeds of Destruction

Here is the cover I did for the awesome new book in the Damocles series!

Available now through amazon

Movie Night

I've made a little roleplaying game.

I was a bit bored of running games like D+D and getting bogged down in round after round of combat rolls and the like. Sometimes you just want to tell and experience a story.

So I came up with a basic system for resolving 'scenes' as a whole. I played it with my daughter, Kitty (who's currently 7, but was 6 when we started). She played a classic fantasy game.

The idea behind the game is a simple way to tell cinematic stories. It's presented as being a way to do classic 80s style films like ET, Monster Squad, The Last Starfighter, Gremlins, Goonies and so on, with a little Stranger Things thrown in for good measure, but includes several story ideas, a full adventure and different settings.

One of my friends is a teacher- he managed to get his kids to play it at school (thanks, Baz!). They enjoyed it and ran it on their own.

I put it through some edits and the like following feedback. The intention is that kids and teachers, etc. can access it at any time. I'll keep the pdf freely accessible and the print version low cost.

It's just over 50 pages of printer-friendly layout. A5 with a full colour cover.

I'm just waiting for a proof print to turn up before I release it to the wild.

The art was done in sketchbook (that's my daughter in silhouette by the way). Logos and layout in inkscape then the textures overlaid in photoshop.

Woodland Warriors

I got a chance to do the cover for the new edition of the Woodland Warriors RPG for Beyond Belief Games (brought to you by the visionary Simon Washbourne of Barbarians of Lemuria, etc.) so I jumped at the chance. It was an opportunity to try something different in a fun style (plus, something I could show my daughter that she might like!)

The concept came out pretty full-formed, even down to the colour palette. I wanted to try and catch an 80s Bakshi, Saturday morning kind of vibe, with a hint of Ghibli thrown in.

The foreground was done with solid linework and mostly flats with one overlay layer of dropshadow. The character designs kept simple and distinct so they would work in a cartoon.

I took the bold step of not drawing the background and fully painted it. Which I think worked out ok. I am really please with those clouds.

There ar a couple of layers of noise and blue over the top for a slight accent to the cartoony feel.

I designed the logo- working up from a font in sketchbook by hand and then converting it to a vector in inkscape.

I think it came out pretty well. I sure had a lot of fun doing it!

You can get a hold of a copy of it here.

Into Fear

New book with a cover by me has just been announced!

I did the whole thing in this- illustration, logo, design and pdf.

Awesome fun.

And I'm super pleased with how it turned out.

Here is some blurb...

Daniel Marc Chant releases INTO FEAR on 1st October. 22 tales of despair and dread. Zombies, Godless beasts, Eldritch horrors, serial killers and more lurk between its pages in wait to lure you into dreams, into nightmares, Into Fear!

Duncan Ralston, author of WOOM, said it was, "one of the best collections I've read in a while."

PRE-ORDER TODAY!

UK LINK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01IIJ2YSK
USA LINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IIJ2YSK

Dark Frontiers

Little logo/branding work for a short story anthology.

Done on a quick turnaround.

Crimson Blades

Crimson Blades

Here is a blow-by-blow of process shots for the Crimson Blades cover which I did for Beyond Belief Games.

We wanted to invoke a classic pulp feel. Strong blacks, red and white were on the mood board.

I chose to overlay a painted texture on the blacks to give it more of a 60s/70s feel. To suggest the magic and mystery in the game. It also served to unify the design by bringing it together more. The original blacks popped a little too much.

All work done in Sketchbook on Galaxy Note.

The process is hopefully fairly clear from the shots, but if anyone has any questions, let me know.