Poor Dog
Posted: April 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 5 CommentsOne of our dogs had an abscessed tooth that had to come out… $750.00 later she looks like she lost a fight with Joe Louis.
She wears the cone-head.
Indie-a-go-go for LOTFP and Barrowmaze 2!
Posted: April 19, 2012 Filed under: crass commercialism, LotFP, OSR, publishing 1 CommentCrossposted from my wordpress blog…I’m still catching up with all sorts of stuff, so pardon me is you have heard this already: Barrowmaze 2 is availible for crowdsource funding via Indie-a-go-go (click here for more info). Since I’m doing some of the artworks for it, you know it will be smashing! Contribute and maybe I or another artist will illustrate a monster YOU design for the Barrowmaze 2!
Here is one of the images I did for Barrowmaze 2:
Better roll up another cleric!
Also, Jim Raggi IV, metalman of Finland, is also doing an indie-a-go-go for a new hard cover edition of LOTFP the Role Playing Game… and, if enough money flows it way into his coffers, different artists and writers will write custom adventures for YOU… and I’m on that list so send in your cash and see what I kick out! This fantastic art (not by me, obviously, but by Jason Rainville) shows what happens in LOTFP-land when Miss d’Artagnan gets all “Apocalypse Now.”
“The horror… the horror…”
Barrowmaze 2 AND LOTFP now on Indie-a-go-go
Posted: April 19, 2012 Filed under: crass commercialism, publishing 1 CommentI’m still catching up with all sorts of stuff, so pardon me is you have heard this already: Barrowmaze 2 is availible for crowdsource funding via Indie-a-go-go (click here for more info). Since I’m doing some of the artworks for it, you know it will be smashing! Contribute and maybe I or another artist will illustrate a monster YOU design for the Barrowmaze 2!
Better roll up another cleric.
Also, Jim Raggi IV, metalman of Finland, is also doing an indie-a-go-go for a new hard cover edition of LOTFP the Role Playing Game… and, if enough money flows it way into his coffers, different artists and writers will write custom adventures for YOU… and I’m on that list so send in your cash and see what I kick out!
I blame Zhu
Posted: April 16, 2012 Filed under: aldeboran, art, misc, OSR Leave a commentI heard about “Your blog is an Eighties Zine” from Zhu: http://realmofzhu.blogspot.com who had heard about it from someone else. The idea is simple: Make the cover of an ’80s’ style zine, such as you would have put together yourself and xeroxed for distribution, but name it after your blog and put the titles of your last 5 posts on your cover. In the 80s I made some ‘zines’ and flyers and stickers for a band I was in at the copy shop, but I never made a ‘gaming’ zine. If I had, it might have looked something like this:
The stuff I made in the 80s for music looked something like this (that’s the cover of a record the band made, but I did the art, and, if I remember right, the typography. Don’t blame me for the name; I wanted to name the band, “Meat Glue.”):
Updates, set dressing for Maniacs and shut up you
Posted: April 13, 2012 Filed under: art, bitching, commissions, douchebaggery, Goodman, inspiration, weird Leave a comment
If you are one of the 3 people who follows this blog, I thought I would drop in and give you an update.
I’ve got a few commissions on the ‘to do’ list right now, which is good because we always need a cash infusion. Some are for Goodman Games DCC RPG adventures, some are for Barrowmaze 2 (I don’t know when that is coming out, but yours truly did the cover and some monster illustrations so far; more to come)… and there are some others. Plus I am still doing the ‘drawing a day’ notebook (sample from earlier in the year at right — some are better than this, many more are pretty uninspired).
Because the non-profit I was working for has had some funding difficulties, I have had to go back on the job market, and that is eating up a lot of my time and energy. I’ve got some feelers out and have been trying to network; I’m looking for a production/creative position in Detroit Metro; I have photoshop and Indesign and Creative Suite skills plus a pack of good references, but I have never been the best self-promoter and I suck at networking plus no one seems to be hiring so doing the job market thing is an uphill battle.
I was watching the 1980 movie, Maniac, the other night. After feeling beaten down by the job hunt, there is nothing like watching a movie about a fat, pockmarked guy who lives a Norman-Bates life in a tiny, shitty apartment and who goes out at night and kills women and scalps them to help cheer you up. In the killer’s apartment, in addition to all the mannikins adorned with women’s scalps (it’s like Neverland Ranch in there), there is an abstract drawing on one wall that looks really cool and I was trying to figure out where it was from and how I could get a better look at it. I was pausing the video but resolution was low and it was slightly out of focus — it looked like a drawing of polyps and entrails in the style of this fucked up Alberto Giacometti sculpture that I like, but in 2d and in color — like something that someone drew when they were on acid and then their mom threw it out and someone from the movie found it and said, “This looks suitably creepy; let’s hang it in the maniac’s apartment.” I was hoping to find a still from the movie where you can see it and post it to the web and (hopefully) get an ID from someone who knows these things, but no luck so far. Who knows? 
