Fanart Sketchbook

Daler-Rowney makes these little 3.5x5.5 inch sketchbooks. Black covers, 48 pages front and back. They are fun to draw in, so I have started buying them in packs of 6.

I did one recently that was just fanart of characters I like, or ones I just found interesting to draw. The Thing, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain Carrot, Warduke, etc.

My other reason for doing this one was to just focus on using the Sailor Profit brush pen, practicing line control, figuring out the range of that tool Nice experiment. I've come to love that pen quite a bit. Especially with the Kiwaguro ink instead of the default ink that comes with it.

Brush Pens Part Two

See here for Part One.

I started talking about brush pens without clarifying a basic point. I use them because they are very, very convenient. You can, of course, just use a traditional round brush and dip it in your ink of choice. Nothing stopping you at all. Hell, I might get back into fully traditional brushes before all is said and done. I certainly cut my teeth on sable rounds back in the day. I remember dropping a whopping $5 on a Kolinsky #5 round when I was 20 and I thought it was super expensive. For 1991... it was.

But back to brush pens...

I wanna talk about a Chinese pen. I picked up a 3-pack of Yongsheng 3009 brush pens recently. My understanding is that there are several versions of this tool produced by various Chinese companies. I don't know. I just know I got a set labelled Yongsheng in a 3-pack for like $15 and holy shit they are worth every penny.

So far I have only used 1 of the 3. This is not a set of various tips, mind you. It's a pack of 3 identical pens. The body is clear and very nicely designed with a built-in piston refill mechanism. You don't use a cartridge or ink converter with this thing. You just stick the tip into your jar of ink and twist the piston to fill it up.

The tip is good. Synthetic fiber, decent tip coming to a fairly fine point. Not as delicate as a Kuretake or Pentel, but pretty good. Nice feel. The grip has a triangular shape, so it feels pretty good.

The flow is very different from other brush pens. At first, it will flow heavily. Almost too heavily. Then it will start to give you a lot of dry brush lines. Here's the key. Twist that piston one time. It has a tactile feedback that lets you know when it has been twisted once (great feature). That will force some ink down into the feed. Because it is clear, you can see the ink hit the feed. It will immediately flow out the tip. Do not twist more than once! It will flow too heavily and drip on your paper! One twist is all you need.

I have been doodling with this thing quite a bit and so far I gotta say it is quite good. I've refilled it only once so far (it holds a fair amount of ink). I will report back later to let you know how the tip holds up. So far, so good. Very nice, responsive, good-feeling tool that is frankly quite cheap. At $15 a set, these are basically $5-$7 each depending on shipping and all that. Very, very cheap for a reusable tool like this. 

Brush Pens Part One

Sometime in late 2022 or so I started to get back into drawing on paper more than drawing on my digital tablet. I can't remember what caused me to switch over but it stuck and I've been drawing almost exclusively traditionally for over a year. I started drawing on a tablet maybe around 2009 and was almost exclusively digital for a decade, sans some trad work I did for Goodman Games here and there. It's very nice to get back to the ink stains and feel of paper.

This has lead me to explore traditional tools again. When I left off in 2009, my jam was mostly Pitt brush pens with Paris paper for pens (a magical combo, try it out!). These days I'm leaning much harder into "real" brushes via natural hair or synthetic fiber brush pens. So I wanted to do this post or series of posts about brush pens.

First, if you don't know what a brush pen is, allow me to elaborate.

A brush pen is a pen that has a natural hair or synthetic fiber tip. It is a brush. It's not a fake brush. It's just a brush. If you've ever used a paint brush, then this is just that. But the difference is that the ink (or watercolor or whatever) is in the pen body and feeds by gravity like a fountain pen. These are essentially or identically like fountain pens, but they have brush tips.

What a felt tip brush pen looks like after a few uses.

