GOZR Scraps and Bits

In the process of creating GOZR, I left a bunch of stuff on the cutting room floor and changed a lot of it as I went along. Just the process of editing and what-not. Here's the original GOZR map vs. the final version.

Really happy I went this direction. The original map is fine, and I think if I had finished it up it would still look pretty good. But the final version feels more intuitive to me. The north-south direction of the river is a line that grounds the whole thing and helps place all the elements where they are supposed to be. To the east you have endless dunes and to the west you have endless badlands. Down south you got endless bogs and forests and up north... endless mountains. And there's the city right in the middle.

 

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 8

Aaaaaaaaand FIGHT!

Welcome back to the PIT OF BLOOD! I randomly select some of my drawings and give them ♥ symbols and see which one I like best. Ties are resolved by d20 vs. d20 roll off!

GO!

♥♥

♥☻☻

♥♥

♥♥♥♥☻

♥♥♥☻

♥♥♥♥♥

♥♥

This week's fight was a tough one because there are two pieces here I really do love. That dwarf picture is one of my favorites! But I cannot allow the Infantry Bot to lose. He's one of my favorite drawings of all time. Very simple, but I felt great about it. Infantry Bot wins. Support the robot troops.

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 7

RUMBLE!

Ladies and gentleworms, welcome to the DOOM SKULL DOME! Here I will select a handful of my own drawings utterly at random and rate them with little hearts. The one that gets the most hearts is the fuckin' winner. Ties are settled the same way they did it in ancient times: a d20 vs. d20 roll off.

GO!

♥♥♥♥

♥♥☻

♥♥♥

♥♥♥

♥♥☻

♥☻

 Oh! This fight was quick and decisive, with PX4 just annihilating the competition with laser fire and recitations from boring Kant tracts.

The clear-eyed will have noticed that this week I introduced a new feature: the smiley face. The smiley does not count towards heart count, but is only there to let you know that I find the image fun or funny in some way that isn't relevant to how good it is, in my eyes. In theory, I could have a drawing show up that gets one heart and a shitload of smileys because the drawing sucks but it's monumentally funny to me.

Have a great Saturday!

Blindor

Sketched on the inside cover of an old toned sketchbook. Fun times. Let's see if we can work up who this guy is.

His name is Blindor (like "blender" but ending with a distinct "or" sound) and he's definitely up from Hell. Perhaps he's the devil's cousin or something. I dunno. He has a few great loves in life: parties, beer, beating people up, and calling out the names of various demons while doing all these things.

Blindor is highly resistant to magic and laser fire. His preferred weapons are swords, axes, and machine guns. While not a softy, he's also not "evil", strictly speaking. He'd get your cat out of a tree, but he'd also trash your kitchen looking for snacks and never offer to clean it up or pay for anything.

He doesn't hate people but he does think they are mostly foolish and dumb. He enjoys pranking religious folks by inverting their crucifixes and replacing the holy water with the blood of his enemies.

Beakadon

Here's a sketch and a monster block for Doomslakers B/X.

Beakadon

Armor Class: 5 [14]

No. Enc: 2d6

Hit Dice: 3 (14 hp)

Save: F3

Move: 50’

Morale: 9

Attacks: 1 x beak or kick

Treasure Type: Nil

Damage: 1d8 or 1d6

Alignment: Neutral

XP: 65

These tall creatures walk on long, thin legs, their bulbous eyes keeping constant watch for danger (they can only be surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d6). They navigate swamps and ponds and leap over small walls or obstacles with ease, even when carrying a rider. They will kick to defend themselves, reaching as far as a polearm. But once the threat is closer they will strike with their savage, sharp beak. If a beakadon scores a natural 20 on a beak attack, something on the target will be broken (helmet, shield, armor, weapon, etc.). In the case where the target has no items other than clothing, they will lose the use of a random limb for 1 day (roll 1d4 to determine).

Beakadons are easily trained to carry riders or gear and cost twice as much as a horse. Even wild beakadons can be quickly trained to carry a mount. But when attempting to ride one for the first time, the PC must make a Charisma check. If the check fails, the creature will attack the PC. This will continue until the check is made.

The meat of this animal is delicious and sweet. It is highly valued in regions where the creature is not native. But in lands where beakadons roam wild, it is considered to be bad luck to eat them.

Bean! Fan Art

I did a bit of fan art for J. Freels' Bean! the d2 RPG. I love that game and I love Freels' cartoon art style. Go check it out.

Pirate Booty

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, lubbers.

And here's a timelapse vid of the drawing. Not sure if this will post correctly. Guess we'll see.

GOZR Doodle Drop

I have a lot of ideas about GOZR, my sci-fantasy RPG. One of them is to put together a GOZR sketchbook full of doodles from the various pages. I dunno... just an idea.

