For May, Geek Native’s patrons voted for Diane Ramic to feature in the RPG Publisher Spotlight.
I’m glad they did! Diane’s been fun to chat with.
Diane is an artist and a clever one who, as we’ll discover, thinks about the physics and biology that might matter when drawing aliens or fantasy creatures. In addition to having a DriveThruRPG, Diane also has an art store on Diantimony Press and one on Amazon; both are worth a good look.
In this interview, we discuss the rise of generative AI, xenobiology, and our tendency to be bad at spotting trends.
First of all, congratulations on winning the RPG Publisher Spotlight for this month! For our readers who might be discovering your work for the first time, could you tell us a bit about Diantimony Press? Is there a story behind the name?
Thank you so much for having me, this is such an exciting thing to be a part of!
The story behind Diantimony Press as a name comes from my own nickname that started in a high school chemistry class where we had learned about prefixes like di- and tri- and others, and for some reason, adding together di- and antimony to make something like Diane-timony. As for the “Press” part, I wanted to start publishing my work under something that seemed more “official” than just using my first and last name, and to tie together my book projects. Hoping to use that title more often as I put more books out!
You use Diane Ramic Stock Art as your brand on DriveThruRPG. Is there a reason for having the two? You’re not going to tell me there are two Diane Ramics with a passion for speculative biology and xenobiology are you?
You know, if there is another “me” out there, please get in touch! I’d love to double my workflow by getting my doppleganger to draw with me, haha.
“Diane Ramic Stock Art” is a name that isn’t all that “original” I think, but gets the point across as easily as possible with the “who made it” and “what it is” aspects. Sometimes you just need something blunt. Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it!) I think I’m still the only Diane Ramic on the planet so far, so it does make it easy to find more of any of my work just by searching my name.
Your portfolio is a stunning blend of scientific illustration and fantasy art. How did you get started in illustrating for the tabletop games industry?
Thank you for the kind words! I got started with designing for TTRPGs by doing a few one-off commissions for clients of characters or creatures for their games, after I had shared art of my own characters I was playing, as well as NPCs and PCs I illustrated for games I ran for friends. I found that I really enjoyed drawing people’s characters, which were often tied to extensive stories after all of the adventures they had been on (or planned to be on) that I got to hear about, and I was drawing a lot of new and interesting things that I normally don’t gravitate towards in my personal work, which is important to me for preventing stagnation.
As someone running their own art business, what trends are you noticing in the TTRPG space? Are publishers and designers looking for different styles of art now compared to a few years ago?
I am NOTORIOUSLY bad at noticing trends, but what I have noticed in the last few years is a greater acceptance of art that seems more “human” in an imperfect way. Things like sketchier styles, styles imitating young children’s art, art that seems intentionally less polished than a meticulously crafted skillful piece.
And I am here for it!
If it means that more artists are finding that there is demand for their styles, then that means the entire TTRPG scene becomes so much richer visually, and that games can really lean into having a unique art style to help set it apart from the crowd at a glance, and use the visual style as a shorthand tool for the tone and genre of the game itself. Along with that, with the rise of social media there has been even more pressure on new artists especially to perfectly develop their illustrative skills before sharing it with the world, and I hope that seeing the more imperfectly human art become more embraced takes some stress off of those entering the field.
To follow up on that, do you think the way we value and purchase art for our games is changing? What role do you see for stock art and platforms like DriveThruRPG for independent artists in the coming years?
For a long time, I had the bulk of my artwork available on various stock sites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, etc. After some time, I discovered DTRPG, and started making stock art just to serve that community, separate from my main stock sites.
By coincidence, I started offering TTRPG stock art right before generative imagery and text started being more mainstream. And at first, I did notice a huge dip in interaction and sales with my art in general on my main stock sites, with some of those sites even going out of business shortly after. It was very discouraging, especially since a commission tier I had offered at the time was “write a prompt describing a creature, and I will draw it,” which was very easily replaced with generation doing just that. But over time, as I built up my stock art selection based on suggestions on what was needed, and the novelty of the technology waned as issues with the ethics came to light, I noticed that support for using human-made art for games was growing steadily again.
I think there is once again a broadly perceived value to stock art made by independent artists, and this value can grow by listening to the community and drawing more of what is needed so that creators can continue to have affordable and unique art options and that artists can carve a niche for themselves. I would not tell an artist to not draw a common subject in their own style (I’d be a hypocrite to do so!), but I will say that what illustrations I thought were wanted versus what was actually wanted after talking to game designers was quite different! And then drawing those things I did not expect both expanded my skills and filled a niche I didn’t even know was there, so I’d consider that a win-win!
