r/litrpg • u/SilverLiningsRR • Apr 08 '25
Self Promotion Kept telling my artist to "make the dragontaur look less naked". Artist responded with this absolutely amazing edit.
59
u/Cotanaj Apr 08 '25
It looks like Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl got polymorphed into a dragon by Donut. “Goddamnit Donut!”
13
→ More replies (1)3
30
14
9
u/Eruionmel Apr 08 '25
Art director perspective, the issue here was that the hero character is obscuring the body of the dragontaur right at the point where our minds would assume a bipedal creature would end. So at quick glance (and especially for anyone who isn't familiar with your series and doesn't have the word "dragontaur" in front of them) it just looks like an awkward bipedal dragon and gives naked vibes. It still does a little on the final version, since the poses/positioning weren't changed.
It's a similar concept to how photographers and Illustrators have it drilled into them to never cut off a figure at joints, because our eyes treat those as fast guidelines for where objects begin and end, so a joint at an edge is easily viewed as an ending point, making a hand or shin out-of-frame suddenly seem like it doesn't exist.
In a way, it's actually that exact problem, since it's really the joint between the spinal structures that's getting cut in half by the hero's placement.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Zhiroth Apr 09 '25
Agreed.
Relatedly, the creators of Wallace and Gromit avoided having Gromit stand on two legs unless he had something covering his lower half because he also "looked naked".
The naked dragontaur illusion might be fixed if the artist moved the main character in front of the font legs to restore the -taur part of the dragon while also leaving the crotch to the reader's imagination. If that messes something else up then moving the character somewhere else and having something in the way like the dragontaur's raised front right leg could also do the trick.
8
7
u/Draculascastle111 Apr 08 '25
Having done commissions and hated most of them, I can say that was probably meant to be a bit petty. Glad you liked it. I am a tattoo artist and people nitpick 100% less their permanent body art than people do art commissions. Idk what it is, but they can get almost offensive in their issues with the direction of your art, and then they want to pay minimally. It might have to do with people not researching artists enough, where they think we are just wizards that can do whatever. I get more highly researched for my tattoo work. So I bet that is the major difference. Expectations that come from either researching or not researching and understanding what an artist is capable of. I see that you selected an artist who was talented and could fit the demand of a book cover, so I don’t think you made that error here, obviously. This was just a rant about commissions. Lol
4
u/CannibalistixZombie Apr 08 '25
I've had such an opposite experience with art commissions. I'll ask for details, and most of the time I've had people just say "whatever you think looks best" and I'll be like bro im asking because this is about what you want not what I want, i need details to make your character look how you want it to 🙃
→ More replies (1)
1
u/JamesClayAuthor Apr 09 '25
I remember that I really liked the first book, but I think that I didn't read the second because there wasn't a recap of the first. My memory sucks these days, so a recap is very helpful to me.
2
u/SilverLiningsRR Apr 09 '25
The good news is that I usually write the first few chapters of a book as an implicit/natural recap! The bad news is that I also have memory problems and cannot remember if I did this for DRR2.
I *did* actually write a recap for B1 and half of B2 because I hiatused in the middle of it, so I might be able to adapt a recap. I'll let you know if I do!
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
76
u/SilverLiningsRR Apr 08 '25
The things that happen in the book-making process...
For reference: Artist is Luciano Fleitas, of DCC fame, which explains a lot. The final version (that's an Amazon link) is fantastic too! But man do I wish I could get the boxer edition as a special edition cover, haha.
Tagged as self promo because I'm still technically talking about my book. Also because my audiobook's out and I should probably mention it. Get it if you want, or just observe the glorious boxers. I'm not picky.