d r a g o n b o n e s    

So the newest product from Nevermet Press is Brother Ptolemy and the Hidden Kingdom. It’s a product that I’m more than a little proud of. I contributed a series of different images for NPCs and villains, and this is the first time that I feel like I’ve contributed enough to help change the look and feel of a book. To have that first be within something of this caliber is enough to make me puff my chest just a little bigger.

There’s a plethora of storyline, npcs, critters, and items between the covers. I think that it’s exactly the sort of supplement that rides that line that so many try but fail: to be enough information without being setting dependent. Plug this information into any existing campaign easily. Don’t take my word for it though – check out Greg Schuster’s review over at The Dump Stat.

Speaking of reviews – they just seem to keep rolling in – and the bottom line? They all seem to be pretty happy with the content! I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Dr. Jonathan Jacobs is a driven man and the creative minds at NMP just keep kicking up productivity, creativity, and the quality. It’s an adventure working with them, and one I’m quite happy to be on.

Want to see some of those reviews I just mentioned? Check them out:

• Game Knight Reviews says “Brother Ptolemy makes one heck of a scary villain in my book.“
• Reviews at RPGNow.com give it 5/5 stars!

I’m really looking forward to seeing what the next reviewer has to say!

In the meantime, if you like what you’ve read/heard so far, how would you like a copy for free? Nevermet is running a contest through the month of November. Check out the post related to the contest here. We thrive on feedback, and we want to know what you think. Share your thoughts, and win free stuff!

Ahhh, the joys of the net.

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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I’ve decided to start a new (and regular) follow-up to the work I’m doing with Nevermet Press. Why, you ask? Well – a couple of reasons actualy:

1. This group is awesome. I think that they deserve more attention than they are currently getting. Don’t get me wrong – we/they are just starting out, and there’s already been attention from Wired.com’s GeekDad blog and there’s a team up with the Kobold Quarterly already in the works. That’s enough to tell me that people are taking notice, but I would like to see the focus on NMP be… even more impressive. We’re (I’ll use ‘we’ since I feel like I’m part of the team – and not some really a standard contractor) using a crowd-sourcing model, and the very concept is fascinating to me. I’m very curious to see where it leads.
2. Since NMP is posting all work under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License I thought that it might be nice to retain a copy of the images that I do for the site here for all three of you – my adoring fans. I’ll tell you a little more about the process I use and the media involved when it’s here on my sight so that we can keep the focus on art here and the focus on gaming there. Makes sense to me anyway.

I’ll be starting these on this coming Tuesday (Aug. 25th, 2009) and I’ll try to keep them coming every Tues/Thursday – at least until I get caught up to the current release. As always, I welcome your thoughts/comments!