Again, lif is slowing me down, but there’s new stuff, lots of new stuff! Will be sharing some more (it’s AMAZING!), but for now I’ll let an artist and board member of nisei just say it in their own words:
Sorry for the silence recently - I just moved house, and have had technical issues, but none of that matters, because today, today is the long-awaited first day of Nisei’s spoiler season - the day we get the first info on new cards of their upcoming products. There’s a schedule information and a short fiction to whet appetites - I know I’m looking forward to it!
And here is the card: Pantograph! A very funky looking console.
This first new-new card I’ve also been able to get a fairly decent full art for - which won’t be the case for most, I’m sure, but I’m so happy to see new cards, new art, and the results of Nisei’s work after a tumultuous year-and-a-bit!
Art by Martin Diego Sadaba (who also provided art during FFG’s tenure) His sites here,here,here.
Sadly I’ve only been able to find about half of Chris Newman’s art for netrunner cards, but they’re amazing! Some really sweet looking runs, and some cool (if dubiously effective) ice.
It’s always great to see the progress and development of cards and card art, and the article goes into some depth about the production and process.
Kind of weirdly (or maybe not, this isn’t the most active space in the world) I don’t end up talking much about the game. Project Nisei’s 2020 was as bad as it was for everyone else, and their releases were delayed - what was planned for December 2020 is now scheduled as Q1 2021 - this is hardly new for netrunner though. What is new is this art, for System Update, a set of existing cards that will be released as a product - partly for collection and card legality reasons, but mainly (imo) to serve as a follow-on from the All-New* New Player product, System Gateway, aimed specifically at new players. As non-Nisei know next to nothing about that though, System Update with its existing cards is a big thing that’s easier to talk about - and to admire the shiny new art for!
Also posting some other art that has been previewed, for the perennially useful card Project Atlas - as with the above cards, by the excellent Zoe Cohen
Coming to the end (for now) of my collection of Liiga’s art I think (I’ve got some old posts as well as this recent series), but never fear - Liiga’s already produced art for Nisei and I have no doubt she’ll continue to do so.
This one I’m posting on it’s own, because compared to most other art I’m posting, it’s massive. There’s a reason for this, this art was meant to be box art for Creation and Control - I think there was meant to be an especially heavy emphasis on cyberspace, hence the massive city being hit with a tidal wave behind the giant bioroid there, and when the box got retooled and re-focused this big, beautiful art was not used for it - it was used for playmats and later the (sadly underwhelming) card Running Interference
Returning with some of Liiga’s earlier work for Netrunner - the intimidating (if not very strong) Kraken, which definitely has something of Apex about it, the deadly Ichi 2.0, the mighty Battering Ram. Last is the excellent Datasucker, an excellent card done excellently - this version by Liiga is from the Core 2.0 set
Some of the more unusual Liiga cards today, Red Herrings (apparently there’s around 300, and they were very zen to draw), Imp alt-art, the terrifyingLittle Engine (as one excellent flavour review said, sysops get nightmares too), the unfortunately unreleased Plague, and the angel of judgement Veritas
Wanting to continue with having a consistent theme for at least one more post, so I thought I’d bring together all of Liiga’s bird pieces, despite a couple of reposts - there’s not really a #TeamBird the way there is a Team Dog, but there’s certainly a lot of them, and they’re awesome!
Data Raven, Peregrine, Phoenix, Saker, Owl, Golden, Musaazi, Hadrian’s Wall
I think it’s also telling that there’s still lots more excellent Liiga art to come
Netrunner is not without its memes, and one of the best is “Team Dog” (other cyberspace animals are available, but not as awesome). Today, meet the majority of the members of Team Dog, all by the excellent Liiga - Rex, Cuj0 and Lady, on the runner side, and for corps Fenris, Pup, Lab Dog and last but not least, Komainu
In a ruse to give the impression I’m somewhat organised, over the next week or two I’ll be posting a bunch of LiigaSmilshkalne’sart, trying to work through a kind of backlog - these few are fairly recent finds, from Liiga’s store on InkedGaming
Liiga is one of the key artists for netrunner, with work right from the Core Set up to the current Nisei initiative! She’s even in the community discussions as well! Truly one of the greatest visualisers of cyberspace for netrunner, and an amazing artist to boot.
Peeping Tom, Charlatan, SYNC BRE (Big Red Eye? no-one’s quite sure what it stands for) and the (terrifying, in-game and in-art) Anansi
Netrunner has a need for lots of different types of art - cyberspace stuff, and characters of course, but also machines, scenes and more abstract elements that make the flow of the game what it is - for illustrating corporate plots or runner schemes it isn’t always something flash that’s needed. What netrunner has always done well though was is getting serviceably good art to match the more abstract or less “typically cyberpunk” events.
The starter set as a whole has great art, a HUGE amount of effort went into it (and a not considerable amount of money), but I’d say it’s really impressive how consistent the continuity of art styles have been maintained with FFG’s work
I really need to do a proper post on Nisei and System Gateway - the new starter set for netrunner, available now HERE!, But in keeping with my typical laziness that will take a while. What I will post however is this awesome set of art done by Scott Uminga - https://www.artstation.com/scottuminga I foresee this artist becoming a staple of future netrunner releases, because his stuff is amazing! Tithe, Mayfly, Superconducting Hub, Palisade, Whitespace and Overclock - the latter chosen as art for the front of one half of Gateway!
As ever, late to the party. Art by DelBorovic, though I must admit, I didn’t find it on their pages - I found it on netrunner art instagram , who seem to be doing the same thing I’m doing but better! If you like my blog, but like regular posting, follow them! I’d love to know where they found it, as it’s new to me, and I’d like to know if there’s any other ones I don’t in their source.
Last post was horrible things corps can do to runners, so I thought it’s only fair to show some of the mean things the runners do back (the most mean things, unfortunately, I don’t have the full arts for). Cards: Run Amok, Clan Vengeance, Bhagat, Cyber Threat, Escher, EMP Device, Hacktivist Meeting, Compromised Employee, Account Siphon. Artists:RC Torres,Kate Laird,Matt Zeilinger, Shawn Ye Zhongyi,Maciej Rebisz, John Ariosa, Mitchell Malloy, and Outland Entertainment LLC
Coming out of the woodwork to share this! New game by Smirk and Dagger based on the 7 deadly sins that I illustrated, just got my copy and it’s awfully fun. It’s like aggressive satanic Uno! If you’re interested in a copy: https://www.smirkandlaughter.com/product-page/the-deadlies
