Recently we updated Character Artist 3 to be compatible with CC3+, and I jumped at the chance to work with that character builder again, doing some example drawings. I chose the characters from our 13th Age campaign, because they are such a great mix of classic (and not-so-classic) D&D-types.

Meet the heroes of Drakkenhall. Mostly these were easy to do with the basic Character Artist 3 options. The monster option has a lizard man figure that works great as a Dragonborn, and the halfling model doubles as a gnome just fine, if you skip the hairy feet.

Some player-requested changes were quick and easy to make. “Abigail has red hair, not black!” – simple, just switch out the hair symbol for the correctly colored one. Others turned out a little more complicated. “Calor should have less full lips, but with a friendlier smile” – alright, I had to break out Photoshop for that and edit one of the mouth PNGs to create a new symbol. I drew the flames on the Dragonborn’s scimitar with CC3+’s vector tools and then applied a blur sheet effects.

Overall I spent perhaps 15 minutes on each figure on average, plus another half hour composing the group shot. And while it certainly doesn’t match the players’ image of their own characters 100%, it’s still a nice visual impression of the group. I’m looking forward to their next exploits on the ruined streets of Drakkenhall!

P.S.: There is one special character that I indeed have to skip: P3358, the forgeborn fighter. That’s a character race, that CA3 does not support at the moment.

As many symbols as Character Artist 3 contains or how many we may add in the future, the incredible variety of role-playing games, settings and campaigns means there will always be need and room for more.

The obvious – but not always simple – solution to needed symbols is to create them yourselves, either by drawing them from scratch or adapting existing artwork to your own requirements. Because the Character Artist 3 catalogs and symbols have a pretty specific setup, we are offering this guide to their creation. It takes you through the steps of adjusting existing png artwork for use in CA3 and importing it as a symbol.

Download CA3 Symbol Creation Guide mini-installer (contains pdf and support files)
Download CA3 Symbol Creation Guide pdf

The February issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2014 has been available since Saturday (log in to your registration page if you are a subscriber). It contains pre-assembled paper figures to use in your games. Created with the new Charcater Artist 3 add-on, a selection of generic heroes is opposed by a wealth of stock monsters. Character Artist 3 is not necessary to enjoy this issue, but it also contains the CA3 source files so you can quickly create more variations if you do.

You can subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual 2014 here.

It’s been a while since we did a collection of users maps here. First the convention season didn’t leave us enough time and then the Character Artist 3 release took a lot of resources. But now we’ve been able to take a breath over the holidays, we’ve looking at the forum again and there are so many nice maps. Here’s the collection:

suntzu created this amazing set of isometric dungeon and outdoor maps with Herwin Wielink’s Isometric Dungeon style.

This beautiful little gem of a Knight’s Crypt was posted by Modric.

This interesting cave map is the result of work in DD3 and Photoshop by Avotas. It’s being created for a commercial D&D/Pathfinder adventure, therefore the grey watermark overlay.

Drednort posted a stalwart adventuring party, freshly created with Character Artist 3. You’ll find more character portraits in the forum thread when you click on the image.

While deceptively simply this black and white map of the world Maioria by Miafeya is one of my favorites. Designed for a 2-page spread in a book, it suits that purpose very well.

TolrendorDM shared several maps for his Annual 2013 challenge, you’ll find them in the thread linked through this example of the CC3 Overland Hex style.

I’m always happy to see star ships created with Cosmographer 3 and craigo730‘s Mercury-class Battlestar is no exception.

KenG shared another great dungeon map, King Ranier’s Vault with the community. And it comes with a complete adventure!

He also created this collection of boats and rafts, very useful if you need a quick way to get across that river on your battlemap!

I don’t really need to say much about Clercon’s (Pär Lindström) New Year Village map, after all he’s done several Annual styles already. But his city and village maps are always particularly impressive.

Educational use of CC3 always delights me, so I was thrilled to see languard and his students create these SciFi tiles for a boardgame of their own making.

What would a user map collection be with one of Sadizm‘s gorgeous Deadlands battle maps. A lot less exciting that’s for sure!

Character Artist 3 is out now!

Character Artist 3 lets you create attractive, high-quality portraits of characters for your games. When you’ve made your character, you can place a high-quality image onto your character sheet. You can add your portraits to counters, create silhouettes or make stand-up card figures.

Emails have gone out to all existing ProFantasy customers who haven’t opted out with a discount offer, an in addition, if you are an existing CC3 customer then until 1st January 2014, Character Artist 3 includes an upgrade to the next version of Campaign Cartographer 3 when it’s released in 2014.

CC3+, to be released in 2014, will be twice as fast as CC3, easier to use, and include a new map style and amazing effects.

ProFantasy Character Artist 3 example, a bard

Character Artist 3: First Portrait

Character Artist 3: Clothing, Cloak and Weapon

Character Artist 3: Faces in Detail

The Character Artist 3 add-on to Campaign Cartographer 3 is coming soon. As well as portraits for character sheets, you can also create card standees.

Here is a PDF of characters  you can download free for your own use.

Dear Cartographers, welcome to the June newsletter!

News

• The June issue of the Annual 2013 has been released. Subscribe here.
• Check out a preview of the July Annual (by Pär Lindström).
• Character Artist 3 is coming together nicely. Here are some previews.
• Simon Rogers shows up new icon graphics for Campaign Cartographer 3.

Resources

• The June and May collections of community user maps include tons of gorgeous map artwork.
• Mysterious East meets Weird West in the Deadlands setting in this floorplan of a Chinatown block.

Map-Making Articles

• Master Mapper Joachim de Ravenbel has created a detailed tutorial on doing floorplans.

Another little preview of Character Artist 3. Human figure will come in three body types: thin, normal and strong. The latter makes for good barbarians!

Here are a few more glimpses of ongoing work in Character Artist 3.

Some female figures:

And the first dwarven faces:

I’m hip-deep into Character Artist 3 symbols by now, having moved on from the male figures to the females. Here’s a quick example of four faces:

And here are four full male figures: