Brian's doing magic again...

One of the key locations in Feast of the Preserver is the manor house of the village elder - and these images are just an indication of the level of detail Brian puts into his work. The top picture may not even appear in the adventure but Brian has illustrated the manor to get an indication of the elevation and frontal appearance of the house.

I'm very excited about seeing the finished Barrowton map but I feel that the old proverb: All good things take time, is certainly appropriate in the case of Brian's work.

In other news, I received my first play test feedback today - was a brief summary of the events the players went through and a more detailed analysis is to follow. Feedback is positive!

For anyone who is unaware, I have also created a Patreon account to help fund these adventures and my art habit. If you're interested at all come and have a look: My Patreon Account

I'm hoping for a new report soon.

Rumbly tummies

I am beginning to feel the presence of the Preserver amongst us... In other words, I feel we're getting closer to the release of Feast of the Preserver.

Brian has sent me a beautiful pencil sketch of the adventure's setting, the small silver mining village of Barrowton. Brian is just the best cartographer I know and he takes the time to make the maps look really great. One thing I want customers to associate with Shinobi27 Games is our attention to detail with both the writing and the illustrations.

As you can see, a lot of thought has gone into this map - I'm as anxious as anyone to see this fully rendered in ink and eventually color.

An additional feature of this adventure is the concept of survival horror. I was aiming towards a similar atmosphere with The Trolls of Mistwood but it ended feeling more high fantasy based on some reviews. I know the DCC RPG Funnel adventures are all really survival horror in one way or another but Feast of the Preserver is designed to test the courage of seasoned adventurers.

Similar to our first adventure The Trolls of Mistwood, Feast of the Preserver has a detailed history and tragic culture to the people of Barrowton. The horror that has befallen them has occured to a certain extent through the fault of their own making. PCs need to be careful who they trust...

So I'm truly hopping for a March release and I'm planning to have print copies available through RPGNow.com on release. I hope I have some eager judges waiting for this one. It will be quite the feast.

The Worrisome Wait

So, as you may or may not have read, I have sent Feast of the Preserver out to a group of volunteer judges to run. This is kind of a nervous wait for an adventure publisher. The question of if it's too deadly or too easy or if it's confusing or doesn't flow smoothly all run through my head during this time.

Aside of my day job of teaching, my hours are filled with proof reading my drafts, making adjustments and adding new art to the finished product.

Brian is hammering away at the finished maps, so I have my fingers crossed that all of these areas that are up in the air will come together into one great, finished product.

I tend to set unrealistic deadlines on myself and also for my playtesters - I have removed that time constraint so instead I'm determined to let the process have enough time to get the product the best I can get it.

So now I will sit back and work out the logistics of print copies, card maps and of course keep chipping away at some other adventures I'm working on. Once I have the feedback from the testers, I'll make any necessary adjustments and send the finished product to Goodman Games. Hope to announce a release date on my next blog. Fingers crossed.

Shinobi27 Shirts?! And Feast update.

Hey all, just letting everyone know I've started selling T-shirts with my art on them over at Teepublic. It's not a big moneymaker for me - I get from $2 to $4 per shirt sold - but it is fun to think people around the world might be sporting my art on their chest.

I have 7 designs at present, including some OSR styled adventure shirts - my faves are Sacrifice to Qo, Kung-Fu Zombie and Adolescent Axolotl Assassins. So come have a look and see if there's anything you like - they are all on sale at the moment for $14 a pop. Normal price is $20.

Shinobi27 Shirts

In other Shinobi27 news, writing has been completed for Feast of the Preserver and we are steadily working through layout and art. Brian is coming up with some fantastic maps, so if you enjoyed his work on The Trolls of Mistwood you won't be disappointed.

The interior art (my department) is coming along and I'm planning on having a playtestable version by the end of January - I have a group of ready judges/GMs ready to frighten their players in this survival horror mega adventure.

Here is a nice puppy waiting to meet the PCs - or is that make meat from the PCs?

More news soon. I'm hoping to have a February release - but things don't tend to always go as planned.

Cheers.

Shinobi27 Shirts

I'm selling T-shirts now... come buy some please? Lol.

Shinobi27 Shirts

Cheers.

Nearly a year!

To celebrate our approach to a year old, Shinobi 27 Games is selling The Trolls of Mistwood for a Pay What You Want Price.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/125447/The-Trolls-of-Mistwood

Printed Map Cards for the adventure are now available too.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/141890/Mistwood-Map-Cards?manufacturers_id=6338

And to top it off, Feast of the Preserver is off getting proofread after a long writing process.

Now the illustration begins.

