Zombies and Undead things....

I'm working on a set of Zombies. I prefer doing some kind of harrowed (Deadlands) creature so I'll be working on those at the same time. Damn, I just don't seem to have any freaking time to draw these days. I remember as a child I would create a whole world in an afternoon with a pencil and paper.  I'd give anything to be able to do that now....

In a few months, I'll be a Grandfather. Yikes.

I don't even know how to feel about that. I'm not near mature enough. Life is a trip y'all!

Free No More

I realize this is a sort of dick move, but hey... I've decided that I no longer wish to give my work away.

I hope all y'all that wanted them have them by now.

In my defense, I did have some encouragement. So, from now on, y'all can buy my lil figures. Pretty cheap too. I'm going to be adding to my range, also... watch this space. Or, well actually the spaces above it.

You'll notice the little PayPal widget over there. I'm not totally sure how this works, so we'll figure it out. I think for now, I'll send your purchases to whatever email you give me. Cool?

Happenings

After 3 months of no posts, I've decided to explain my absence.  I seem to have a cycle of obsession, between gaming and music.  The music portion has come back, and I'm pursuing that these days.

I'm spending my time improving my lead guitar skills, building my first pedal board, writing songs, and jamming with the band my friend Allan has put together.

My next plan is to replace the pick-ups in my Telecaster, and I'm starting some electronics projects, namely building some stomp boxes.

In the face of all this, my gaming interest has waned a bit. I know I'll be back, I just don't know when.

Varied, Unfocussed Interests

No posts much lately. Sorry folks.  I've got way too many irons in the fire currently.  I don't know whats wrong with me.  I get all these ideas and no time to execute them.

Projects include;
1. Mounted Western paper figures. I'm a little unsure as to what angle I want to draw these at.  Full profile or three quarters view. I like both. Maybe some of each.

2. Paper terrain buildings, for my Brimstone Game.  I've heavily modified some Whitewash City stuff I have, and a friend over at Cardboard Warriors has hooked me up with a horde of Western-ish buildings and other structures. Awesome. Thanks Vermin King.  Still I'm trying to find an adobe texture I really like. That someone doesn't want to charge $20 for. Really? I've also been tempted to purchase THIS. Not sure on that yet... I really want some stuff I can share, and I won't share another artist's work, or my mods of that work.

3. Finish the re-draw and re-color of my existing figures.  The early ones I did look....  really really amateurish and bad to me now.  I'd like to re-do them. They deserve that I think. I'm tempted to make them unavailable until I get them re-done.

4. Paper figures for my good friend Josh's Star Wars game. I found a bunch of vehicles and the like here. I LOVE Star Wars. It has so many western elements. I have to admit I'm more Original Trilogy though.  Han fired first!  I was thinking of re-drawing the figures I found there, and the ones Parduz on Cardboard Warriors made up, so they'd look correct and be the same style as any custom figures I made. Strange I know but I like the tabletop to have a consistent style.

5. Finish my tabletop Terrain boards. I need some ground textures for those as well.  Nothing I've seen available commercially looks quite right to me. Not that World Works and Fat Dragon don't make some great stuff,  it just doesn't have the look I want.

6. I have an urge to make the "Guns of Brimstone" story in to a Machinima production, likely using "The Movies" game by Lionhead Studios. I've found a lot of Western mods. Here, and here. Amazing stuff. I was blown away by a lot of it. The Movies was one of my favorite PC games anyway, and I had no idea how much people had done with it. I realize I'm late to the party as far is Machinima goes, but I think I can still contribute. Especially since its mostly just for me anyway.

7. A Star Wars Machinima. Based on Josh's game, "The Pirates of Doleron".  The story is really good, especially my character. (LOL, yes I'm so modest)

So, I'm feeling really overwhelmed by my own ambition at this point. Add all the maps, game plots, stories, and other stuff I've got brewing in my demented mind, and I have no idea where to start.