Clip Studio

I have been using the same drawing software for... oh my god... when did Photoshop 6 come out? I used it, then got PS 7 when it was out and I've been using PS 7 ever since. Looks like version 8 (CS) started in 2003. So I've been using PS 7 since probably 2001. Now, I haven't been drawing digitally that long. I was using it to color and clean up scans prior to 2008 when I started using a drawing tablet.

Currently I'm testing out Clip Studio Paint. I messed around with Krita and Gimp and a few others but never "used them" to any real degree. But Clip is nice. So far I'm kind of loving it.

GOZR: Beak Hunter WIP

WIP "Beak Hunter", an art piece for GOZR. Looking like this will be a 48 page book. My current idea is to publish it in comic book format (size, saddle stitch) and then follow up with a 20-24 page adventure book. I wanted to include the adventure stuff in the main book but Lulu has a 48 page cap on saddle-stitch and this motherfucker HAS TO BE a floppy comic book format.

Of course I realize I can get a fatter book by going a different route with the publishing. But I'm not interested in that level of investment and piddle work. I just really wanna do my thing and put it out there in an easy, accessible format. So you'll have it in PDF from DTRPG and in print from Lulu. And I'll probably PDF it at Lulu and ich.io as well. You'll be able to get it easily.

Ideally... you'd get your self a copy or two of the thing in print so you can slap it down on the table and encourage flipping through it, bending it, and using the shit out of the book. I might even start out offering signed copies only for a time. For the hardcore collector types who like that sort of thing. Dunno. Still early in the game.

Demon and Key

I drew this demon today and it turned out kinda cool. I'm shit with drawing chains so I really tried to do them some justice. Still not perfect but I think better than previous attempts. Chains are hard!

So this guy will go into Black Pudding 7 and I'm not sure exactly in what context yet. The issue is still very wee and hasn't grown into itself so I will probably set him to the side and see where the other pages go before giving him a role. He might be a monster entry, part of an adventure, or art for some cool magic shit. Not sure yet.

I actually have two themes at work right now. The cool wizard cover idea suggests an issue filled with wizardly stuff and this demon on a chain goes nicely with that. But the thing I've worked on the most is a mini-setting for an all-Thief campaign called Low Downs. So who knows...

Here's the doodle that spawned the demon.

Demon Sketch

Working on a demon drawing. Kind of out of the blue, definitely could end up in Black Pudding 7.

Black Pudding 7 Cover Sketch

Here's my cover sketch for Black Pudding #7. A crazy wizard climbs out of a mystic well, dripping wet, smoking his pipe. I love that idea. Hopefully the final version will be boss.

GOZR Character Sheet Sketch

This is my first doodle of a GOZR character sheet. The game keeps evolving as I write/draw it. Right now it is as simple as it's been so far and I like where it is heading. But I'm gonna need a separate character sheet for wizards...

Krita vs. Photoshop (7) AGAIN

I installed the latest version of Krita and tried it out again now that I'm back on the Intuos 4. Naturally, it's awesome. Lots of great brushes. The way you can rotate canvas so easily is super cool. I know that rotating my canvas in PS7 is fuckin' stupid slow.

But dammit I just have so much creative energy invested in my PS7 setup. And it's fast. Like... my pen strokes in Krita have lag. I hate that. But when I do a stroke in Photoshop it's instantaneous. Feels very natural. So I guess I won't be budging from my digital grognard stance. I will continue to use a massively outdated drawing program on a massively outdated computer until it dies or I do.

In other news, I've been noodling some comic book ideas. Been a long god damn time since I did a proper comic. I might have mentioned it here before... but comics are a lot of work. Like, a metric shit ton. If you know a comics artist who actually does the work, kiss 'em. They deserve it.

Here's a rat man drawn rapidly in PS7 for shits and giggles.

Cozmic Metal Heads Cover Sketch

The book is almost finished. Here's the cover sketch...

Masked Crusader

So. I have a desk. And on that desk are some stress marks because the desk top is cheap. Probably ripped some tape off. Anyway, I kept seeing a face in this image (on the right... I know there's a face on the left). So I sketched out a face (on the left, see?) based on what I saw in the stress mark. While playing Call of Cthulhu, actually.

Sketchbooking Retro #4: Elfs 'n' Stuff

I went through a big elf phase. The title "Elfbone" still looms large in my mind. Someday...

Sketchbooking Retro #3: Sketchbook Dumpstat

Some of you like seeing sketches, some don't give a shit. Here's a bunch of sketches all dumped on your face all at once.

Lots of ideas buried in sketches. In mine, I can see little images that later became finished drawings and I can see seeds of RPG ideas and what-not. Fun to look back, though I caution you against dwelling in the past. Always move forward. Enjoy the past, celebrate your catalog of stunning victories and spectacular failures. But at the end of the day make sure you are moving forward. Creativity is a process and when you're not engaged in the process you're not doing it. Doesn't matter if it sucks, only matters if you're doing it.

Others will judge the outcome. Let them. Just do what you do and don't be a fucking prick.