I need to create an artist prestige

[fishyfishyfishy]

I have the need to create an arcane casting prestige class. The class must have abilities that are focused on creating sculptures and/or painting. I was looking at the sand shaper class for inspiration, it seems a good place to start. The player will be entering this class with an illusionist wizard who is all about bringing his art to life. Does the playground have any advice to give?

[Realms of Chaos]

Well, there's always the ability to create illusions (perhaps require a focus of an image or sculpture of the illusion to be made), the ability to animate objects, and the ever-famous "marvelous pigments" to consider.

Also, so you know, the title of this thread makes it sound like you are looking for someone to act as an illustrator for you rather than make suggestions for a 3.5 class. You may want to change the title so it's more clear what you're after.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Ok I changed the title. Hopefully that will advertise properly. Thanks for the input.

My problem is that I'm not entirely certain where to start. I've never attempted a homebrew like this because the volume of material in 3.5 is usually sufficient for what I need. I want to give the class some abilities that feel unique. So far all I've got is a variation of the sand shaper ability to make items (using paint or clay instead of sand). Would a supernatural ability to use fabricate 1/day and later 2/day be too good?

[Realms of Chaos]

I'm a bit surprised that you're starting from the sandshaper when there's a magic item explicitly designed to make real things by painting them (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#marvelousPigments) but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

I'm not TOO certain what you're going for here but fabricate generally isn't a good choice for an SLA as that would let you avoid material components... and the material components are the materials being used for the final product... they really didn't think that part through.

As for other ideas, I'd personally approach this as a class able to imbue certain items with limited contingent spell effects (placing magic mouths on statues, having the creatures depicting within appear as summon monster spells, and animating sculptures as animate objects.

Maybe some illusion prowess as well.