Illustrator and author Evlyn Moreau was kind enough to answer some questions for this week's Meet the Publisher. For those looking to support her work, she has a Patreon. At a dollar a month, is probably the most bang for the buck you're going to find on Patreon. She is also participating in this month's ZiMo, funding The Potato King, a horror scenario written for Liminal Horror.
Question: I first became aware of you as an illustrator. You've got such a distinctive style that, as far as I'm aware, is pretty unique in the rpg field. Can you talk a little about your style; what influences you, what sort of things you like to draw, etc.?
Answer: I developed my style while studying comic books at the university during my art degree, at that time I was mostly influenced by underground French, Canadian and European comics. I started to draw for RPGs in 2012 when I opened my blog Le Chaudron Chromatique. I enjoy drawing whimsical characters and strange creatures, I mostly do fantasy art but I also enjoy drawing science fiction, especially cyberpunk.
Q: The most recent big project you did was the fantastic Where the Wheat Grows Tall, which had a successful Kickstarter for last year's ZineQuest. Do you have another big project in the works that you'd like to talk about, or anything coming up you'd like to share?
A: I have so many projects that I am working on that I seem to never be able to finish. My two biggest projects are settings for Macchiato Monsters who are becoming more like a hack of the game.
The first one is Orbital Megastructure, a post-human setting inspired by the manga Blame. I have all my rules and random tables figured out and a lot of illustrations for it. I ran a playtest campaign and it was really fun to generate and explore the megastructure.
My second one is Darkest Road Trip, a modern day occult campaign inspired by Alan Wake and Oregon Trail where the group have to keep traveling in their car to run away from a dark corrupting force. I have a solid playable first draft that I also playtested.
I feel like I need to find a way to finance myself to take a break from commissions work to be able to finish at least one of these projects.
Q: As an artist, you do a lot of collaborative work with writers. For authors that may be reading this who are unfamiliar with your work, can you talk a little bit about the kinds of projects you're interested in working on, and also broadly how you like to work with authors?
A: I am a good but not very efficient artist, if this makes sense, I do a lot of exploration drawings to feel the things I draw and so I prefer to be included in a creative team than to be asked to do very specific art. When I get instructions that are too specific I often have a hard time finding the inspiration to work or I get stuck on a detail and the commission becomes a stressful chore.
So I need projects that foster a inspiring creative space, like people pitch me a broad concept or give me some loose prompts and I do exploration art. I like it when we have a lot of back and forth and when I surprise the writers and inspire them back. It is not always possible to work like this as it is more involved but I really enjoy it when there is a lot of cross-inspiration between the text and the illustrations.
Q: Finally, do you mind sharing how you got into gaming, what sort of games you like to play, and so forth?
A: I got into gaming years ago with D&D and the World of Darkness. I stopped roleplaying for a while until I discovered the OSR and got back into gaming. The creativity of the old school scene stimulated me a lot even if there is sometimes difficult drama to navigate through.
These days I really like OSE and Macchiato Monsters but I also enjoy other genres like horror games or more narrative driven games even if my experiences with these is a mixed bag. I am very interested by Mothership, especially with the box set coming up and I want to write some adventures for it.
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