Lately, I've just been blowing it all off and playing Far Cry 2.  I love that game, even though the ending is disturbing.

I think this may be the main reason I don't attempt to sell my figures.  I don't want to turn a hobby I like in to a semi-job I dread. When I start feeling pressured up about all this, I sort of let it drift a while. Then, I see the stuff that artists I respect are doing, and I want to be a commercial venture as well. Major mixed feelings.

One other thought. Once, a member of Cardboard Warriors wrote something I felt really strongly about.  Upset me really. It was something along the lines of "Anything free is valueless. I only really like and respect the stuff I've had to pay for."  Not an exact quote, but that was the gist I got from it. Really? Okay.

I'm Still Still Here

My Boot Hill game is on hiatus. I'm burned out as a GM.

Not totally true... I've got a couple of players that are making things real world personal, and it drives me away from the table.  I'm about to start playing, as a player, a d6 Star Wars campaign my good friend is running, and a Star Trek DS9 game run by another friend.

I've decided to port my Brimstone game to d6 as well.  I love the system, and it just works so well.

Meanwhile, I'm creating buildings for my Brimstone terrain table. I'll post what I can as soon as I get something finished.

For some reason, I've got this "story bug" going. I drive all day and think of these.... I'm not sure what to call them. Short stories, whatever.  None of it is really game usable.  I seem to have a couple of novels working here. The only thing is, they are pretty explicit. That part concerns me. I have no idea what to do with any of it....

Guns of Brimstone Set 1

 My first PDF. A set of ten figures. Perfect for Blackwater Gulch Gangs. I just hope the scaling came out right. I printed them and did a test build.
I think they came out decent...

Here's a couple of pics.

3:10 to Yuma

One of my favorite movies... So, I made one of my favorite characters.  I have a couple more "Movie Western" characters made.  I need to color them and post em. Like a Hollywood series or something. Well, except that some were Italian movies...

oh well.

Banner, Logo, T-Shirt?

 

I've got  no idea what I was thinking here. I'm not even sure what to use it for. All I can tell you is, for the past few days, I haven't been able to leave this alone.  I just kept adding stuff.

Saloon Girl 1 Update

I managed to finish up Lottie tonight. I don't think I've done her justice.  For some reason, this was the hardest back I've done yet.  The hair just.... wouldn't work for me. Maybe I'll return to her and re-work it a bit later.

Since she's only 30mm tall, this will work for now.

It looks like I'll have a bit of time off work coming up, so maybe I can get a few things done. I'd love to have a horde of these finished.

One thing I have done for these last few, I "borrowed" a color palette from RAFM Miniatures. Seems to help with the shading I think.  Helps me have consistent colors from one figure to the next, which is something I've had trouble with.  Anything that gives a touch of uniformity and style to them is a good thing in my opinion.

Paper Figures, Update

I've had a long several days. Including a great game session I pulled almost entirely out of my ass, with no prep at all.  Seat of the pants can be fun but wow... I came close to panic.  I dunno if my players caught on, or if they're too good of folks to mention it.  I think the latter.

I did get a few more figures done, and added them all to a file, so you can have them all at once.

Next, I'll finish my Saloon Girls. We've almost got enough here to have a gun fight.  After this, I've got 5 more PCs to finish, and a horde of NPCs from the "Guns of Brimstone" game.  I plan to re-draw my previous work, which looks so bad compered to these. Bad. Yuck.

I hope to post a bit more in the next few days, provided life calms down a bit. Riiight. That will happen. Well, enjoy these. More on the way.

Weird West Roleplaying Game

Crushingly disappointed. I'm bummed.  I saw this on DriveThruRpg. I was elated to see a rules light Western RPG. For a buck. Hell Yea!!

Evocative art, check. Awesome genre, check. Great price, check.

Oh God NO!!

Classes. They're called Paths, but yeah, its a Class. Damn..

