Hey folks, long time no blog. Truthfully, all of my work that would require a blog post is still very much in progress and I don’t have much to tell you about. However, I wanted to talk about some of the work I create inspired by the world of Empire - LRP, a Live Role Playing game I attend.

Four times a year, I go to a field with thousands of other people to play make believe. A varied number of other times, I may go to a town hall or scout site to continue playing those stories. For uncountable hours the hobby and world of Empire encapsulates my thoughts, from what I plan to get up at future events, what I have done in the past, and the world that has been created for us to play in. Like, it’s immense. Some people criticise the size of the ‘wiki’ made for us to read about the land we inhabit, however I love a good hyperfixation and have spent many insomnia filled nights reading about different territories and stories created by the inestimable writing team behind Empire.

In my spare time, I create art inspired by the world of Empire. Heck, sometimes I even get paid to create art of people’s characters. I wanted to share some of my pieces with you, with the insight behind them; and the soul and love that went into them.

White cavas bell tents going up a hill with a forest backdrop and orange sky.

Honestly one of my favourite paintings I’ve done, referenced from a photo I took early on Friday when I needed a wee at 5am (I of course, never need to get up to pee at home). Friends of mine loved that image, and I really wanted to recapture the feeling I got looking up the hill and seeing the sunrise, with both the scent of dew on ground and the remnants of campfires. I want to share a description I wrote about this image when putting it forward as a piece for an exhibition on dwellings. Trying to write about what the image was, without going into a general description on what Live Role Playing is, ended up showing me why this image touches so many people in the community:
“Anvil, a temporary dwelling of make believe and reverie for thousands of people. Four times a year, people from all over the country flock to a field in Silverstone and transform it into the fantasy mediaeval town of Anvil; bringing their own tents, decorating their hearths, and living for a weekend as someone new. This is Live Role-Playing, caught in the early morning before the field comes alive with imagined politics and temporary maladies, to be packed away on a Sunday. There is care and love put into these brief canvas homes, which have been captured in the gentle stillness of sunrise.”

A medieval fantasy street with Arthurian characters interacting with each other. There is bunting, taverns, witches and wizards.

This is an image of one of the Nations in The Empire and is one of the most heavily involved pieces of art I’ve ever created. A part of me itches to go back again and fix some perspective mistakes I have learnt from (honestly though, I can say that with every image I have ever created) but a bigger part of me appreciates the charm of it all. I combed through the information given to us about the Nation of Dawn, brimming with Arthurian and High Medieval fantasy imagery, and created little vignettes of stories to add to the image. There are shops and people and narratives that only I will know the detail of and that’s fine, that is the joy of the creation of detailed images such as these. Some people know my tales in this image because they asked for them, others decided on their own based on what they observed and I love that.

A sketch of a woman in dark clothes, she had a big smile on her face and glasses, and she is holding up her a small booklet.

After one of the main games, I did a sketch of my character (physically played by me, in case you still don’t know what Live Role Playing is and haven’t Googled it yet, I’m here for you), eagerly delivering a magazine created by other players of the game to someone who featured in it. This is probably one of the most accurate images I’ve done of my character with the overall energy and enthusiasm shown on her face and it shows off some of the costume I wear for her. This also captures the joy of being my generally upbeat character and allowing myself to be unabashedly enthusiastic about things. I frequently get the urge to draw what happened to my character when I come home from an event, however there is usually a fair amount of physical recovery post-game so I don’t always get a chance. There is a certain buzz (often known as ‘froth’) that can channel a lot of creative energy even when completely exhausted; and I am always eager to capture it.

A fantasy plaza with two people dancing on a sunny day.

An image of another Nation, this time ‘The Brass Coast’. Wanting to create this image and the vision I had was what actually inspired a whole world building series of me (which I have currently put on hiatus due to other commitments). Originally I got super inspired by a photo of dancers in a city, which this image grew around, as the theme of dancing and celebration through movement is a huge motif in this nation. I ended up doing a lot of fun research into general architecture for this, as well as finding little nuggets of ideas from reading through the general national brief. Whilst this piece is a lot less obscenely detailed than my previous one, there are still little easter eggs of information for folk who engage in the world of Empire and love The Brass Coast. I probably started this piece before I was ready to take on such a challenge, but if I’d never started it then I never would have been able to build on this further, nor would I have an avenue for my ideas and vision.

