d r a g o n b o n e s    

I have had a long standing love affair with the art of Alphonse Mucha. In my eyes he’s the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement, and a source of tremendous inspiration. His precise line work and segmented geometric illustrations create a sense of awe for me that I can’t really put into words. There’s a sense of balance in his work that puts me at ease when I’m looking at it, and I strive to find that in my own artwork.

One of my all-time favorite collections of his are his Seasons images (pictured here).

How about you? Do you have a favorite image(s) by Mucha? Is there another illustrator/artist from the pages of history that you like better?

If you’re into role-playing, and want to try something a little different, check out the new storefront for my dearly beloved Nevermet Press. We’ve got our first product available to the public: The Desire. It’s a PDF filled to overflowing with original content for your campaign – all surrounding one primary villaness: Desiree Turpis – a madame whos cunning is only outmatched by her greed.

With everything from encounters to magic items to maps by some of the greatest RPG bloggers out there today, I can tell you that it would be money well spent if you just got the one PDF. However, one of the group was kind enough to create a second version of the PDF in portrait view with fewer graphics so that you can print out a copy without burning through an ink cartridge.

Go – check it out – enjoy. That’s what it’s there for! Also – if you want more content for your gaming sessions for absolutely FREE, check out the website here: http://www.nevermetpress.com

I know, I know – it’s about time! Well, I’ve finally added some of the images I did for Nevermet Press to the Finished Art gallery here on the site. Many of you have seen these in one form or another already, but they’re new here to the site, and if you follow my art more than you do the world of RPGs, then this may be your first time seeing them.

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Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci has always been one of my all time favorite artists. Today, in lieu of any artwork (I’m busy with things that I can’t post yet) I give you a few thoughts by this master…

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It all started with Dr. Jonathan Jacobs of The Core Mechanic. Or, that is to say, it all started for me with Dr. JJ. Jonathan had been kind enough to include me in the artist list for Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1. It was the first time I’d ever been published anywhere but the web. It felt great to be a part of the creation of such a fun book, and I was really happy that I could take part.

A few weeks after the release of OGT: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, V.1, I received an email from Jonathan saying that he had another project in the works. Since I’d taken part in the Anthology, he was wondering if I would be interested. I was. Like… a lot.

The first thing that needed to happen was a call to content providers like myself. Jonathan and his partners needed to collect a large number of people who would be interested in something fairly new. They wanted to crowd source content developement of gaming suppliments. They had a rough idea of the direction that they wanted to move in, and a large number of people who might be willing to help out.

So Jonathan asked me to do a ‘promo poster’ featuring a ’sci fi or steampunk’ version of the famous image of Uncle Sam by James Montgomery Flagg. The result is what you see before you. I tried to recreate the lettering  and feel – even if not the border (I wasn’t quite sure how Jonathan was going to be using it).

I did a couple of sketch versions before I started on this final as I tried to work through his posture and the mood of the image. In the end, I think that I got the right mood, while taking Sam in a rather steampunkerly direction. Yes – steampunkerly.

And here’s a little video to give you a feel for how it unfolded…

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