Hit points. Stamina points in this game. Oh, and a different die type by class. At least you don't get harder to kill by going up in level. I like the re-roll at the start of each session. That I think is a cool idea. The 0 Stamina points table is not bad either. Tying stamina to the Grit attribute I like also.

Ahh... ok, well maybe it can still be cool. 

Uh oh, here's something like Armor Class. Damn. Okay, so its Defense score. And, armor somehow makes a person harder to hit.  Oh, sorry, "Armour". This right here is the other biggest gripe I have with the D&D combat system. Armor just doesn't work that way in my mind.  It makes a person harder to DAMAGE or hurt. Usually it makes someone EASIER to hit, as it slows them down, what with being heavy and all. Ah well.

Skill use and Tasks. Okay, cool, you roll against a difficulty on a D6, adding or subtracting for your skill levels. Ummm, okay. Reasonable. Er... What skills? We got some Paths.  No idea what each of these Paths should be able to do.  I realize its only 8 pages, so a skill list by Path was omitted. We can figure it out.

The Magic and Special abilities section I like. Got some very cool quirks and perks in there. Well done.

This ain't gonna work for me. I pretty much loathe D&D in all its incarnations.  I had no idea what this little game was going to be like before I bought it. Since then, I've been reading Stuart's blog, so, I could have known about Weird West if I'd found the blog first. No big deal, its only a buck, and I like to support people making "small press" type games.

I do wonder why I wouldn't just use the Sixguns and Sorcery section in the AD&D DMG though.

So, if you're in to D&D, and want to play a Western, these rules will be perfect for you.  Its really a cool little game.  I really really want to like it.  Its just not for me.

Name Change in Order?

I'm really thinking of changing the name of this blog. I haven't written a whole bunch about Wild West RPGs.
Mostly, I seem to be all about Paper Figures. They're made for RPGs.. Does that count?

When I started this, I has some ideas about writing out some of the plots from my Boot Hill game. For some reason, its tough to bring myself to post all that here.  I don't think any of my players read it. Hell, I'm only positive a couple of folks do.  So, I guess that isn't an excuse. I'll start adding that kind of stuff real soon.

Who knows, maybe it will help me keep stuff straight.  Some sessions I have trouble remembering what I was doing.

Paper Figure- Saloon Girl

I've been working on a few new figures. This is one.
I'm fairly proud of her.

Most of today, I hung up Christmas lights. Just in the past hour or so I was able to work on anything. I'm not sure about the boa.

Back in Business... Paper Figures

Thanks to some awesome friends I likely don't deserve, I'm back. Its not as fast as my old one but it works. One thing though, for some reason I can't get the monitor to look the same... Oh well, I'll work on that.

So, I found a couple I had been working on, lurking in my DropBox and here they are.

These guys are hired thugs, dressed in expensive suits.
The idea is, they are supposed to look uncomfortable...
and mean.

I feel that the poses are pretty generic, but, in my defense, they've been sitting around for a while. I may yet do some more work on these two. Not sure yet.

This whole mess has taught me the value of backing up my files. Working with GIMP, without my personal tweaks was kinda tough. I'll have to set this copy up like the other one was.

At this point, I'm uncertain how to proceed. I've been giving these away since I've been making them. I wasn't sure about going commercial, since I'm a niche within a niche here. I'm still not sure. I'll continue to make them in any case. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I'm thinking I'll re-color and possibly re-draw my previous work at this point. I need more figures... Hell, do any of us ever get enough figures?? I'm thinking about gangs for Blackwater Gulch, and characters for my Boot Hill game. I also have to create some terrain. I put that project on hold a bit when I lost my computer.  Since we're playing in New Mexico, I gotta have some adobe buildings. I'm figuring on re-texturing some stuff I've already got.  Otherwise, the Vulture Gulch I bought from Microtactics is wasted money. I'll write a review of that one day. Trouble is, my Grandpa taught me to say nothing if you can't say something nice..... That part will be tough.

