I first started writing about the Hydrocropolis, a colossal automaton made out of wood, back in 2014 when I was brainstorming ideas for one of my Numenera adventures.
At the time, I didn’t fully realize what the automaton looked like or how it exactly worked, but I knew that I wanted to do more with the idea whether in an actual published adventure or in a story.
Now two years later, the Hydrocropolis will be featured in a story in the first Automatonera anthology and will also grace its cover thanks to Julie Dillon.
I had no idea how Julie would tackle the cover given the meager description I provided her beyond the basic ideas; I didn’t produce any breakdown sketches this time around. Suffice it to say, I was pretty much blown away after she sent the piece above.
It’s an awesome and impressive rendering of the weird and titanic machine in the beautiful but chaotic jungles of Xenthropa.
Julie is a multi-award winning artist who recently picked up a 2015 Hugo Award for best professional artist.
She was very much a joy to work with and I can’t thank her enough for the awesome cover.
You can check out more of Julie’s work here.
In addition, Aaron Hubrich produced some impressive title and text work that looks spectacular over Julie’s art.
Much thanks to Aaron’s craftsmanship and time. You can check out more of his work here.
Last but not least, special thanks to Andreas Walters who hooked me up with Aaron’s skills. Andreas is putting Automatonera in PDF form when it eventually comes out this year. But in the meantime, you can check out his current project on Kickstarter here.
Automatonera Vol. 1: Xenthropa is expected to be released in 2016 and consists of an RPG adventure and short story based in the Ninth World of Numenera.