Shinobi Fiction

He’d done it again. His hunger for discovery, or his greed for treasure, had led Jade away from his companions. “Stay together and don’t split up!” was the mantra of his friends. The wise paladin, Gabrius, had warned them of the evil that tainted the mountain pass but Jade had never been one to follow.

A reflection of light had distracted the ninja momentarily but that was all it took for him to tread down onto weak shale rocks and collapse into the grotto beneath.

At first he thought the cold was due to the water in the cavern but he soon learnt otherwise. A dark cloudlike form rose from the depths and battered Jade like an uncontrolled gust of wind. Then he felt the wounds on his body and to his horror, he watched his blood being absorbed into the cloud. The cloud coalesced and before his eyes, the creature began to take form. His form!

Developing a series of short narratives to accompany some art pieces I've done based on the adventures of my longest running AD&D hero.

The Preserver Cometh!

Hi everyone or anyone...

The finished first draft of Feast of the Preserver is coming up fast. I'll hopefully have some solid time to focus on finishing the conclusion and getting onto the art soon.

I'll be putting out a call for playtesters in the usual places soon. The cover will be as below - except for the year lol.

 Having gained a promotion for next year, I can tell my writing days are to be reduced further. But where there's a will, there's a way.

Cheers all and stay tuned...

Adventure Musings

I sat back tonight and a had a big think about the point in writing and illustrating adventures. A friend of mine wrote a comment about "no more doing things that require too much effort for so little payoff" and considering the amount of effort that goes into taking an adventure through to publishing compared to the monetary gain, this could be one of those things.

IF, I based this process on financial return I'd have to say I'd agree with that philosophy. But I get more out of the process than just a desire to turn a profit. Sure money is nice but so is creating something. 'Nuff said on that.

Feast of the Preserver is getting close to being finished in terms of the writing. I'm hoping to complete the 1st draft by next week. With the renovations at home almost completed, I'm pretty close to having a dedicated creative space for writing, illustrating and painting. I'll post some photos when it's done.

Below is Brian's first pass at the village of Barrowton from the adventure. I'm really excited to see what he comes up with next. He is, like myself, hindered by externalities that eat up his time and sometimes squeezing some writing and drawing in can be very difficult.

I absolutely love working with Brian.

As I've been so busy I've found myself needing assistance with some of the goals I have for Shinobi 27 Games. As a result, I'm happy to announce that I have a new collaborator, Jon Hild, working on a campaign supplement called the White Sands and Turquoise Waters Campaign Setting. Jon has published numerous Dnd net books and wanted to try his hand at publishing some of his work. His idea, I believe, is very different to the usual medieval campaign setting. I won't say too much but this is in the pipeline - once Jon gets his head around the news his wife is expecting.

Whilst I'm at it, I've also decided to get some assistance on Curse of Mistwood. It was stagnating and since I've been focusing on Feast of the Preserver and The Freezing of Claeridge Pass, I'm hoping to get a more experienced adventure designer to stitch the pieces I had into a more coherent adventure. If he's available and keen to be involved, I'll give further details in the next blog.

The last thing I'll mention is something I'm working towards. The White Sands book will, I hope, fint into a larger campaign world that I'm setting my adventures in. I have been busy designing cities and faiths that fit within the campaign world which I'm planning to call The Shattered Dominion. Mistwood, Claeridge Pass and Barrowton are all found in the westlands of Dominion. I have an expanding map that I hope to populate with adventures, campaign details but mainly some cool adventure hooks for GMs to flesh out themselves. Cheers all.

Coming... sometime... hopefully soon.

I have been a busy camper. Here in NSW, Australia, our senior students are just completing their Trial HSC exams. I have a lot of teacher work to do... but I've also been inspired to get cracking on my writing.

I have 3 adventures in various stages of completion and I have been communicating with some awesome RPG producers for contributions in terms of cartography and yes, sadly art. The pain in my drawing hand is still a factor with me at the moment and I'm sourcing alternative illustrators. The good news is, coming from an illustrator background, I know some talented people.

So, I'm thinking my ghoulish adventure, Feast of the Preserver, will most likely be finished first. The adventure is about 60% completed in terms of writing and the cover is 80% finished. Here is the working cover and a brief introduction.

Barrowton was once a small, thriving mining village. The mines in the foothills of the Crumbling Mountains once provided the richest source of silver in the region. For a time, life in Barrowton was pleasant and prosperous but eventually the mines ‘dried’ up and finding silver became harder and harder. Eventually the mine was closed down and many families moved on.

Some, however, decided that life in Barrowton was worth fighting for and they stayed on to keep the town alive. One ‘visitor’ would change their definition of ‘alive’ forever.

 I hope to have more news soon on some of the slowly cooking products I have in the works.As I get closer to saying goodbye to my senior classes, the more productive I can become.

