WHILDE'S EDGE - 2025

World-Building Project, Mixed-Media

This collection consists of written lore-crafting and digital illustration intended to supplement a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Drafted on paper and then developed in Procreate, I spent a great deal of time working with my players to help create and integrate their characters into a world that evolved alongside them. Then, through a series of incremental drafting stages, I worked to bring those characters to life by creating a fully rendered portrait for each. To supplement this world-building process and to help communicate the setting's tone to players, I also worked to develop in-universe materials like maps and postcards to better flesh out the aesthetics of this setting. Both the world itself and the illustration work drew heavily from late-19th-century settings, clothing, and artwork, with the intent of blending those elements of old-world Americana with the established look and feel of high fantasy.

My intentions with this series of illustrations were to both help supplement the work I had done to develop this setting, while also using that work as a jumping-off point for the rest of the written work I would do in fleshing out this interactive world. My hopes were that by providing a rich starting reference for both myself and the players, it would allow both of us to feel more entrenched in this world’s mythos, and thus we would feel better able to tell a story in specific conversation with its setting and inspirations. And as far as I can tell, this process has shown decent promise, as the world my players and I have developed has continued to grow in a way that is distinct from any previous setting I have worked on.