Thanks to Grinder for posting first one in another thread, after little messing around with url, found others. Thought worth posting under own topic.

Runners Companion
http://sirdoomsbadcompany.files.wordpress....anion-promo.pdf

Ghost Cartels
http://sirdoomsbadcompany.files.wordpress....rtels-promo.pdf

Feral Cities
http://sirdoomsbadcompany.files.wordpress....ities-promo.pdf

WANT

With shadowrunners tromping through the jungle with weapons and clothes that seem better suited to sprawls, no wonder mercs have a low opinion of runners

"Of course I care about the chrome! Chrome is King!" Lariat (8-20-54).

Hmn. Didn't think the side bars would cover up that much of the cover. Pity.

I for one wish we could have had critters book pushed up, miss pitting my folks against some good ole fashion beasties once inawhile.

But don't get me wrong, all these posted as summer 08 release, if actaully see all this summer..gonna be a good summer.

I'm assuming you're referring to Feral Cities and I'm pretty sure we won't lose the rest of the picture. It's just a mockup.

The really interesting thing about the Feral Cities sheet is comfirming Lagos as the 2nd key city.

That pleases me.

I've been doing research on modern day Lagos for a SR side project. My descriptions of the Lagos sprawl circa 2070's haven't been coming together as well as I'd like though... I can't wait to see what the writers have come up with.

-paws

Yeah, she certainly looks like a "companion."

Not that I think it's bad art. It's one of the better SR cover arts I've seen in a while. It's just when you put a hot-looking female on the cover of a book with that title, it sends a message to people who don't know anything about your game.

I kind of wish the cover for Feral Cities showed more of a decaying cityscape instead of being so focused on the larger than life character. The art is great, but the tattooed elf is definitely the emphasis, not the Feral City in the background.

It does seem immature, yes. But at least she's fully clothed, is decked out in weapons, and is obviously not a Joygrrl.

Did anybody notice this little nugget on the Runner's Companion release:



April Fools part II or is that for real? I could see AI's and FS's being balanced. But, er.....what the hell is an e-ghost?!? Very cool.

E-Ghost is probably the people trapped in the Matrix after Crash 2.0.

They're probably a force to be reckoned with, seeing as they'd be lead by one hell of a person.

Maybe an e-ghost is a Free Sprite.

In deed.

True enough. Not even a visible bellybutton. In the last two decades, there's certainly been less tame SR art, even on covers. I think it's just the centerfold pose (if not centerfold wardrobe) combined with the book title that made that my first reaction.

It's hinted here and there - in Emergence, to cite a specific example - that it is possible for people who die online, and particularly during the Crash 2.0, to have their personalities somehow transferred to the matrix at the moment of death. Their meat body is dead, but they live on in a way similar to AIs, ghosts in the machine. That's probably what an e-ghost is.

The art for Ghost Cartels is really awful. It's like a Manowar cover, only worse.

Sexy girl badass is a motif that was boring and played out by 1980 at the latest. The unoriginal Freudianism of a woman in skintight leather, lounging with a sword and a pistol casually between her legs, showing off her artificial hand, is not likely to thrill anyone older than fifteen or with an education beyond the 11th grade.

I do like the Feral Cities art. It's an original composition that conveys the tone of the book very well. I'm looking forward to this book - I've considered an African campaign for a long time. Lagos, here I come!

Regarding the Companion: young adult dragon PCs are so ridiculous they must be a joke, but free spirit PCs are innovative and surprising. Is that clear to everyone?

*Shrug* Sexy, yet empowered. I like it.

'Course, I'm male, and, thus, a sexist pig.

What are you talking about? There isn't a half-naked man on the cover. Everyone is wearing full clothing save the Plant Spirit.

And no swords, either.

So, what characters should appear on covers? Males and ugly females only?
Women's magazine's cover always feature sexy girls and often without too many clothes on. Does it mean that women's magazines are sexist and directed at RPG nerds?

I think it's the pose more than anything else that would make most feminists sick. I'll buy it, but I'll keep it cover side down when non-gamer girls I know come round. I get a hard enough time about being a geek already without giving them any more "sexually frustrated nerd" ammunition.

Blade: I didn't say it was sexist, I said it was boring and unoriginal. And it has very little to do with SR. I don't recall SR ever being about babes lounging around in leather. (That's more my personal life). It's embarrassing for the game line to be trying to sell itself with cheesecake sex.

