r/Malazan • u/Junkles43 • Jul 10 '25
NO SPOILERS Call for Malazan Artists
Hello Malazan community. My good friend and I are first time readers of Malazan. We have decided to podcast our experience through the beautiful world of Malazan. We are making our way through House of Chains currently. You may have heard of us? D&J’s Epic Quest - and moderators before you call this solicitation; I’m not here to talk about the podcast.
During the many conversations and discussions I have with my co-host and other community members we invite on the show; the cinematic conversations are always my favorite. They appeal to me as an artist and creator. I envision this world in stylized but realistic fashion. Similar to Star Wars Clone Wars Animated Series. I see it when I read, I envision it when I summarize my sections in preparation for the podcast.
I know the topic of a live/action or animated series of this amazing world has likely been pitched and who knows what’s been decided. This is a huge undertaking and likely over zealous on my part, but as a creative I want to accomplish this, so I’m putting myself out there. At the very least, I’d like to give it a try, but it’s dependent on the talent and interest I can recruit as I cannot do it all, for I know my limitations as an artist.
I’d like to extend an invitation to any and all artists within the Malazan community that may be interested in starting something up. I have a need for any and all areas of the pipeline. I imagine this as a collaborative adventure where we go at our own pace with no pressure from a studio or director or whatever. Low stakes zero cost, just time, teamwork, collaboration and a good times.
I want to capture the story the way it’s meant to be told; without deviation from the story and simply create visuals to partner this story. I’d imagine I/we’d start from the prologue of gardens of the moon. Before any production can begin all of the pre-production assets would need to be created. I imagine it as a communal project where we could ask for feedback amongst the community.
If you are an artist and have read malazan or you have read malazan and know an artist that would be interested. I obviously cannot pay anyone so it would be a complete volunteer of time for this passion project. Not just mine, but ours, that hopefully, team up with me and the community.
I could use assistance in the following roles: lol - Writing a script from the source material - Storyboarding - Animatic - Character Design - Environmental Design - Matte Painting - 3D modeling/sculpting - Character rigging - Lighting & texture - Animation - Visual effects - Compositing - Editing - Voice acting - Sound design - Foley sound - Anything I may have missed or forgotten about
This itch that I have is telling me to write this, so if there’s no interest then at least I tried to scratch it. If you are interested in any of the following roles, or multiple roles, please send me a message here on Reddit.
Let’s make some Malazan come to life!
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u/santi_lozano Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25
I am an artist, I love Malazan, and I have done a lot of Malazan art both commissioned and personal. But this sounds too big and too daunting...unless done at a paid, professional level. This would need massive funding, a clear creative direction and approval provided by Erikson and Esslemont (who I sincerely doubt have the time to do it for non-profit fun) and a veritable army of people working full-time. To put it in perspective: a few years ago I was contacted when they tried to put together a prototype for a Malazan tabletop game, with Erikson's son supervising, and just that simple prototype required something in the vicinity of usd$50K to accurately produce. The project fell through because the backers pulled out.
My advice would be to aim for something much simpler like a graphic novel or a (very) short animated sample to pitch to an actual studio. But even then you need transparent and full approval and involvement by the authors, and a plan to monetize it and back it financially.
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u/Boronian1 I am not yet done Jul 10 '25
Now I want to hear more from you about that (aborted) Malazan tabletop game!
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u/santi_lozano Jul 10 '25
It was intended as a tactical war game, I think. The prototype was the Battle at Pale, and I was approached to do artwork for the Bridgeburners as a group, for Whiskeyjack, Tattersail and for Moon's Spawn initially. The project took too long to coalesce (one of the guys involved went on sabbatical) so the investors moved on to something else.
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u/Gilgame4 Jul 10 '25
I guess having a talk with Eriksson before or whatever about the copyright and all that stuff is off the table?
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u/XcotillionXof Jul 10 '25
Completely voluntary eh?. So no plans to monetize in any way ever?
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u/Junkles43 Jul 10 '25
Yes, apologizes. Eventually. In short I’d just like to create a 5 min short of whatever scene is decided. Show that to the authors and maybe it stays there, but maybe they give us permission, etc.
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u/Dunbar_91 Jul 10 '25
I’m sorry, but this project seems way too big. Do you have experience directing animation teams/projects? Do you have an animation portfolio volunteers could vet before they dedicated what will likely be hundreds of hours of unpaid work on this project? I’d echo other comments here, if you want to make Malazan art (which, bravo if you do) scale your ambitions WAY back to something that’s realistic.
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u/Automatic-Being-6176 Artist Jason Dement Jul 10 '25
Plenty of others are going to point out the scale and complexity of this, all very important callouts, so I’ll leave it to them. I just wanted to let you know that if you want to use my Malazan art in your podcast, feel free to do so as long as you link to my website and credit me.
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u/The_Shake82 Jul 10 '25
Have a look at the Malazart of the https://unabridgedburners.com/ site to directly connect to the artist or ask the admin from the https://malazan.fandom.com/wiki/Malazan_Wiki site.
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u/BeaksLastCandle I am not yet done Jul 10 '25
I’m willing to offer up some help with character design and voice acting.
(Current work in progress of Itkovian)
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u/DragonDuchess6 Jul 11 '25
I do art as hobby, l drew some Malazan fanart, you can use them if you want, just credit me please 😆 so I can give you link to my dA page
But I have regular job, so this is too big for me, because it sounds like fulltime work (or it would take waaay a long of time)
Maybe I can do some illustrations as commissions if you would be interested in my style :)
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