The shape of things that were...

It's been a good coupe of months since I wrote in this blog and so...

Teaching is a great job at times. I really enjoy watching a kid go from "I don't get it" to "Ohhhh, now I get it". It's the best feeling a teacher has. But with that comes a lot of work. Marking is very time consuming in my field, teaching Legal and Business but I have been lucky this year with my classes, I'd say I have an 80% satisfaction rating for my students - great kids.

Onto the games.

As indicated by the intro, teaching has occupied most of my time. I've been stewing over adventure and art ideas during the process of teaching. When I wrote The Trolls of Mistwood, I had the full synopsis of the adventure down and knew where it was going to take me, but the sequel is a slippery beast. I have the basics and I have written a fair amount but I'm bouncing around the place because I keep getting conflicting ideas as to how it will conclude. I know the players will determine the end but I want something for the playtesters to come away from that is satisfying and not full of holes - as I feel it is now.

On a brighter note, after months of complete art rest, my drawing hand is feeling great. I still have some tenderness in it but I am easing back into the art.

So this brief blog is just to say, I'm still here, the adventures are still coming along but I'm not on a deadline, so they will not hatch before they're ready.

Cheers,
David.

RPG Art 2

So interior art is something that you either love doing or you toil through it. I usually love the work but with recent arthritis developments in my drawing hand, I can feel the toil coming on. I have to say I can become engrossed in the interior art or I can really struggle if the writer is vague in their descriptions. Some of the most fun interior art, for me, was working on Paul Wolfe's Tomb of Curses. He has a wacky imagination and I really felt I could cut loose on some of his ideas. My favourite piece from that book is called Sacrifice to Qo and I just fell in love with that part of the adventure. I drew about 3 thumbnail sketches before I settled on the following:

The original piece is on A3 bristol board but I used digital brushes to add a lot of additional cross hatching and light effects. I find it more economical in terms of time doing the main inking on paper then moving to digital for pictures with large dark areas. The perspective is such that the editors could place the piece as a portrait or landscape and it still works at the extreme angle.

I was lucky enough to get some work on the Wicked North Games' D6 Steampunk Western: Westward. Basically the editor listed the art he needed completed and the rate he offered for each piece. I would have loved to have done more work on this book but it was very competitive. I did get my first couple of preferences but my favourite is a piece called Ghosting. Ghosting in the game is assassinating an unwary opponent before they are able to defend themself. Since it was a western I had to make my 'ghoster' Clint Eastwood but I gave him a steampunk hand.

Initially sketched in pencil then scanned into my PC for digital paints. A few Clint Eastwood reference shots for character and Ta Dah!

The last piece I'll post today is an interior piece from Angels, Daemons and Beings Between. I really enjoyed this piece but my son recently pointed out I had actually just drawn Ice King from Adventure Time. I hadn't actually seen an episode till long after this piece was completed but I can't help laugh at the similarities. This is King Halgaz Bekur, or as my son insists, Ice King:

 In my next blogg, I'll focus a little more on some older work as well as an update on Claeridge Pass and Curse of Mistwood.

RPG Art 1

One of the most enjoyable things I've been doing over the past couple of years is doing commissioned art for RPG products. More than cover art, I've had the awesome opportunity to work on some excellent RPG material for interior art as well.

Whilst I'm busy writing some new adventures, I thought I'd reflect on some of the commissioned RPG art I've completed and maybe look at some interior work as well, in later posts.

I love digital painting. When I have the inspiration, I can spend a lot of time painting away at my workstation. I like digital painting more than traditional pencils and inks these days, although many of the digital paintings start as pencil on paper.

For DCC, I was commissioned to work on the ill-fated Angels, Daemons and Beings Between as an interior artist but I loved the project so much I took on the cover art too. Based on an interior piece for the patron, Hecate, this is what I came up with:

The book is really a great product. With Daniel Bishop and Paul Wolfe as the writers, I really thought this book was a winner. Distribution and communication issues has marred this product but I still think the book is lightning in a bottle.

Since this was crowd funded, there were a whole lot of promises that made the final execution of the product difficult. I'm not going into the unfulfilled orders or anything like that I just want to look at the covers that I was proud to contribute.

Paul wrote an adventure with Sean called Tomb of Curses. Using a rough draft of the adventure with some ideas about the content, I came up with the following:

Daniel wrote The Revelation of Mulmo, a huge adventure that I have been enjoying reading on the DCC Play-by-post. Here is the cover for that one:

I'll be talking more on RPG art in the next blog. I'll share some work I did on Westward, a steampunk, wild west RPG from Wicked North Games.

Feel free to leave some comments below!