Do you have a background in biology? Does your scientific knowledge influence your creature design and your approach to art?
I almost had a background in biology! I had switched from an astrobiology focus to one in graphic design back in college after something like a quarter-life crisis overtook me, but I’ve always loved science and wanted to incorporate that into my art, either to educate or through my design choices being influenced by it. I once heard that the more you learn about biology the more restrictive you get with your designs, but I think that’s not entirely true. Yes, if you’re trying to stay realistic with what we know about physics and anatomy, there are things that just won’t work if they were in the real world. However, the more you learn, the more opportunities there are where you can pull inspiration from nature, and have more instances where breaking the rules can give you an interesting solution to a design you are working on.
Following on from that, when you’re creating a new creature, what comes first – the biology and ecological niche, or a cool visual concept? Could you walk us through your creative process?
It’s a little bit of both, honestly! For example, sometimes I’ll get an idea for a specific feature I’d love to see on a creature (like a particularly strange crest or body plan), and then try to figure out what forces might have driven that structure to form and what it could be for, both from the environment and selection within that species. Less commonly, I’ll think of an environment and then try to populate it with creatures following a set of rules (for example: vertebrate analogues with 1 eye for UV and one for IR light, and that have 6 limbs), and then further influence the environment with how those creatures change the landscape. It’s a very fun back and forth sort of sandbox! That said, my designs do skew towards what I personally think would be cool or fun to draw, however! Explains why so many of my critters have wings in some form as it’s my favorite thing to draw, along with feathery structures in general, haha.
Your work has a very distinct, realistic style. Do you find that this style is something RPG creators are actively looking for at the moment?
I’m not sure, but it’s one of the styles I enjoy working in! It’s found a bit more success for me than my other major style I work in which tends to be more experimental: a sharp vector style, where subjects are drawn with lineless flat shapes and with no curves at all. I enjoy drawing this way from time to time, especially if I get bored with the watercolor/pencil/ink art I do, but it is a little more time consuming and has a more difficult time finding a place for others to use. I do see a steady demand for “old-school” type of art using only black ink and rougher textures, especially with the popularity of more recent OSR-style games like Shadowdark. And these have been fun to do as well, especially when I draw them as a part of my annual Inktober-inspired project, where I draw a pen and ink illustration for each day of the month of October.
Are there any particular types of creatures or concepts you’re really excited to illustrate in the future? Any dream projects you’d love to bring to life?
Though fantasy critters like dragons and bird monsters are very fun, I most enjoy drawing aliens, and have thought for years about turning one of my long-time scifi worldbuilding projects into a TTRPG setting GMs can run games for players in. Things like story hooks and campaigns don’t come to me as easily as building and illustrating the world those ideas can exist in, so I would love to make a setting that inspires someone to explore it and tell stories within it. Work on this project is slow but steady, and I’ve hinted at it a little with the a little mini game I made for DTRPG’s Pocketquest challenge a few years ago: “Expedition to Darakon Island,” where players explore an island populated by strange wildlife they study, all taking place on an alien world. I was even envisioning this to be an artsy video game reminiscent of “Pokemon Snap,” if I can ever find the time to learn how to get started learning the skills needed for that from scratch, haha.
Finally, is there anything else you’re working on that our readers should be excited about?
I’m always working on new things (even when friends say I should be taking a break for my own good instead!), but I’m especially excited for a parody trade journal I’m working on called “HUBRIS: A Magazine by Mad Scientists, For Mad Scientists.” It’s a collaborative journal we’ll list on DTRPG after a crowdfunding campaign to launch it, with several artists and writers on board working to make it happen. We plan to include fictional product reviews, a Q&A section for struggling mad scientists, advice for building lairs and managing henchmen and minions, themed ads, the works! In addition to organizing it, I’ll be working on the layout and some of the visual and textual elements within it. If things work out, I’m hoping to bring it back next year and turn it into an annual publication with new and returning contributors keeping the magic (or mad science, if you will) alive!
Thanks, Diane!
Quick Links
- Diane Ramic
- Diane Ramic Stock Art on DriveThruRPG.
- Diantimony Press
- Diane’s Amazon page.
