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The Shadow of Yesterday is an independent RPG, authored by Clinton R. Nixon, set in the post-apocalyptic fantasy world of Near where a monstrous moon dominates the sky and eclipses its diminutive sun monthly and strange creatures prowl a broken landscape that was once a mighty empire that stretched over the entire face of the globe. Clinton has done a wonderful job in the game text of bringing the world of Near to life by meticulously detailing the history and complexion of each race and culture. It was my task to illustrate the culture of Maldor -- the once great empire that has fallen into ruin since the arrival of the Shadow Moon 300 years ago. I approached this project with one word predominately in mind: atmosphere. Maldor is a gloomy, sad, and desperate place, and I wanted the illustrations to reflect that feeling no matter what the central focus of a given piece was, and I think, for the most part, I was successful. Also, I wanted to show Maldor's decay by including ruins in nearly every piece. I hadn't had much experience illustating old, broken castles, so I spent some time researching castle achitecture on the Internet. I ended up taking a lot from Germanic castles and some from ancient Byzantine structures. Looking at pictures of these places -- some of which, though several hundred years old, were still in use -- made me wish that I lived in a country with a greater sense of architectual history than America. It would be pretty cool to drive out of the city and see a landscape lined with broken stone walls and hilltops littered with the remains of long-abandoned fortresses and keeps. In addition to researching castles, I also had to develop the look of an entire species: The Ratkin. Clinton describes them as "resembling nutria, enormous rodents, standing on their hind legs with opposable thumbs." For those of you who don't know what nutria are, they're big, aquatic rodents that actually look more like beavers than rats. As I found out, there's actually a lot of information about them on the Internet, for they have both passionate protectors and detractors. So, that was fun, and I liked them so much that I originally included them in more pieces than was necessary. Finally, in the penultimate moments before TSOY's completion, I did some illustrations for the land of Qek - a vast rainforest filled with zombies, four-armed monkey-goblins, and untold riches. Because of time constraints, and a desire to make Qek look markedly different from Maldor, I did these illustrations in pencil, and I think they turned out rather well. I had never drawn a four-armed monkey-goblin wrestling a zombie crocodile before, so, at long last, I can cross that off of my life's to do list. The Shadow of Yesterday is currently being printed and will make its debut at Gen Con SoCal this December. You can pre-order your copy of this fascinating and beautifully illustrated game at the official Shadow of Yesterday website by clicking HERE. |
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| All Content & Images Copyright © 2004 Andrew Navaro | ||
| andrew@andrewnavaro.com / (612) 729-9217 | ||
