I read the http://www.shadowrun4.com/ post and was thinking to myself:


Please god, let it be better than Cannon Companion or Arsenal 2060's cover that depicted a midget troll wielding a three bullet machine gun, witnessed by a man having an explosive bowel movement.


Or the Sr3 companion Hobgoblin with his drill gun.

There have been a lot of art+firearm fubars in SR's past, but a lot of sweet ones as well.

Arsenal is something everyrunner will look at, as everyrunner uses gear. So which gun(s) or gear (Or vehicles now too!) will you guys be praying for Arsenals front cover?

I'm not too worried. The conversation looks to me like one of those "hey this idea is far too cool not to pass up, but it means a lot of work" deals that happen every so often.

I bet $10 that the idea was:

"Hey, let's have a rendering of each new weapon and device overlayed on a grid for scale. We could treat each page like a catalog."

=)

I actually don't care about the cover - but please, please, please let artists draw the guns who actually know how guns look and work - and who've got the guns' descriptions to read and match.

Heck, get Mike Jackson!

I don't know Mike Jackson, but yes, an artist who knows what he does instead of just drawing guns that would never work, would be REALLY great

I'm all for a great cover but you could put Drop Bears dressed like Rambo on cover as long as whats inside is good.

Actually, that'd be a damn good cover!

Seconded.

re:the Drop Bears graphic
I'd like to see that, but make sure your copyright-hoops are covered. This smacks of Palladium Books' After The Bomb II RPG.

as for the cover for Arsenal......somewhere inside there should be a graphic of the POV looking through a crosshairs with multiple read-outs (distance, range, ammo count, target lock, ect.), but the cover should be someone looking over a wall-display of the latest weapons, rubbing his/her chin in indicision (maybe with an excited S.O. at their shoulder pointing out a particular slug-thrower, thier face in an excited "oooh, THAT one puh-leeeeeeeze?" likeness).....

Actually...


(Top of cover, security forces (Think M:I 3 helicopter dudes), black masks and SMG's, the HK227 version, surrounding a lone person who is positioned at the bottom of the page, equiped with every gear possible, guns, commlink, ect, AugReal 'disks' apparent in front of his gun providing aiming support, ect.) Thats what I imagine being an awesome Arsenal cover.

What if it was one guy, with six guns?

for my .02 I really miss feeling the book itself is a prop in game. I thought it was cool that my character would be flipping through roughly the same document and smoking a 120mm cig. And Please please do have a reasonable, workable pic of every piece of gear.

I like this guy's drawing style. I think he could make a cool Arsenal cover.
http://manarama.deviantart.com/art/Shadowr...-Cover-17681495

This guy's does some pretty sweet gun art.
http://biometal79.deviantart.com/art/My-Sh...tion-1-48801985

I hope they bring Street Samurai Catalog back. I don't want Arsenal to be like it, but later on, they should make a new SSC.

SSC: One item per page means "less items"... Perhaps if you would squeeze 3-4 items on a page, it would be better, then you still could use a layout like in the SSC.

whatever layout they choose, gun art is mandatory. I have a hard time imagining things I have never seen. Also, looks and the "cool" factor is a really important factor in RPG weapons selection.

Cheers,

Max

At one item per page, just the Weapons chapter of Arsenal would be over 150 pages.

Arsenal is not going to look like Cannon Companion: there will be images of much of the equipment -- some previously created ones, some completely new ones. Most of the artwork is in, and when the remainder is, we'll be making decisions on *exactly* how equipment artwork will be handled in the book. We have some ideas and mockups already, but nothing 100% final yet.

Ah, Bradstreet! Now, Adam, if you, I dunno, said pretty please with sugar on top, or, maybe inject him with some nanopoison and lock away the antidote real good, couldn't you get ol' Timothy to do some illustrations?
Is that man so damn expensive?
Or just so damn not interested?

I honestly don't know what Bradstreet's current rates are. He seems pretty busy with comic and concept illustration work, although he did some stuff for White Wolf in 2004.

I don't handle art direction for Shadowrun projects, so it's not up to me to hire or enquire with him. Honestly, if the current development team hasn't been using him, there's a reason for that: either he's not available, too expensive, or they don't want to use him. I must admit that while I like his work [and re-used a piece of it in SR4] I don't know if it fits the tone of recent sourcebooks as well as, well, the artists we have been using. I'm hella impressed with most of them and very happy about how recent books have looked -- and some of the so-far-unseen art for Arsenal and Corporate Enclaves kicks some serious butt, too.

Man, I can't WAIT for this book to finally come out. I want to see what all the weapons are, especially the new ones.

However, as I lamented to some other people, I hope that only a few of those new toys will be hard to get. It sucks to read about it, but completely unable to afford it.

/me waits for the .pdf preview.

Yes, Bradstreet. His print work got put on hold due to some legal issues stemming from his process. This relayed to me from someone that knew him indirectly through White Wolf staff. Seems some of his better stuff was actually photographs that were processed and he used one that was given to him, but the subject had already copyrighted his likeness for his own business purposes and Bradstreet/White Wolf published the artwork without consent because they didn't know he hadn't consented. Most of the photos he used, the subjects knew what was to happen with the image and had consented long before Tim had the photo in hand.
It's kinda fun having someone name the people in the artwork and illuminate what was happeneing when the photo was taken. Some were staged, some weren't.

Can we please have the Slivergun as it was SUPPOSED to be without the copy-paste mistakes of earlier editions.

2.st edition:
Light pistol with heavy pistol RANGES
Flechette only

3.ed
Heavy pistol, heavy pistol ranges
Flechette only

4.ed
Copy paste from 3rd

CORRECT data:
Light pistol
Firing Mode: SA / BF
Damage: 4P(F) / 6P(F)
Range: Heavy pistol range table

@Adam
*Tongue firmly in cheek*
Do not forget some cyberimplant weapons for cyber sexual implants.

WMS

What? blakkie, that's crazy-talk. The art notes -- the descriptions sent to the artists -- are finalized before the text is, but the art and the text generally rolls in at about the same time, unless there are special circumstances.

Covers are a different story because they generally need to be finished much sooner for solicitation purposes. We had the SR4 cover in March for the GAMA Trade Show.

In most cases, with Shadowrun titles, the text is at the first draft stage before art is solicited. All the Arsenal artists working on gear illos had the full text to work from.

Bradstreet would be nice, but there are others who've done previous SR art that would be as good. Honestly, I'm not all that worried about the art. (As long as it's not stuff like Doog's from the early Vampire books.) I'm much more interested in the textual content than the art. But then, I'm already into SR, no need to hook me with visuals. :>

One thing I would like to see in Arsenal, (as long as we're on the subject and Adam said that they're still doing layout): Can we separate the 'fluff' from the rules more? Now, don't jump on my for using 'fluff.' I like the in-character/world discussions and descriptions. It's just that mixing everything together, as much as Augmentation did, bugs the heck out of me when I'm trying to look stuff up. Having the 'fluff' and the mechanics sections at the front and back of the book, or even of the major sections, would be much better.

...so, any sneak peeks yet?

That picture of the guy falling from the roof and getting snagged on the flagpole isn't new to SR4, IIRC. edit: Or is it? Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. I could've sworn that had appeared before.

And art is subjective as hell, anyway. For example, I kinda like that picture that you think is crap. Neither one of us is objectively "right". Personally, I love the fact that there's such a wide variety of art, because it helps to remind us that the Shadowrun world is what we make it.

That particular illo -- the Edge one -- is getting upgraded in the next printing of SR4.

Doesn't make it much better.