CRASH!!!

My old computer gave up the ghost Friday night. I dunno if it was the processor or the video card, but it no longer works.

My friends that I game with were kind enough to set me up with a substitute. Its older than what I had, but at least it works. I was pretty astonished that they would do that. So, tonight I have little to add, but I'm back online again. I hope to have a couple of updates in the near future. I was in the middle of some new figures when it crashed, so I hope to get those finished and posted.

Knuckleduster Cowtown Creator

I just got the Cowtown Creator from Knuckleduster. I decided to buy it for myself for my birthday Sunday. It's one of the books I'd been hearing good things about but didn't have. $31.64 with shipping. It arrived Wednesday. I've had my nose in it since. Awesome, awesome source-book.

I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about the history of the period. I still managed to learn a lot. Its well written, with humor and a genuine love of the period. The "Events" section of each chapter is almost worth the price of the book alone. Someone just starting a game in the genre without knowing much about it could run an entire campaign out of this book alone. Its that detailed.

I've been reading Western novels and history as long as I've been able to read. I love the movies also. The Cowtown Creator explains some of the background, the hows and whys of the cattle business, the railroad, the stage lines, and the different types of saloon. This book gives a great feel for "how it really was". Maybe its not 100% accurate but its damn plausible.

There is also a lot on typical characters. I can see this going a long way toward believable NPCs. I was really impressed, and my strength as a GM is believable NPCs. So there. Its in here.

The first part of the book is nearly all forms. I'm not sure about if or how I'll actually use those. For one thing, I'd hate to damage my book to copy the forms. Maybe they could have been placed towards the back? I know I don't want to rip up the front of my book. I suppose I could put it in a ring binder, but...

I would have also loved to see Boot Hill stats instead of just Deadlands. I figure if you can re-use the encounter tables from Boot Hill... just sayin. Then I realize if I've got the Boot Hill rules... Yeah, I can just use the stats from there. It also includes some D20 stats and Fudge. I don't play either of those, so I can't say how well done they are. If its anything like the quality of the rest of the book, they are superb.

In all, it was 30 bucks well spent. I'll use this a lot.

Terrain Boards

Last night, I started on my Terrain Board project. I gathered up some foam-core. Wow, its gone up since I last worked with it. $2.89 each at Target. So, 4 sheets purchased. I am making this map.

So, I started with the cliff to the north. In scale, its about 15 feet tall. So 3 inches. I figured paper mache would be the way to go. Plus, my 10 year old girl seemed to have fun with the whole "mess" aspect of it. I miscalculated or something. The "hill" never got rigid enough to build on at all. The foam-board warped like mad too. Damn. The results are totally un-usable. I guess plan B is some sort of styro-foam.

I do want to build all the terrain out of paper if possible though. You know, paper mini's, paper terrain... its a theme. I'll keep ya posted.

Hired Gun Figure

Well, I actually got one finished. I'm not sure if its too dark or not. I built one, just to check my work.  One issue is that I'm unsure on the scale. It measures out to 30mm to the eyes, both in GIMP and printed and based. I dunno. Seems small to me. In any case, I'm starting to move on my miniatures project again. I've got my coloring style figured out. Finally.

Here it is based... I kinda left my built terrain pieces over at the Gaming Place. Oops. So no cool little vignette this time....

 Oh, yeah... If you aren't aware of OneMonk, you'll need to know how to base these. Here is a link to some free bases. Pretty self explanatory.  Bases  Be sure and check out the rest of the site while you're there. Very cool stuff if you like paper figures.

Here is the finished miniature. Like I said before, I'm seeing the scale as correct but it looks small to me. Oh well, rulers don't lie.
It looks like this...

New Western Figures

I think I've decided on the style I want to make my figures with. I watched Open Range again tonight, and a movie called Appaloosa. That inspired this.

I Hate D&D

I've got to be honest. I do. I HATE it.