It might have been something that the setdresser picked up in a flea market (I met someone who does set dressing for films, video and photo shoots, and she said that in the 1980s she could get unbelievably great stuff at mid-western thrift markets; she used to fly in from NYC and they would just buy shit and ship it back to NYC for prop use… since ebay, though, her ‘golden days’ of thrifting are over). What the artwork was and where it came from will probably remain an intriguing mystery. I think in the still of the film posted here of the Maniac looking at the newspaper, the drawing in question would be above the bookshelf with the dolls on it behind him.
That is all. Now I have to shut up and get back to work.
More DCC Preview art
Posted: April 11, 2012 Filed under: art 1 CommentNow that the DCC game is being devoured by eager pdf readers everywhere, I can share some of the arts I did for it. This is a 2 page spread in the front of the book (I think it appears on pages 2 or 3; click image to enlarge):
The left hand page, with the army of orcs, goblins, etc., has text on the banners and flags with credits for the writers, illustrators, etc. On the right hand page, on the big banner, is Goodman’s “Roster of Heroes” (people who play tested and added suggestions I think). These are 2 really big pen & ink drawings that took FOREVER to do and I really like them, so I don’t know if I can bring myself to put them into the Etsy store.
I am really proud of this spread. It’s got a “Battle of the 5 Armies” vibe that I am digging.
For more info, go to the source: http://www.goodman-games.com/5070Fpreview.html
DCC Update (spoilers for DCC 66.5!)
Posted: April 6, 2012 Filed under: art, crass commercialism, publishing Leave a comment
According to Goodman Games, the DCC is at the printer right now… and I guess pre-orderers have gotten the full game pdf? At right is a picture of some proofs on his desk that Goodman posted on his forums. Let me draw your attention to the picture in B&W in the lower left hand corner, a pic by me from the frontispiece of “The Doom of Savage Kings” DCC 66.5! I think adventure 66.5 is a special for pre-ordering customers. Spoiler alert: It shows that one of the ‘mundane’ monsters that players might or might not encounter in the adventure ain’t so mundane after all. Don’t click to enlarge if you don’t want to know more.
Next to it is the DCC RPG front page by Mullen that is so cool; above it are proofs of the color covers.
Lots of DCC art will drop into my etsy store when this thing hits the store shelves; interested collectors should stay tuned!
Update
Posted: April 1, 2012 Filed under: art, publishing 1 Comment
I’ve been ignoring the blog because real life has gotten in the way.
I have several projects on my drawing board, most of which I can’t talk about because I don’t know if they have been announced yet. Since Greg Gillespie announced Barrowmaze II, I can mention I have been working on that, plus I am doing stuff for Goodman’s DCC RPG (I think the art for the rulebook is all done; we are now working on ADVENTURES!). Plus there are more than a couple new things that I don’t think have gone public yet, so stay tuned.
I’ve just heard that my the non-profit I work for is laying us off indefinitely because of funding issues. Since I am an ‘independent contractor,’ there is no severance or unemployment compensation, so I have to go back on the job market. I might get called back if the restart the program, but the economic pressure is unwelcome.
For the past 3 days I have been in “layout hell.” The not for profit I work for (which will soon be ‘the not for profit I used to work for’) publishes a newspaper for an underfunded high school in urban Detroit. The last four days have been filled with last minute edits, trying to get people to send in materials, articles, photos, etc., that were due a week ago, trying to fit as much as possible into those pages, answering questions about when the word “captain” is capitalized,* struggling with Adobe InDesign and simultaneously attempting to interpret the wishes of several different people, all of whom have management stake in the project but are seldom in the room at the same time.
In other news, I got my copy of Barrowmaze in the mail yesterday. Haven’t had a chance to do more than flip through it, but it looks great.
*English Major bonus question: “When do you capitalize the word ‘Captain’?” I was asked this question at 9:00 pm last after having worked on the publication for hours and not having a brain cell to spare for a question like this. I answered from my gut. I said that “captain” was capitalized when used as a person’s title (i.e.: “That Captain Jack will get you high tonight,”) and not capitalized when it was simply describing a position (i.e.: “The volleyball team has a captain.”) Was I right?