Now, I need to be clear here. Because there are tons of disposable brush pens that are not actually brushes. They don't have hairs or fibers, they have felt tips. The Pitt, Micron, and Copic Miltiliner brush pens are not "real brushes" in that they are felt tips shaped like a brush. They are called brush pens, and that's fine. I'm not here to gatekeep these wonderful disposable tools. I used them a ton. Just wanted to be clear about what I'm referring to. Herein when I say "brush pen" I do in fact mean brushes with hairs or other fibers, not felt tips.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

There are a small handful of brush pens that get talked about the most. They are the most common and easiest to get your hands on. Here's a short list of them.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Pentel Pocket Brush: I think this is the most common one. I bought one in the mid-2000s and loved it. I still  have that one and even though it sat unused for a decade it's still a good brush pen to this day. This little bastard is great. The tip is synthetic fibers but very durable, from what I can tell. The tip is super responsive, the flow is good, and you can get super thin lines or fat ones if you want. It's biggest downfall is that it is not designed to take an ink converter... meaning you have to use the Pentel ink cartridges designed for it. That's fine. They are not very expensive and the ink is pretty good. And, hint hint, you can refill them with a blunt syringe or hack an ink converter to be used with them. It's not hard to do. This one is around $15. Worth it.

Sailor Profit Brush Pen

Sailor Profit: I'm not sure how popular this one is, but I see it reviewed a lot next to the Pentel. So I think it's fairly widely popular but not nearly as easy to find as the Pentel. I love this pen. The body is thicker than a typical pen body, being based on the "profit" pen body style: a cigar shape that is a bit thicker and feels better in the hand. The tip is a very nice synthetic brush, very responsive and easy to get a fat line out of. I don't think it holds the super fine tip as long as the Pentel, but honestly I prefer the Sailor over the Pentel. This one is about $20 or so. Worth it, I think.

Kuretake 50

Kuretake 40 and 50: Kuretake makes a lot of cool stuff. The 40 is a synthetic hair brush pen while the 50 is a natural sable hair brush pen. Both are functionally the same. The 50 has a metal body, which is very nice. The 40, I think, might also have a metal body but of a different color and feel. I don't have a 40. What I noticed about the 50 is that when you post the cap it can/does scratch the coating off the body. Not a good feature. The brush tip is fantastic. It's a natural hair, so it is feels and IS just a sable brush tip. If you like a good sable brush, this is one. The flow is good. It can take an ink converter so if you don't want to use the Kuretake disposable ink cartridges you can use whatever ink you like. I had a bad experience with mine because I think the ink I was using didn't agree with the pen. I'm not sure but that sable tip is still not in good shape. I replaced it with the synthetic fiber (you can buy replacement tips). Good tool, but finicky. Price is high (like $40-$50 range). I'm not sure it's worth it. Very good tool, pleasure to draw with. If you have disposable cash, then go for it. But honestly the use of this tool is not much better than a Pentel.

Pentel Fude

Pentel Fude: This is a simpler brush pen with a disposable ink body (you can buy replacements or you can refill them with a little simple ingenuity). It's the type that you can squeeze in order to get more ink into the brush. It has a longer brush tip than the others, slightly narrower. Gives a very fine line. It's fun to play with. Price point is around $7, so not too bad. Well worth picking one up. When the ink runs out, either buy a new ink barrel or pry off the top of the barrel with a knife and squirt some ink into it.

So... out of these, the big dogs of brush pens, I gotta say I love the Sailor best. And it's really down to the feel. It just feels better in the hand. But popular opinion is that Pentel kicks ass. And that is not wrong. You can't fail with any of these. If you're on a tight budget, get yourself a Pentel Pocket if you can. Barring that, get the Pentel Fude and just refill it on your own.

But there's more to this story. Next up: some alternates. One of them being even less expensive and more useful than the Pentel Fude.

Doomslakers Zine

Just before I started creating the Black Pudding zine, I fiddled with different names and ideas for the project. One was Claw, Claw Bite!, which I love. But there was already a zine by that name (I think it was Pathfinder-based, if I remember correctly). I thought I went straight to Black Pudding after that, but then I just discovered a hidden, dusty folder from 2016 called "Doomslakers Zine". Had a couple of files in it, including this cover concept.

Of course, this art was used for Black Pudding #2. But I guess I had the idea to call it Doomslakers first. Not sure why I didn't go with that, since it would have aligned nicely with this blog. But I guess I always felt like the name "Doomslakers" wasn't epic enough. I think it's a grand ole name, and kind of funny. But that's just me.

Black Pudding 8

Black Pudding #8 is now live on DTRPG and itch.io!

This moist issue features new classes (death witch, feral knight, goon royal, among others), spells, magic swords, adventures, and weirdo monsters such as the troglozyte. Glorp your copy today!

