manikus DC is a site dedicated to showcasing my artwork for Dungeon Craft. I use several programs to achieve the various types of art, including Poser, DAZ|Studio and Paint Shop Pro

News:

12-09-13: (manikus)

A small update before the end of the year just in case I don't get my planned "larger" update ready in time. I've added a new icon for a denizen of the Lower Planes - a Bearded Devil (in 2e renamed to "Barbazu"). This is completely hand drawn, not one lick of rendering or 3D modeling involved and I'm reather happy with the results. With this icon and those of Uatu, I now have a complete set of 1e non-unique devils to work with which is very cool and also one of the things I needed for the current design I am working on.
I've also added back 10 older portraits (towards the bottom of the portraits/small pics page). These are images that did not get reworked into newer portraits and are of good enough quality so that I do not feel completely embarassed releasing them.

06-03-13: (manikus)

As Dungeon Craft comes closer to realizing version 1.0, I've begun working on some of the non-default classes that I hope can be added to fill out the First Edition, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons experince. Today's update to the site features Player Character portraits for two of the Fighter subclasses - the Barbarian and the Cavalier. Both classes have little to do with magic - Barbarians are decidedly anti-magic and receive bonuses against magic. Cavaliers are pretty much the historical version of knights in shininy armor translated into AD&D. As with my other images, feel free to use thes however you would like to for Dungeon Craft.

05-31-13: (manikus)

For those of you that don't know, Dungeon Craft (DC) was originally started to be an update of the popular SSI GoldBox game engine and editor, Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures (FRUA). SSI used the engine for it's iconic line of AD&D GoldBox games, set mostly in the Forgotten Realms, but a very popular trilogy set in the DragonLance world as well. As such, FRUA was kind of generic with mostly art tieing it to the Forgotten Realms. It has long been rumored that there were plans for an expansion to FRUA to add the DragonLance setting, or perhaps there would be a DLUA that was stand alone. I've never been able to confirm or deny such rumors, but I do know that FRUA had unused code and graphics for knights (which are either direct references to the DragonLance setting, or is another way to say 'Cavaliers' but in a more understandable parlance) and underwater settings. One of the things that DC had always hoped to do was to add the ability for new classes, like knights. But, if you've been with DC for a while, you nkow that we've already snuck one in - the Druid class. This decision was made before I was on board, but I believe the reasoning was something akin to, "we already need to create lower level druidic spells for the Ranger to use, why not make this a full-blown class?" For a very long time, I and the other developers had thought that this owuld be the only addition to default DC over what FRUA had, but then things began to change and many items that were originally scheduled to be done after our 1.0 release got bumped up as ways to solve other problems. The databases used by DC moved from being hard-coded to being in easily accessible text files and the decision was made to add Half-Orcs as a race option for player characters. I began looking at other possible options and decided I would really like to add a couple of the unutilized classes to make a couple of the races more interesting to play. Specifically, I wanted Gnomes and Half-Orcs to be useful and noted that two of their strengths are as Illusionists and Assassins, respectively. While I'm still working on the Illusionist class and am by no means saying it will be close to ready by our 1.0 release, I am happy to say that I have had much more success with Assassins. Working with Uatu, we created a portrait and icon for male and female Assassins for release with the 1.0 package, and I have also added several portraits to my own growing gallery here. As always, feel free to use these portraits however you would like for your DC project.

05-30-13: (manikus)

Continuing my theme of posting human player character classes, today's update moves away from the martial classes and gives you images of magic users and thieves. As with the other recent updates, I've done two portraits for each character, one which is upper body only, perhaps to be used when someone is talking to the character, and another which is a full body image that might be more appropriate for the character sheet, but feel free to use them how you want. You probably know the schpiel by now, but I have done these portraits on a neutral background so that they are usable for the widest number of users. You may change the background to suit your needs or alter the image in other way for use in Dungeon Craft. Let your imagination run wild.

05-28-13: (manikus)

I'm back from the Memorial Day weekend and have another update of portraits for PCs. Paladins and rangers are the subject of this update. Two options for each character are given and I hope proves useful. These portraits like the previous ones and ones yet to come have a neutral backdrop so that people wishing to use them have more options. As always, users are welcome to alter the images, such as adding in their backdrop of choice. My idea of paladins is very close to what cavaliers are in the AD&D game, both are a knightly class, but where cavaliers focus on secular causes, paladins serve their chosen deity. Expect to see portraits for cavaliers at some point, though for all practical purposes the portraits for each class can be used for the other.