It's another issue entirely, but the covers of magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan promote a paradigm where the beauty standards are impossible, forever dooming subscribers to the paradigm to feelings of inadequacy. I don't think it's sexist, per se, but it's certainly no fun.

Personally, I like the Runners Companion cover the most of all the recent cover art. To me, the pose and clothes just say "Yes, I'm hot, and yes, I can kill you. Bring it on."

And as a woman, I think it's a perfectly cool cover.

Runner's Companion and Feral Cities both have nice covers. I can see the oh-so-sexy elf chicky causing a stir with both genders but at the same time... it's a fantasy role-playing game. That's par for the course. Honestly the pose doesn't bother me. Walk through a lower class neighborhood in any major city and you'll see young women sprawled out like that on front stoops. And major yays for Lagos! Finally an African setting! Awesome! I'm very excited about both of these releases. Ghost Cartels' cover, like most SR adventure modules, isn't anything inspiring but the description sounds cool. I'm excited to send my players to Amazonia (whenever we get around to finishing Emergence).

My gripe on the coer art is what the hell is with the Elf love?? Is it not possible to have a badass human or Troll?? Damn dandelion eaters

Once I got past my initial inward groan for the state of the industry, I'd say I do too.

Elves are like the blondes you see in custom auto mags. They help sell books to nerds who fantasize about Liv Tyler and Jolene Blaylock.

Speaking of which, there's a definite lack of attractive dwarves in Shadowrun art. I don't remember the sourcebook off the top of my head (I'm thinking Mr. Johnson's Black Book) but I did find a black and white spot illustration of two runners strolling through a sewer, a male carrying a dwarf female on his shoulders. Her knockers were laying on the poor guys head. I found it to be funny-sexy-cool, all at the same time. There's also been a lack of trollbabeage. There was an illustration of a Troll call girl in Tir na Nog and I think that's it. While not so much sexy, I really liked the dreadlocked ork chica in BBB.

You are entirely too informed on this subject.

Seriously, as MMPORG's like World of Warcraft show, everyone prefers to play the pretty ones. Part of the inherent escapism of the genre, I expect.

I think you've hit on it. With adventures, you've got to be careful about the cover art, to avoid spoilers. Kinda like the cover of Dungeon magazine about *mumble* years ago, which had a comedic mystery in it where the PCs needed to figure out what was causing problems; the cover prominently featured a leprechaun.

I work in marketing. Hence I have a deadly memory for what tickles my fancy.

D&D is running a print ad campaign with an illustration of Drizzit (sic?) posing out in all his elven manliness above a tag line that says something like "Nobody role-plays a middle-aged overweight paper salesman from Cleveland." In Shadowrun, everyone wants to be prettier, tougher or cooler than they are in real life. Which is to be expected. Like romance novels RPGs are an exaggeration of real life. Though the people that make me sad for various reasons are the ones who say, "My character looks like me... only twenty pounds lighter."

That's how I describe the PCs in Paranoia.

But, again, this is Shadowrun. Much different game!

guess I'm not much of an art critic cause I like them all.

Runners companion looks cool. The hotty one the cover is sexy and dangerous looking. I don't have a problem with that. I like dangerous women.

Ghost Cartels is nice too. Nice background and an interesting group of runners.

Ferel cities is ok. not my favorite, but nice and flashy. kinda jumps out a you.

I guess the thing is I buy sourcebooks for the info. pretty stuff is nice but cool stuff to use in-game impresses me a lot more.

Well, it is again the human-with-pointy-ears type of elf - another artist ignoring the racial description: Elves are skinny compared to humans...

It might be an elf poser.

Regardless, Runner's Companion is one of the best cover arts - on par with Street Magic. Feral Cities is also good, but not as good.

None of those covers feature bad poser art. I'm good.

What they need in Unwired is a "hawt" elf chick in just a tank top undies in her home with multiple screens around her.... and all of the screens are of her in different poses. Oh yeah and the elf dude should be replaced by another elf chick in Feral Cities for maximum all female elf action. In fact get rid of the the two guys in the Ghost Cartels and replace them with boobies, and I guess you can leave the spirit since you know..... boobs. And just make the dogs in Feral Cities have boobs for eyes and we are good to go.

On a side note did the orc in Arsenal just seem totally wrong in some way that I can't put my finger on it, or am I just seeing things?

Have you been messing around with Ray #17643?

