Reconnecting to Art through NUNA

A Family of Artists

Making art has always been a part of my life. As a child, I have many happy memories of playing in the kitchen of my grandmother Phyllis Pritchard, a known name in Labrador art whose painting I once found decades later on the wall of the Canadian ambassador to Japan's official residence! Nan was self-taught, and she and her sister supported their families by selling beautiful oil paintings of Labrador scenery and daily life. When I returned to Canada in 2023 after 20 years in Japan, and long after Nan had passed, I found this scrap of art she had done for me, a dogsled on the snow waiting for their master.

Thank you for this, Nan.

Nan would always say to me, "You learn to draw by drawing. Draw and throw away. Everyday." I drew so much as a child that my pictures of birds and people became photo-realistic. "You've definitely got the touch," nan would say to me. But for a quarter century art was my sideline, a form of stress relief while I worked hard as an educator and academic.

Learning As You Go

Having been estranged from art, I have had to relearn a lot on the fly. I always sketched so for NUNA I have experimented with coloring. The biggest art influence on my life has been comic books, as you can see in the 2 pieces from the Quickstart below.

Inuk woman visiting a Tuniit

The Final Countdown

With the Quickstart, I gave myself a strict deadline to, as Nan would say, "shit or get off the pot." This means I was in a sense rushed, but also added some dynamism to what I produced.

I am proud of this one

When illustrating for the adventure The Silver Machine, I decided to go for whimsical 90's style line drawings, like this one of the ship's Bridge.

Thank you Star Trek!

As I noted in an earlier post, art in RPGs is more polished than it has ever been, which excludes designers without art skills or a budget and pushes people towards AI art. I am blessed with some skill, and I would rather stretch myself for NUNA art than use AI slop any day.

Very underground exploration vibes with this one.

What Is Next

I have purchased some art instruction books and have a long list of saved art lesson videos in my YouTube. I will be sketching as a daily practice and expect a marked improvement in the art for the NUNA Corebook.

Take A Look Inside NUNA

Want to take a look at the NUNA rules and art? The Quickstart is available HERE or at the link below.

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/575172/NUNA-Rpg-Quickstart