A monotone image of a young woman sitting on the ground and washing her hands in a basin. There are mountains behind her and she is surrounded by lights.

Oh it’s me again! Here I am illustrating an event that happened in between games that didn’t physically play out, but I wanted to visualise in a fun storybook manner. In this image I use elements of the world including the Hearth Magic created for it, descriptions of the locations, and the costuming brief to create a new outfit for my character. I haven’t worn this at a game nor have I made it, but it is really nice to create elements for characters that exist purely through imagination. I don’t usually draw what my character gets up to in between games, but I had read a lot about a different nation’s culture and got inspired to combine the two elements into this image. Working with a limited colour palette was a ton of fun as well.

A vertical fantasy city on the side of a cliff with a small ship in the river.

One day I read the description of a very specific place in The Empire and I had a hankering to draw it. So I did. I let my imagination go wild for this one as this is a predominantly magical nation which cares deeply for its commitment to excellence as part of its culture, so wanted to create exceptional structures that defied belief, but still in a way that they could still be reasonably pieces together. I once again opened dozens of pages to learn more about the nation, the trade industry, and the magic in the world. I already knew much of this from years of playing the game, but rediscovering old information helped me form new ideas. I ended up creating a sketchbook page filled with ideas and concepts, some which wouldn’t fit on this page in the end. Like all the other detailed locational imagery, there are stories and ideas that only exist in my head; but they breathe more life into the world that others create that then becomes my own.

A statue of a woman stepping forward into a basin of water. Her eyes are closed and she is lifting a veil off her head. There is a gold sun, tree, and mountain behind her.

A very self indulgent one, because yes, it’s me again! Sometimes you look at your character pinterest board and the references all come together to create one heck of an aspirational image for them. So then I realised that it would be a totally normal thing in the world (and in my character’s nation especially) to design your character’s memorial statue, as there is a huge belief system in how you are remembered, which meant I could glorify her as much as I wanted. Of course, in getting into that mindset, I had to view my character through very rose tinted glasses and elevate her in a way that felt weirdly conceited as the person who plays her. This however, was a lot of fun to create. Being able to create her personal motifs that already exist within the world and combine them with more general ones was such a fun challenge. Also, sometimes it’s great fun just to enjoy your character for a while.

A watercolour image at sunset of tents and people interacting with each other.

This piece was created to celebrate being at the event and one of my favourite experiences there, going to a good festival on a warm summer’s evening. I appear in this image as do other characters from the event who put everything together; and it’s one of the nation camps as it appears in the field, pretty much directly opposite to where I stood for my first image. It’s very different from my usual style, but I really wanted to capture the hazy, dreamlike, warm memory I have from physically being there experiencing it. This is a moment from the event and a reason why I love the hobby so much.

A 9x9 image of fantasy setting focussing on medieval designs and layouts.

And finally, this old piece which was done back in 2019, before I’d even started formally creating art again… so of course I went for something ridiculously ambitious. It’s rusty, it’s a lot, and I feel the love that went into trying to capture each nation into one small square on a broader piece (people who know Empire will notice I left The Orcs out, listen they’d only recently got their land, leave me be). Looking at this again for the first time in years, I am rediscovering old references that I’d previously forgotten from the research I did way back then. This was when I was first trying masking fluid, I didn’t have a detail brush, and I hadn’t really used watercolour properly in years; what on earth was I thinking?

I’ll tell you what I was thinking, I was thinking “I love this world so much, that I want to put my vision of it to paper”; and that has not changed even when illustration has become more of my professional practice. I love existing there, I love being inspired by it, I love putting the vision we share down on paper.

That is the soul of creating art you love for a world you love.

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Empire - The Soul of Art Creation