VTES Card Artwork

After reading that the VEKN were looking for artists for a possible expansion set, I thought I'd have a go creating some artwork during TV series / movie downtime. For convenience, I thought the iPad would be the best thing to use and downloaded Sketchbook Pro an App I've had success with on my phone.

The next task was to decide on a card to create artwork for. One of my favourite cards (artwork and functionality) was the "Taste of Death" from the Final Nights set, unfortuantely this was was muted somewhat in following releases:

Hmm. This card deserved some justice and should rightly strike fear in the hearts of other methuselahs. So it seemed like the perfect choice — here's my attempt at it:

What I found quite interesting was the degree of detail required due to the size of the card. The image contains far more detail than is actually required — a lot of it's lost when printed and is only visible when zoomed onscreen. The turnaround time was fairly good (a couple of hours) and I believe a decent amount of time can be saved by spending less time detailing.

I imagine that artwork for vampires would require the detail as it occupies the majority of the card — so perhaps a vampire will be my next attempt. The other thing observed was the boldness required in terms of colour and linework (again due to the size of the card) — so that's definitely an area that I need to improve upon.

I'm not sure if I'll submit any cards to the VEKN, it depends on how much time I spend chilling out in front of the big square box. That said, I really like the idea of having artwork featured — that would be very cool indeed.

So, any suggestions for what card to target next?

Bringing Order to Chaos — sorting out the cards.

I spent a large part of the weekend sorting out my collection. After asking around for ideas on how to do so I believe I reached a balanced approach without having to head down the meticulous A-Z approach (not a realistic solution for myself).

Essentially I've broken down my cards by discipline and then when warranted: action, reaction, combat, ally etc... this allows for  granularity when required and "just a bunch of cards" for disciplines that I don't carry much of.

I wanted a quick way of spotting and scanning through cards. So I created a template for all of the disciplines, clans and master card types. The great thing about this approach is that a) I can create / print new separators as needed and b) I can "flick" through the cards as if it was a record or heaven forbid a CD collection which is very quick and convenient. You can download the PSD template here.

I ordered a large number of smaller (500 - 1600) cardboard boxes to store the cards in smaller more manageable groups (versus large boxes of 5000). Unfortunately the small boxes are landscape oriented which means they don't work with the separators I've created. So for the time being I'll still have to use some of the unwieldily 5000 boxes.

The end result is really functional and as a bonus also looks great. Hopefully it'll help things along in terms of deck building — no doubt I'll still experience those "where is that card!" moments...

Into the big bad dark world...

Having played VTES for a number of years (predominately with friends in private) and after an extended period in Torpor I thought it'd be a good time to take to the public game and document my excursions.

Re-committing to a game that's been killed of commercially is definitely somewhat illogical. Cards are harder to come by (even essential pre-constructed deck cards like Villein are pricey on eBay), booster boxes are getting harder to come by (especially for the more powerful sets) and trying to convince friends to take up a difficult (and undead) game definitely poses a challenge...

However it's a game I enjoy playing, the levels of intensity reached and moments of serendipity warrant time and effort invested.

So here we go, another VTES blog with a writer hoping to learn something along the way...