Hymla the Horn vs. the Eye Am cult

PDF available now. Stay tuned for announcements about print copies, once those details are decided.
 

Loom Character Class

From my Witch Valley B/X campaign, the Loom.

LOOM

The Great Loom have said nothing should be done except in its own time and by its own way. The Low Loom have said having four hands to do the work doesn’t hurt.

RESTRICTIONS

You attack as a Fighter. You can use any weapon and wear any armor created for Loom (cost is quadruple and plate mail is exceedingly rare, costing ten times the normal amount). You can use magic items usable by Fighters. Your Prime Requisite is Strength, which must be at least 13. You are 8’ tall and quite intimidating. Non-Loom reactions to you are at -2.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Armed & Dangerous: You have four powerful arms. You can choose to make 2 melee attacks per round at a penalty of -3 per attack. At level 7 you can make 3 attacks at -3 each, or 2 at -2 each. Upon reaching level 10 you can attempt 4 melee attacks per round at -3 each, 3 attacks at -2 each, or 2 attacks at -1 each. During any round in which you attack more than once you can take no other actions, including movement. You can use two shields at the same time, gaining the -1 AC benefit of each. If you make 2 successful unarmed attacks against an opponent you can grab them. A grabbed enemy takes 1d6 points of damage per round from head butts, punches, bites, or strangulation. Only by passing a saving throw vs. paralysis can they break free.

Moon Curse: Your people tell a story about falling to earth from the Moon. When the Moon is full you are filled with strength, gaining +2 to saving throws and +1 to melee attack and damage. When the Moon is new you suffer -1 to all such rolls.

State of the Creator

Lately I've been scattered, disorganized, and chaotic. But I'm still drawing and still creating. I never stop. For this I am grateful. The image above is a scattershot of things I've drawn in the past month or two. Maybe a couple are from a few months ago.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me, on the whole creative front, is that I need to stop thinking about doing stuff and just do stuff. One of my big problems was, after GOZR, I didn't want to devote myself to such an intense project again for a while. I was like... y'know... just do traditional fucking layouts with text and fonts.

But I haven't been doing those. So it kind of stands to reason that I should just lean into what I know how to do best and stop fucking around. Meaning: Draw more pages and make little books. It's the one thing I love to do more than anything else and the only reason I don't do it more is because I'm constantly second-guessing myself.

No, this is not a New Year's resolution. I don't do those.

Ideas on the table that already have some progress and that I could/should finish:

Black Pudding 8: Mostly finished.

ZSF: Tons of work put into it, but depending on final form it is either half done or barely started.

Blood Red Pinup Book: This one is done. I have a 64 page book all fixed up. I just need to get it printed and offer it up for sale.

Rock Hardy Book of Dwarfs: Literally finished, including layout, other than doing maybe 3 additional drawings. I just can't muster the energy to do it. I fear it is just a meh book.

GOZR Adventure Book: This is an idea for which I have a few pages. I know people have asked for some GOZR adventures and I just haven't been able to return to that game with the same passion. I think because I poured so much time and effort into it I'm just finished, for now. I gave it my all. I made a complete game book. The idea was that you'd make your own adventures.

Sorry, this is a bit of a random and slightly bitchy post. I'm honestly not in a bad mood. I'm just not focused, which is becoming more and more troubling.

GOZR: Threat Dice

I just listened to an actual play of GOZR here and it was a hoot, a blast, and a lot of fun. The GM was quick-thinking and had a nice old-west voice going on. He made some good choices too, such as when a player used the vulgar spell Doubt. He had the player make a Magic Roll and if successful he was able to declare what happened.

Anyway, one thing they did kind of surprised me. The GM said that NPCs and monsters basically can't attack or anything unless it is indicated on the Threat Dice. I am not sure if this was a house rule or just a misinterpretation of the game rules.

I went back and re-read page 41 (Creatures). My intention for Threat Dice was that they represent extra things a creature might do. In a sense, this is like GOOZ points for monsters but isn't a limited resource and is less potent. Examples given: Take half damage, take instant action, resist vulgar magic.