05-24-13: (manikus)

Two in one day! Just a quick update to add a link to the Dungeon Craft facebook page. See the link on the left with the other banner link.

05-24-13: (manikus)

I have another update to the PC portraits page. Can you believe two updates in two days? This update presents images for druids and fighters. As with the clerics I am presenting a full portrait and an up close partial body portrait to give you options. These portraits like the previous ones and ones yet to come have a neutral backdrop so that people wishing to use them have more options. As always, users are welcome to alter the images, such as adding in their backdrop of choice. If you like what you see or want to request a PC, NPC or monster, don't hesitate to email me or contact me through the FRUA and DC Community Forums.

05-23-13: (manikus)

Has it really been over a year since I've updated the site? Well, in that time I have continued to do 3D art but mostly spent my Dungeon Craft time doing testing/reporting/fixing/repeat as part of the development team. It is only now that we have many more things under control that I am finding the time to devote to getting some art ready without feeling guilty about my time being diverted from the main goal of reaching Dungeon Craft 1.0. This latest update is my new take on PC (Player Characters) graphics. I've set out to do a representation of each class for each race available in the default Dungeon Craft. I've chosen a neutral backdrop for all of these character portraits so that they may better meet the needs of the designer. As with all of the graphics I release for use in Dungeon Craft, people are welcome to alter as they wish, particularly changing the backgrounds to better fit their game world. All I ask is that I still be given credit for my work. First up are human clerics.

05-22-13: (manikus)

Where did all of the portraits go? They went to the old portraits page. Why? New stuff is on the way...

02-13-12: (manikus)

This update contains two small pics and two portraits. The portraits are of human champions, female and male. Champions are not a specific class in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but are meant to represent that certain kind of warrior - the one who carries a larger sword than anyone else, is better known than their peers and takes on the toughest adventures - they are badass. The small pics are of a nice cottage between two trees, just waiting to be visited by a party of adventurers; and an adversary of the Underdark - a duergar (grey dwarf) cleric ready to halt any from passing into the dark domain beyond. The two portraits are the last humans in the human's portrait series 1, which is comprised of the classes allowed along with two champions.

01-31-12: (manikus)

It's a bright new day at manikus' DC. I've been meaning to revamp the site for a while. The layout is pretty much the same, with easy navigation. The color scheme is a shades of grey thing for right now. You may notice that I took a bit of control over the page display, by choosing a width for the site instead of letting it default to your browser width. The site is now optimized for 1024x758 resolution. you may also notice that I've removed several sections - the walls and the backdrops. I want to make my art available for all 6 DC formats/sizes, which right now means that walls need to be reworked and new versions created. I will likely re-add walls at a later point. The same holds true for the backdrops - until I'm ready to offer each one for all six resolutions/layouts, I will not be sharing them. When these sections do return, I expect the layout to be similar to the current bigpics and portraits/smallpics sections. There are some walls in particular that I will not be doing for all resolutions, but will still offer for use, and will likely be uploaded as a special zipped archive.

The look of hte icons section has changed, but this is mostly cosmetic. All of the icons are still available, but now you can see the size of each relative to the other icons. The largest change are to the bigpics and portraits/smallpics sections. All content here is brand new. It's also available in all six resolutions/layouts for Dungeon Craft. Simply choose the one that is appropriate for your use, and you are good to go. A quick note about portraits and smallpics. These two types of art are really the same thing, I've just decided to create a designation for smallpics created specifically to use as images for PCs and NPCs. All portraits could be used as smallpics with no adjustment needed. Likewise, all smallpics could be used for PC or NPC likenesses, the mechanics are identical, though the content of smallpics will likely not be appropriate for most portrait needs.

The tutorials section has not changed at this time, but in the not-too-distant future I plan on adding all of the tutorials I have been working on for the Dungeon Craft help documentation. As this unfolds I may decide to change the layout of that section, but I plan on only adding to it, and not removing any tutorials with the exception of one which is now obsolete because Paul changed the way DC works and the tutorial is no longer valid.