[The Rustbelt] trepidations about illustrations
Paul Czege:
Hey Marshall,
Here's a thought: turn on your songwriting brain and put some blues lyrics into the photos. Work them into the photos, hand-written, or with appropriate fonts, as a way of putting people and their thoughts into the scenes.
Paul
Tim C Koppang:
Marshall,
Just by way of letting you know that you aren't the only one out there worried about artwork, I will be using 100% photographs for my new game. None of the photos have people in them. At first I had the same trepidations as you: "Will no people send the wrong message to the reader?"
But then I realized that all of the photos I chose were incredibly evocative and realistic, which is what I want. If your game is designed to be character driven (and I know it is), then people will play it as character driven. The photos will be about inspiration and mood and whatever else you want them to be about. I say press ahead.
If you're really worried, take another look at some free stock photo sites. With a bit of Photoshop (or GIMP) editing, you might be able to come up with something you like. But before you even get there, you have to trust your instincts and decide what will work best for your game.
Callan S.:
Looked into public domain images?
Filip Luszczyk:
Marshall,
Since you plan to use photographs anyway, why don't you try asking some of the people already involved in your project and enthusiastic about it to pose for you? Or, perhaps a LARP could work well enough? You could promise your models free copies of the game. It probably won't hurt to try - after all, we're talking about people who already are your audience, most likely playtesters, so chances are at least some of them find the perspective of having their faces in your book fun enough in its own right.
Otherwise, it seems I've been in a somewhat similar situation illustrating my Polish translation of Kumquat Tatoo. It's also apocalyptica, my budget was also exactly zero, and I also struggled hard to find any free photographs with people that would match. In the end, the only living things that made it into the document were some vultures, who I hope won't sue me. However, I'm sort of satisfied with the overall end result. The lack of characters seems to fit. While it is neither commercial nor very professionally done, you might want to take a look at it as a sample of the approach in question in practice.
Marshall Burns:
Tim,
Quote
If your game is designed to be character driven (and I know it is), then people will play it as character driven.
Thank you, that makes me feel a lot better about it.
Callan,
No, I haven't. The idea makes me itch, I'm not sure why.
Filip,
That's not a bad idea in concept, but there's some problems wrt to actually executing it. Getting people together aside, the issues of props, costume, and makeup (I'd need everyone to not look, y'know, clean and healthy) require money and/or skills that I don't have. It's something I'd like to do, but I don't have to resources to do it properly, and I don't want to do it half-assed.
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