Process Video: 1996

As an exclusive perk for our paid subscribers, we present this video showing the step by step creation of Stan!'s cartoon homage to "Hellbound."

One of the really interesting things about Robh Ruppel’s cover painting for Hellbound: The Blood War is how much empty space there is. When the characters are down on the bottom third of an image (as they are here) usually you find the rest of the space FULL of setting details—mountains, buildings, ruins, geological features, or even just explosions or magical special effects. But in this image it’s just a big, nearly empty, nearly flat expanse of intensely red sky. There IS a floating landmass in the distance, but it’s faded so far into the background that you might even miss it on first glance … just a wall of red.

That is in no way to say that there’s anything MISSING from the painting. Planescape is set in the infinite planes of the D&D cosmology. There are many planes and demi-planes—dozens or hundreds, perhaps even an infinite number—and each one of them is infinite in size. An infinite number of infinite spaces. I think the cover for Hellbound does a better job of communicating what tiny, infinitesimally small things individuals (and by that I especially mean Player Characters) are in such a scheme. And yet, it’s also clear that what’s happening at the bottom of this image—what’s happening in the PCs’ adventures—is important … maybe the most important things in the infinitely infinite multiverse.

I struggles with that as I considered how I was going to approach my cartoon homage to the piece. It was clear to me that no matter how carefully I worked, I wasn’t ever going to get my cartoon to speak as eloquently as Robh’s painting. So I embraced the differences in our media and purposes—my goal was to celebrate the power of Robh’s image AND the game … and that meant putting the FOCUS on the characters and letting them fill my much more finite frame.

But I just want to say that I’m fully mindful of how much detail and story I’m losing by eschewing so much of the EMPTINESS that Robh so beautifully captured.

Subscribers to this newsletter got to see this drawing early, whereas the general public are only just getting their first glimpses of it today. But there’s still something left that’s JUST for the paid subscribers—a process video showing the step-by-step creation of this cartoon homage. (If you’re currently a free subscriber, now would be a great time to upgrade.)