I've been so disappointed with the game since the late 80's I have to talk myself in to even playing it.  Even if there is going be an excellent GM running it.  So, if I've sat at your table and played D&D or AD&D with you, I think you're an awesome GM.

At one time, I could quote you long passages of the Dungeon Master's Guide. I knew it backwards and forward. I knew AC, Hit Dice, and Treasure Type of hundreds of monsters. I loved the game. I studied that book. Hell, I even had a special "bathroom copy" I read on the toilet.

It was like.. those of us that played had some kind of arcane knowledge. It was so amazing and wondrous. I remember my first set of dice. They looked like gems lying there in my hand. I learned better English just from trying to decipher Gygaxian prose. Well, weirder English anyway.

One night, the game betrayed me though. It utterly destroyed one of my most dramatic in game moments.
I almost wept. This was in the days of Thac0 and non-weapon proficiency.  I realize, now,  that the campaign kill was totally my fault. Instead of letting the clunky, time wasting, boring combat system kill my scene,
I should have just winged it. I didn't know how. AD&D was all I knew.

"Rain poured down on the Tower roof, the clouds almost low enough to touch.  Flashes of lightning lit the midnight sky with almost a strobe effect. The Countess turned, her foul ritual interrupted, and readied her mace. Baron Kormar charged across the rain-slick stones of the watchtower, his hand and a half sword raised to strike the evil Cleric down...." 

And then... "roll d20."
"What you got?"
"16" 
"Okay that will hit... Damage?"
"ummm.... <rolls> I got a 6."
"umm.. okay  <makes 6 little tick marks> She's still got 47 hit-points left."


FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!


It was "Combat, The Whittling". They fought back and forth, paltry damage after paltry damage...for two and a half hours. All drama came to a screeching halt. After the first hour, I almost ruled that she got struck by lightning JUST SO IT COULD BE OVER!

But no, I didn't. I didn't want to rob my good friend of his chance to take her out. She had poisoned his people, burned his villages, blighted his crops, starving his province. She had addicted his army to magical drugs. She had spread vile lies at court about him, and turned his vassals against him. She had murdered his bride to be. I wanted him to strike the final blow. I remember the other players telling him, "Push her over the edge!...Jeez.. do Something! Just END THIS!"

"No!" He said, "I want to look her in the eyes when she dies!"

We played it by the book.

I tried to provide a narrative to the combat. I really did. For about the first 45 minutes. I described the sparks of the steel on steel, and the slippery footing, and the fear of the lightning. More even, the crashing blows, the low cuts, the dirty tricks... Hell,  I've read all of  R. E. Howard. I like swordplay. I studied Kinjitsu. After a while though,  I was just... tired. That was the culmination of a 2 year game. After that, no one wanted to play anymore that night. The next week, people had "stuff that came up" to do.

A week after that, I get a phone call, its Kormar's player. He's asking me
"Hey, is there another game we could play?"
"Like something with a deadlier, maybe more dramatic combat system?"
"No one wants to play AD&D now. Its like we were robbed."

So I started reading systems like normal people read novels. Trying to find something that would work.
I finally settled on a re-worked and re-fluffed Harnmaster. A lot of work. I wasn't ready to write my own system then. Honestly, I was but I didn't think I was.

We played that system for 13 years. Then, my "Break from Gaming" happened.

During my break, with all my traveling and living the life of a modern day cattle drive Cowboy, I fell in love with the Wild West.

Now days, if you show me a system that is class based, with hit-points, I just say no. No thank you.

Really, thank God for D&D. If it hadn't existed, none of the other games would have either. I wouldn't know about the amazing hobby that is Role-playing Games. All those that still love the game, more power to you. I'm just not interested in walking that path again. Ever.

Well okay, my Dad did buy me 2nd Edition Boot Hill to get me away from "all that weird sorcery sh!t" so I might have still been a gamer. I dunno. That's another post.