But creatures are actors in a scene, just like PCs, and should be able to attack and move and use items normally, regardless of Threat Dice rolls. If your crew is attacked by water-dwelling krolguin, which they were in the actual play, the creatures would get to make attacks each round. They have 2d6 Threat Dice. So the GM would roll 2d6 each round an if a 1-2 is indicated, then one or more of the creatures would do an extra thing, such as shake off half damage on an attack or something unexpected like whip out its own vulgar magic spell.

Also, the special abilities listed for each creature are not limited to Threat. For example, the ickmuck's claws cause sickness. This is not a Threat action, it's just what happens. Any time a gooz is clawed by an ickmuck, they player should probably make a Prowess check to avoid falling sick. If they fail, then they should roll on the Sickness table on page 8 to see how bad it is.

One thing I noticed in this actual play was that the PCs were slaughtering singular enemies with ease. This is because I wanted combat to go quickly! I wanted to have one-shot-kills. The balancing factor is that creatures, especially in numbers, can quickly destroy the PCs via Threat and by high damage rolls.

Let's look at the krolguin again.

You encounter them. GM rolls 3d6 for pack size and gets 12. Each one has 4 HP (or 1d8). If you're using a 1d6 damage weapon, you're going to be doing about 7 to 10 points of damage per hit, on average. You're probably going to kill a krolguin with each strike.

But there are 12 of them. Each round the GM rolls 2d6 for Threat, so very frequently a Threat will occur. Maybe a few of them grab the boat and capsize it. Maybe one of them is a wizard and casts something nasty like Lightning Strike. Things can go wrong very quickly!

But PCs are resilient and have GOOZ to spend. Also, monsters may fail a Morale Check and run away (this happened in the actual play). There are many ways a GM can leverage the rules to make encounters more brutal or less brutal, as the game-story needs.

Anyway, just some quick thoughts. I should start considering a revision of the rules with a few clarifying bits. What is in my head doesn't always come across on the page as clearly as I think it does.

My RPG Folder is a Mole Rat and It Is Naked

A continuation of the fine, fine tradition of randomly opening PDFs in my massive library of RPG PDFs and dashing out my off-the-cuff first impressions. I do this every so often, such as here, here, here, and maybe even here. And other places too.

Today's method: Open the folder marked "new", close eyes, click on something.

The first random file I opened is a Modiphius 2d20 book called Shadow of the Sorcerer.

Even though I actually own physical copies of the first six Conan books in this series, I'm not terribly familiar with it. I don't know the system at all. But it's a BIG DENSE MEATY looking game and I'm intimidated.

Even though there's at least one Simon Bisley cover on this series, the thing overall just isn't barbaric enough for my blood. It looks too much like a vanilla D&D 4e or 5e fantasy game. I want blood, dammit! This feels slightly softened for some reason.

Next up... this looks positively fantastic. I think I probably made a post about this when I first picked it up, maybe on FB or something. Anyway, the design is like an old comic book, which I truly appreciate. The fact that the art and layout is attributed to "R. Dumb" is delicious.

Call of Cthulhu Cosmically Horrific Comix #1 "Sermon of Sludge" is an adventure scenario for use with the classic Call of Cthulhu horror RPG. Like most CoC books, this one richly outlines a situation and presents environs and characters to interact with, all leading to some nasty outcomes. In this case, a comet set to deliver some nasty stuff.

The book has a lot of pre-generated characters, plenty of maps and other handouts, and lots of fun cool art.

Definitely worth having, just to look at if nothing else.

Goose-Gold & Goblins by Patrick Stewart is in my folder. I don't remember ever seeing this or downloading it or anything. But here it is. I opened it and the first pages are just plain text. Most of this is just plain text, I think. Sans the image I posted above. Starts off by letting us know the design goals:

A game you can play across generations.

Violence as a last resort

Challenge matters, threats are real

If in doubt, do it like BX

Use oral culture techniques

Avoid 3rd person, try to use ‘I’ and ‘We’

Geese are treasure

No weapons

Courtesy instead of Charisma

XP for Friends and Food

Pretty good list. Let's you know up front what you are NOT getting into. This will not be a game of dungeon-crawling and monster-slaying. This will be a fairytale type of game, possibly kid-friendly, definitely violence-averse. Cool.

So basically this is a game with a very specific setup. You and all the other players are from the same village or family and your mom is sick. Also, the goose is missing. This is bad because geese are super important and valuable. You must help your mom and get that goose back!