As to the orc, it looks fine to me (although her jaw does seem to be gaping, though that might be 'cause of the tusks, which makes me wonder whether drooling is a problem with orcs)
Perhaps the bizarre perspective flaws are causing it?

Thank you very much for posting this!

3 great covers! And very cool to be able to have a bit more in depth look at the content of each of the books! Man I wanna get my hands on all of them can't wait!

All 3 books are slated to be released summer 08 according to each add!! Is that for real ? If they all are coming out over the summer thats AMAZING NEWS! /cheer

Where have you guys been for the last 5 months?

I like em, even if they arent offical. Say from which sourcebook is the picture you took for the fake runner companion cover?

I absolutely love the runner companion cover, despite the aforementioned issues about "companion" sex kitten look. Then again, I can guarantee it'll sell better with her on the cover like that.

The only thing that's bugging me is that the perspective on the sword almost made it look like it's going through her wrist. But then, most people won't be looking at the wrist and sword with that pic.

That's the actual Runner's Companion cover art on a quick mockup cover for distributors/retailers, available right from our site: http://catalystgamelabs.com/retailer/

[It would be nice, btw, if people linked to that page instead of re-posting those PDFs to other sites, as we do update those PDFs if the material/factual info about the book changes, and that way there's a better chance that people get the most up to date info about the book...]

Edit: Also, if you're worried about spoilers, I wouldn't advise reading the sell sheets. They are _not_ written for gamers, but for people who need to know what the books contain and how to sell them to gamers. They are corp documents and will have spoilers.

I usually judge a picture simply by checking if I like it or not, not any other criteria. Although good poser art is special - bad poser art might not please me, but good poser art makes me envious - especially if the artist lists all the models he/she used, and I have them all, and just know I'd not manage such a picture anyway.

I guess what I should have said was "Bad cover art as featured on Augmentation" or even better yet "Cover art I personally didn't care for as featured on Augmentation"

But... as a rule I'm not a huge fan of poser, but I fully admit that's a personal preference and not some "You all must bow before my superior tastes" rule.

I've seen people do stuff with poser that was better (as in "looked better in my personal opinion") than most work from professional artists.

I did not like the cover for Augmentation, not because it had poser stuff in it, but because the stuff did not mesh well with the other elements (like the orks). I think a full poser picture with good lighting and special effects and postwork in paintshop might have looked better - or a no-poser picture.

I didn't know about the official info-page, so I linked the only one I've that had the infos. But now the CGL-page is bookmarked.

Thank you for the link Adam, good to have for info regarding upcoming books.

Regarding Feral Cities, I'm sure that Largos will be a very interesting read im sure.

@Adam: A thank you for the link from me too. And wow, the cover(s) look really good ... To be honest I didnt like the Augmentation and or the Arsenal cover art that much. Runners Companion looks the best so far.

@Fuchs

Let me phrase it this way, when I can look at something and instantly go "Oh, that was made in X program." It takes something away from the piece for me. When I look at "good" CG I say, "Oh man, that's a really cool pictures... hey! It's done in CG, that's pretty cool!"

I got to walk around with a professional comic book artist once and he pointed out the difference between "good" art and "bad". His big thing was color, if you use unmixed black or white paint straight from the tube, you're doing something wrong. Virtually nothing we see is actually pure white, the light, the surroundings, etc all tint it slightly and a good artist picks up on that and includes it in their work. Once he pointed that out to me I couldn't help but notice when people took the short way around and just slapped black paint into a shadow or white paint for a highlight. I guess it's nitpicking but using well mixed colors is a sign of craftsmanship to me, and I love good craftsmanship.

Poser, and images made in Bryce have that effect for me, if you show me a landscape that has that telltale Bryce infinite white horizon line my instant reaction is "Oh, I guess you couldn't be bothered to figure out the half a dozen work arounds for that." To me at least, it shows a certain lack of craftsmanship. In my narrow definition, is not spectacular art.

Great poser art isn't called "great poser art" it's "great art". I've been cruising a great number of CG message boards lately and the general cry I hear is: "Tools do not make the artist." A good artist's work typically allows the audience to forget that tools were used in first place. That's why I like comic art so much, simple tools, simple colors but now I'm laughing my ass off as Spider Jerusalem punts a bouncer out of a window and onto a puppy. Good times.

But like I said, that's personal preference. Call it... artistic suspension of disbelief.