GIVE HISTORY A FACE

History is not clean.

It is mud, iron, smoke, sweat, hunger, ambition and somebody standing in the wrong place when the cavalry arrives.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Historical Collection 5 provides a collection of historically themed illustrations for publishers, writers, designers and Games Masters who need strong, characterful artwork without the expense and delay of commissioning every image individually.

The artwork is available for use in personal and professional projects, subject to the terms of the included licence.

Whether you are producing a complete historical role-playing game, a short adventure, an independent ’zine or a handout for your home campaign, this collection offers artwork ready to bring people, places and periods to life.

ART FOR HISTORICAL GAMING

Historical publications need more than dates, statistics and lovingly researched paragraphs about the correct fastening of a fourteenth-century shoe.

They need people.

Soldiers, civilians, rulers, rebels, travellers, workers, survivors and all the other human beings who make history something more than a procession of arrows upon a map.

A good illustration can establish a period, suggest an entire character or provide the seed from which an encounter, adventure or campaign grows.

Use the collection for:

• Historical tabletop role-playing games

• Historically inspired fantasy games

• Adventures and campaign supplements

• Character and non-player character illustrations

• Military and political sourcebooks

• Independent gaming magazines and ’zines

• Historical fiction

• Educational or reference material

• Digital publications

• Personal campaign documents and handouts

The artwork can help establish tone, break up dense sections of text and give your readers something memorable to associate with the people and events you describe.

FOR HISTORY AND HISTORICAL FANTASY

Not every project needs to reproduce history with absolute academic precision.

Sometimes history is the foundation rather than the destination.

These illustrations can also be used in low fantasy, alternate history, swashbuckling adventure, gothic horror, military fantasy and other settings drawing heavily upon real periods and cultures.

A historical figure can become:

• A mercenary captain

• A suspicious courtier

• A village elder

• A revolutionary

• A merchant or guild official

• A soldier from a rival kingdom

• An explorer, outlaw or conspirator

• A supporting character in an historical scenario

• The inspiration for an entirely new adventure

Remove the supernatural elements from a fantasy game and much of what remains is historical.

Add supernatural elements to history and you have the beginnings of several extremely profitable genres.

The same illustration may therefore find a home in a rigorously researched sourcebook, a grim fantasy campaign or an adventure in which seventeenth-century occultists have made another regrettable attempt to summon something beneath London.

PROFESSIONAL ART ON AN INDEPENDENT BUDGET

Original commissions remain the ideal solution when time and money permit.

Independent creators, however, rarely possess unlimited quantities of either.

Stock art provides a practical alternative.

It allows small publishers to improve the appearance of their work, maintain a visual identity and avoid presenting readers with page after page of uninterrupted text. It can make a short supplement feel more complete, give a character an immediate presence and turn a useful manuscript into something people actually want to browse.

Historical Collection 5 is particularly useful for:

• Filling awkward gaps in a layout

• Illustrating character descriptions

• Establishing the period or atmosphere of a chapter

• Providing portraits for important personalities

• Decorating title pages and section openings

• Inspiring encounters and scenarios

• Adding visual interest to otherwise text-heavy material

• Building a library of reusable publishing resources

Buy the collection once and use the images in appropriate projects according to the attached licence.

Your art budget may remain painfully finite.

Your ambitions need not.

THE WORK OF BRAD McDEVITT

Brad McDevitt is a veteran role-playing game illustrator whose work has appeared across a wide range of fantasy, horror and historical gaming publications.

His artwork has the character of traditional tabletop illustration: bold lines, expressive figures and images designed to communicate an idea clearly upon the printed page.

This is artwork made for games.

It is intended to accompany descriptions, provoke ideas and give players and readers something around which to build their imaginations.

A single figure may become an important ally or enemy.

A martial image may suggest a battle, rebellion or military campaign.

A face may provide the missing personality for a character the Games Master previously knew only as “the suspicious fellow at the inn”.

Writers begin with words.

Sometimes a picture tells them what the next words ought to be.

USE THE ART YOUR WAY

Every creator has different needs.

You might use several images throughout one large publication, select a single piece for a short supplement or retain the collection as part of a broader stock-art library for future projects.

The illustrations may be cropped, positioned and incorporated into layouts as permitted by the attached licence. Always read the licence before publication and ensure that any required credit is included in your finished product.

Some pieces may also appear in other Brad McDevitt collections where an image suits more than one genre. This allows each themed collection to remain useful in its own right without forcing publishers to purchase unrelated packs merely to obtain suitable historical material.

Choose the collections that fit your projects.

Use the artwork that fits your pages.

Leave the blank white rectangles to people publishing government reports.

EXPAND YOUR STOCK-ART LIBRARY

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Historical Collection 5 is one part of a much larger range covering historical, fantasy, horror, modern, science-fiction and urban-fantasy subjects.

Combine several collections to build a versatile art library capable of supporting different games, settings and publications.

You can explore the complete Brad McDevitt Stock Art range here.

The research is complete.

The manuscript is written.

The layout is waiting.

Give history a face.