Part 2 of the Illustrator's Diary continues. Today, we're focusing on the nearly 200 individually illustrated cards by Franz Vohwinkel. He'll take us along on the development process!
The biggest part of the work on Skybridge was, of course, the many maps that truly bring the worlds to life.
The story of Skybridge takes place in a fantastical world, completely impossible according to our laws of nature. How can gravity in Thraen act outwards in all directions, while simultaneously acting inwards on the Eye Star? Why are all days seemingly of randomly different lengths? Where does the light come from? It's magic!
That's not entirely true, of course: For the people of Thraen, gods created the world according to their wishes.
There is no magic in Thraen. There are no spellcasting sorcerers, just as there are no magical swords or heroes. Even the Drakhen are not magical beings, but animals captured, tamed, and used by humans for their purposes. The inhabitants of Thraen are ordinary people, with all their flaws and shortcomings.
What would humanity do if it could see paradise in heaven at any time? And what if life in its own world became harder to bear with each passing day?
Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to retain the short text passages on our prototype cards. The additional effort for production and translation would have been too great.
To convey the world of Skybridge as originally conceived in the prototype, I wanted to create the maps using a range of different realistic styles. It was important to me to show as many details as possible that would make the races and their stories believable.
A little trick that increases the level of detail is the size of the illustrations. I created the card illustrations at more than twice the required size. For printing, I then significantly reduced the size of the illustrations and inserted them into the card frames.
Of course, some details are lost in the process, but the viewer still "feels" that they were there: Everything appears finer, more real, than if I had worked in "simple" resolution.
A pleasant side effect of this approach is that the illustrations can later be reproduced in larger formats.
Here are a few examples:
Vinad
In this important scene, Vinad, architect of the Utreng and Adlem's most important supporter, discovers that the construction of the World Bridge has been sabotaged.
Here I've used some of my homemade texture brushes in Painter, which can be used to create any kind of...
detailed patterned textiles can be easily displayed.
I now have a whole collection of them, which I can mix and match and paint over, and I affectionately call them "wallpaper".
Min Vallesk
When a Serath greets someone with "Min" followed by their name, that person knows that the rest of their life has just irrevocably changed.
Another type of textile pattern can be found in this example. Each people naturally speaks its own language and therefore uses its own writing system. Two Selessem characters are recognizable in the pattern on Min Vallesk's headdress.
Usehet Tuin
Only the nomads of the Great Plain know the Usehet Tuin, the hidden valley in the Sea of Winds, where the
The spirits of their ancestors are at home.
The Enebe Ghres only come here when the situation is desperate and hopeless, to ask for the help of their ancestors.
The camp at the foot of the bridge
The discovery of the camp at the foot of the bridge is a key moment that highlights the high price paid for building the bridge.
The concept for the artwork of deities differs from the maps of nations in one essential aspect
Point: Behind the obvious motif lies another layer that contains information about the different cultures of Thraen.
"The medium is the message" here means that the different peoples also depict their deities artistically in different ways. The Utreng, for example, like to carve their sacred images in wood because wood is difficult to obtain in the high mountains of Salthras and is therefore a valuable material. The Selessem also paint their naive depictions on wood, but only because, as a poor fishing people, they cannot afford any other surface. In the enormous rock cliff at the edge of the Lhaedine Plain, the Lhaedineeri have found the ideal place for monumental depictions of their deities. The Tarrans, in turn, have perfected the art of sculpture, as the working of stone has a tradition there that dates back to the first people from the White Sea.
In order to convincingly depict this stylistic diversity, objects and materials are portrayed as realistically as possible, because only through the contrast does it become clear that what looks like a drawing on parchment is also meant as a "drawing on parchment".
Valendha
The cultural connections between the deities become clearer because, unlike in the maps of peoples, almost every illustration also includes characters in the respective language. Inscriptions, names, and descriptions reinforce the impression that the priests of Valendha wanted to say something about their goddess in this carving.
Ephalu
The depictions of the deities are meant only as examples. There are certainly numerous representations of each deity in Thraen, some similar, some different, depending on which temple one visits.
Ephalu is mainly believed in by the Tarrans, but also by the Enebe Ghres and the Unchained People.
These peoples would certainly portray the blind Goddess of Hope differently than the Tarrans. This is an aspect of Thraen's culture that I would like to explore further.
Bringing the world of Skybridge, which I had initially only described with words, to life through illustrations was a wonderful experience for me. It was often just as exciting and surprising for me as it was for Michael, who could hardly wait to see more each week.
Holding the finished game in my hands now, after the long time and the ups and downs we've gone through, still feels unreal to me.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Skybridge on the gaming tables in Essen and hope that lots of people have a lot of fun with our game.
If you would like to learn more about the worlds of Skybridge: you can delve deeper into the topic on the website: theskybridge.de
I will also post information about further developments there.
Thank you so much, Franz, for these insights and for sharing your sketches!
