d r a g o n b o n e s    

It’s been a long time since I did a good ol’ fashioned character portrait commission. I posted that I was available to the LJ community artcommissions, and the lovely “Leash” took me up on it. This was the result. She sent me a reference for her werebat character, and I managed to get it wrapped up before I headed out on vacation. Overall I’m pretty happy with the work, though I had to keep myself in check. I want to do more of these (relatively) low cost character portraits, but the temptation to spend many hours working on the finer details is tremendous. Leash was great to work for (responsive to my emailed questions and a supah fast payer) and she was happy with the end result, so there is sure to be more of this sort of thing in my near future.

Then I went on a much needed vacation. I knew that I was going to get a lot of down time during my vacation, and I made sure that I didn’t bring any tech with me to browse the web. That left me with my newly modded sketch board, a couple of sketchbooks, and time. Just what I needed to do some old school sketching. I don’t do this nearly enough these days, and the vacation time was perfect. I would get myself an adult beverage, relax a bit, and just kinda let my pencil find its own way. On this occasion, that meant mostly Nevermet Press’ Loaerth & Feywyrd based stuff. It’s just kinda what I was feeling.

First up we’ve got a duo of characters from L&F. A Loaerthian troll and a random warrioress with a gun. You just gotta love girls with guns. I wanted to set up the troll from an odd angle, and I liked where this guy was heading, but my cat-like attention span took over before I got to deep into it, and I just moved onto the next piece. I may come back to this at some point though.

I’m really enjoying the steampunk nature of Loaerth. Designing new gear and costumes and the like is scratching an itch that I didn’t know I had.

Next up, I did a different angle on the same duo. I like this version a little better as the troll seems a little less awkward. Speaking of the big guy, I’m having fun with body types when it comes to the trolls. Making them a little thicker around the waist seems very natural – as if it’s how they want to be and they’re letting me know that on some subconscious level. It also makes them great for composition purposes. Need a big block of space filled? One troll and bang – you’re good to go.

I really should be doing more with some of the other settings being developed for Nevermet Press. Thus it was that I started this fine fellow. “The Sarge” was an idea that started gnawing at the back of my brain and wouldn’t let go. I’m not sure what his whole story will be, but I the basic idea was this: a man who’s fragile in some vital way – anemia, fragile bones (think Samuel Jackson’s character in Unbreakable), or something like that. Difference is that he doesn’t look fragile at all. He spends his whole life living a bluff. Fortunately for him, he’s a brilliant tactician, so he manages to work situations in such a way that it looks like he’s dying to get into the fray and get his hands dirty, all the while, he’s making sure that he can’t do that at all. I don’t know – it’s a work in progress. Yes, I’m aware that his proportions are completely wacked. I can live with that – for now.

Next is a very quick sketch of a cowboy. Nothing too terribly special, and I realize that this doesn’t fit the NMP settings as much (though I think that a ‘wild west’ element might actually work to some degree in Loaerth…) but it’s what I was feeling at the time.

Just a quick sketch to work through his posture and some basic costume elements. This may have to become a more finished image down the road – time permitting.

Lastly, I started creating a poster image. I was thinking of something along the lines that I used to see on the campaign modules from old D&D settings. With the exception of the feytroll’s posture, I like this layout. I didn’t have anything specific in mind when I was doing this, but I like the general feel, flow, and content of the sketch. Here’s to hoping we can find a use for it.

For the individual components: For the human male – I like some of his costume elements, but I need to push them further. For the girl? I’m digging the pop-fiction / almost sci-fi nature to her gun. I started thinking about “what would guns look like in a steampunk world” and this is what took shape. I’ve seen a number of different styles to cosplay steampunk guns, but they’re generally based on real world toy guns. Nerf guns are definitely getting the lerv here, but that didn’t make stylistic sense to me. Rounded chambers and flared barrels? Yes please. The troll – told you earlier that I had Loaerthian trolls on the brain, and that they work great for composition. The feytroll – *grumblebitchmoanIwastiredgrumblebitchmoan*.

So I’ve been woefully neglectful here. Sorry about that gang. No excuses – just on to the artwork!

Up first we have a sketch I did in my moleskine. I’ve been having fun playing around in the pocket sized sketchbook lately, and it’s quickly becoming a favorite tool (I’ve always loved moleskines) as its handy size makes it easy to keep on me even when I don’t want to carry my ‘murse’ around with me. Just the moleskine and my Space Pen (which is convenient because I can keep it in my pocket without poking myself in the leg) and I have everything that I need to get some sketching done.

The color is a highlighter. I’ve been really enjoying the hell out of CrazyRed’s D&D Doodle blog. Often, his scans look like they’re done on post it notes and rough tones are added with highlighters. I know they’re not, but the idea got stuck in my head and I haven’t been able to rid myself of the idea. So I started doing it occasionally. Highlighters are not nearly as nice as something like the prismacolor pigment markers I normally use, but they are fun and slightly liberating to play with. For random goofy sketches in the pocket sketchbook? They work just fine.

Speaking of this hilighter-as-art-tool technique, I did the same with the Black Canary costume redesign on the right. I love Project Rooftop and their costume redesign contests. Their most recent – Canary on the Catwalk - is accepting redesigns of the Black Canary until April 4th. Hopefully I’ll get a better version than what we see here in before the deadline. In the meantime there’s a lot of work to be done for Nevermet Press.

I’ve been really excited about a new direction that we’ve taken over at Nevermet Press. We’ve broken things down into 3 seperate campaign settings to build content within. One of these is Loaerth & Feywyrd. We’re building things from the ground up and that includes ‘who inhabit this world’? As an early foray into divinity, I created the sketchwork to the left as an example of the dwarven race native to L&F. We’ve since changed things up a bit and the species will be a bit more slender and even a bit taller.

It’s been really great riffing back and forth with the other content developers and watching as different races grow, change, and develop into fully playable species that are interesting enough for me to want to play myself. That really does seem like the surest sign that we’re doing something right.

The last two are more sketchwork for Nevermet Press. More details on them later as we bring them out into blog posts on the website, and or add them to downloadable products.

I’ve been a gamer to varying degrees for roughly two dozen years and I’ve seen all manner of software come and go when it comes to gaming supplies. For many years, smaller companies have tried to take on the Big Boys in an effort to squeeze out some small piece of the market pie. The problem is that gaming is, at least for most of us, a hobby. Hobbies sometimes get a good chunk of people’s spending cash, but I’ve always delighted in the fact that gaming can be inexpensive.

Yes. Inexpensive. Aside from the basic rulebooks, a pad of paper, some pens and pencils, and a set of dice, I’ve spent very little directly on the hobby of gaming. Practically nothing. That’s what I want to talk about today – software that costs us nothing and yet is greatly useful for your gaming group. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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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