THRACKHelp Us Paint
the End of the World
You may have noticed the art slots across this site are placeholders. That's deliberate. Thrackdown is in Open Alpha, and rather than fill the gaps quickly, we'd rather build Nova Eden's look properly, with human artists, piece by piece, as the game grows. If the world we're describing is one you can already see, we want your portfolio.
Grounded. Worn. Almost familiar.
Nova Eden is a colony world a century after everything stopped working: ash-stained ruins, scavenged machines, and soldiers wearing kit that was repaired more often than it was replaced. The look we're building is grounded weird-war rather than glossy sci-fi: muted earth palettes, worn military equipment, retrofitted technology with visible welds and taped grips, and silhouettes that read instantly on a tabletop.
Every faction bends that base in its own direction: disciplined rag-tag infantry, ash-robed zealots hung with keys, flesh that stopped following instructions, free machines wearing defaced corporate livery, decadent gene-aristocrats and their thralls, and scavengers built entirely from other people's spares. The whole world should feel lived-in, hand-repaired, and one bad winter from collapse.
Style-wise we care more about weight and mood than rendering technique. Painterly, inked, textured, or graphic all work, so long as it feels like it was made by hands in a world of dirt, not generated in a world of gradients.
What we're drawn to
- Muted, earthy palettes: ash, rust, bone, olive, oxide
- Worn military kit: patched, taped, carried for years
- Retrofitted tech: visible repairs, mismatched parts
- Weight and grime: boots that sink, coats that hang
- Strong silhouettes: readable at tabletop distance
- Quiet menace: tension over spectacle
- Clean, chrome sci-fi: nothing on Nova Eden is new
- Neon and holograms: the power grid died a century ago
- Heroic gloss: nobody here poses; they endure
- High-fantasy shine: even the Veil's finery is fraying
- AI-generated artwork: never in anything we publish, see below
What we need first
Two kinds of work to begin with, and more behind them as the books and crowdfunding take shape:
Hero & cover art
Large statement pieces: faction clashes in the ruins, the landscapes of Nova Eden, the images that lead the website, the rulebook cover, and one day the campaign page. Big mood, big weight, big ash-choked skies.
Character & unit illustrations
Individual fighters and units in a consistent style: the Oathmen, Prophets, Graftkin, and Thralls of the world, drawn for faction pages, unit reveals, and the rulebook. A long series, revealed one fighter at a time.
Weapon & gear plates
Technical illustrations in a field-manual register: side views, exploded details, callout annotations, the kit of Nova Eden drawn like pages torn from a scavver's salvage log. Crisp ink line work that stays readable at card size. Every weapon on Nova Eden has a service history, and it shows.
Spot art & marginalia
The small work that makes a book feel handled: faction glyphs, defaced posters, graffiti, kit sketches, wildlife, scrap-icons. Pure black ink, high volume, low ceremony, and a perfect first commission if you're new to client work. Small pieces. Heavy atmosphere.
How we work with artists
This is commissioned work, not exposure. Rates agreed per piece, in writing, before anything is drawn. Tell us your rates; don't undercut yourself to fit us.
Everything published for Thrackdown is the work of human artists. Every final, every reveal, every page of the books. No AI-generated image will ever ship under this banner: what carries our name is the work of an artist, not a prompt.
Your name on the site, in the books, and everywhere the work travels. The artists who build this world will be visible in it.
One-off pieces are welcome, but we're really looking for ongoing relationships: artists who grow with the game through Alpha, the books, and beyond.
Show us your ruins
Send a link to your portfolio, a note on your rates if you have them handy, and a line about which faction speaks to you. Links, not attachments. Every submission gets looked at by a human and answered by one too.
Not an artist? Writers, terrain builders, and playtesters: the Muster Hall door is open too.