JanPospisil

This one is by Per "Perkan" Sjögren, also one of my favourites!

Glorantha attracted me by having things 13yo me would love (ducks, dinosaurs!) as well as things 30yo me loves (inspiration from real ancient cultures not often seen in games or fantasy art. I furiously looked into King of Dragon Pass after randomly seeing artwork from it online, clearly depicting horsemen drawn after the finds from Pazyryk burials.). And the fact there are points of view for almost every culture, showing the world from their own perspectives (happily embracing contradictions!), inspiring the players to do the same.

As you can guess from my painting, the Kushan riders in lamellar with their high collars are my favourite. The high collars especially are a neat detail, you can also see this in some earlier Chinese, contemporary Xiongnu, and later Korean armours. Also moustaches, fabulous moustaches everywhere. Here's Jeff's notes on Seshnelan art direction, some good links there: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/seshnela-art-direction/ THe illustrations in the Kushan Montvert book are not very good, but keep in mind there would've been more Indian looking troops as well:

Maces like these were fairly popular in the inspiration cultures - various steppe people and I also think the Hittites. I suspect they don't think of them as maces, but rather as blunt axes, since their piercing axe is quite close in shape. Some Sun riders also use horse-shaped whooping sticks for ritualized mock battles supposed to intimidate your enemy (or neighbour), displays of might by the warriors. The maces could be a battle version of those.

Nice, love the maces. Can say these seem to be very persistent designs in those parts of Glorantha (period-wise). (Grazelands and Zarkosites especially) Now, I realize I'm responding to old posts, but still: 1) Loskalmi swords in the Guide were indeed based on Chinese warring states period swords. (more amusingly - also on some fakes from that period, the perforated ornate scabbards I think were fake pieces I downloaded off eBay) 2) The longsword carried by the Western peacock warrior is an embellished version of what some experts call the Sarmatian type A sword. These things originally spread from China westwards, coinciding with the spread of the scabbard slide into the steppes. You can see them in various steppe depictions, also in older Parthian and Kushan art. As in the illustration, these would've been made of iron. The fittings could be bronze, gold, ivory, or maybe even jade. (this was the case in China, maybe they could be Kralorelan imports?) Examples: the Kanishka statue: (Kushans are a good visual reference point for the West, what with being a whole hodgepodge of cultures. (near-Chinese steppe people, North Indian and Greek and Scythian) And this relief of Nergal from Hatra: 3) Some new material - this could be a sword of a powerful Vingkotling Orlanthi. (notice the thunderbolt forming the handle)

And now it's lost to the world. A cautionary tale about data backup, or something.

Which one is that?

That wasn't in the art brief, so I think I was trying to make her look less human, giving her grippy root-feet.

I think the objections are not necessarily that it's wrong to show boobs, rather that it makes the elves too human. (while the Aldryami are established as very un-human) To me it seems like there's good history of Aldryami being very dangerous to humans in this aspect, like that scene in KoDP where the men of our clan sneak into the woods to have fun with a dryad, only to sprout vines and die several days later. It's like an alien organism adapting to fit into an environment inhabited by humans, while not actually trying to have pleasurable mating encounters with these creatures. It's a lure, or a mask.

The Great Tree is indeed the one in the back. It's a bit of a composition challenge to fit a 300 ft. tree in the frame with several other characters, so that it looks like it's overseeing the heroquest. Re:booby elves - this bit is from the art description, talking about a refence I got, not my illustration: It definitely sounds like it's meant to be sinister, creepy and deceiving towards humans, not purely frinedly or tittilating. For the dryad I was given reference of this Persian nymph, though her other attributes admittedly overtook this in the final artwork: http://rlv.zcache.com/persian_miniature_dancing_nymph_card-p137411603826032126b26lp_400.jpg

Some Dragonewts have various frills and protruding decorative bits that could've easily turned into feathers. And there's always magic if that was too evolution-y. In my mind there were tribes of intelligent feathered dinosaurs using tools and wearing furs during the Storm Age. Like this: Simon Roy's Dinosauroids

Oh, that sucks. I never noticed this! Looking at my initial sketch, it's the right way (I worked from a 3D model of the city), but in a few WIP phases I flipped the image and kept it mirrored. I think I must've liked the composition better that way. edit: Here's a sketch with Jeff's notes:

Could you please rephrase the question, I don't understand what you're asking.

Yeah, that one was primarily supposed to look like bull horns, functionality was secondary. Though at the time I was thinking of the falx and maybe African throwing axes.

I think the second from the left in group C is socketed.