And if you resort to violence anywhere near a goose you're in big trouble because those bastards have a demonic berserker rage mode.

Interesting game concept. I don't know if Patrick developed it beyond this "proto-design" doc from 2020. Here's a blog post he made about it.

Oldskull Game Epansions I: Character Creation by Kent David Kelly is a big fat book of character creation optional rules, tables, and clarifications of existing rules for Old School Essentials, or really any B/X style game. It's got lots of ability score rolling methods, exceptional ability score rules, tables for appearance, alignment and deities, personality, skills, etc. The list goes on.

The book looks fine. It might suffer a little from over-production, IMHO. It has a slight tinge of that early desktop publishing era mania where you felt like you had to use all the buttons on the program. But maybe that's unfair of me. It does not have a garish watermark and the font is easy to read. So I'll back off that a bit. It looks fine. I just don't like the header and footer very much. Something about them is too busy for what the book is and is trying to do.

It has a lot of art, which seems to be a mix of public domain and clip art. And it's all good stuff. I think this is a nice little resource to have in your back pocket if you're gonna run some straight-up D&D type shit.

Tool Talk

Digital drawing I like.

In 2009 I got my first pen tablet. It was a Wacom Bamboo, very small. I loved it so much I upgraded to a Wacom Intuos 4 medium tablet about a year later. I loved that one so much it's still on my desk right now, still in use, still working hard. What a god damn beautiful piece of equipment.

Anyway, prior to going digital I was deeply invested in my art tools. I obsessed over pens and brushes and brush pens and papers. In the 2000s I found that my favorite combination was a mechanical pencil (HB) + PITT brush pen + PITT or Micron .05 pen + Prismacolor markers + Paris Paper for Pens. This was the winning combo on which I drew all of my Pan-Gea art.

I went digital and found it to be so convenient and forgiving I just couldn't bring myself to draw on paper again for years. I mean YEARS. I had a brief period in the 2010s when I was drawing on paper quite a bit, doing stuff for Goodman Games and what-not (they had a no-digital art policy). After that, I switch back and forth but mostly drew digitally. The entirety of GOZR and about 50% of Black Pudding was created using my tablet.

But in late 2022 I suddenly started drawing on paper again. I can't even remember what happened to

Snot slug with Pentel brush.

make me switch. But since then, probably 95% of my art has been done traditionally. Almost all of the art I've created for ZSF (my space fantasy game) is on paper.

In the past week or two I've been sorting all my tools. I have a LOT OF TOOLS. Like, copious numbers of markers, pens, and brush pens. Nibs and brushes. Inks and papers. Some of these had to go away because they were dried out. But others were fine, some just needed a little TLC.

The tools on my desk right now that I'm favoring:

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

PITT Brush Pens

Sailor Profit Brush Pen

And I just revitalized an old fountain pen by Sensa and it has a deliciously smooth line... but it is unreliable as hell. In fact... it stopped working entirely and I can't seem to fix the damn thing.

I picked up a Kuratake brush pen (#50) and it's a dream too. Though, honestly, the line quality isn't any better than the much less expensive Pentel. The main difference is the Kuratake can take an ink converter so you don't have to rely on disposable refills. And it has a metal tube, which feels good.

Kuretake #50 brush pen (not my art or pic).

But I really do love that Sailor Profit brush pen's feel. Though it is a plastic tube, it has the shape and thickness that feels best in my hand. The only issue I have with that one is that the brush tip itself isn't as fine and precise as the Pentel or the Kuratake. It's very strange how much variation there is between these common brush pens, even though, speaking honestly, you can't go wrong with any of them.

Sailor Profit brush pen feels very nice.

In my opinion, if you are interested in trying a brush pen, you absolutely cannot go wrong with a Pentel Pocket Brush. They are very inexpensive and have wonderful tips. However, keep in mind that the Pentel does not take an ink converter. What this means is you'll have to rely on the Pentel ink cartridges.

But there are workarounds. You can refill those empty cartridges using a syringe. There is also a cool tutorial you can find that teaches you how to modify an ink converter to fit into a Pentel body, so you can just use that instead.

An ink converter is just a refillable ink cartridge. Typically you twist the top to suck up ink into the cartridge so you can put it into your pen or brush pen.

A very popular ink converter from Platinum.