Quickie - Oh Yeaahh!

‘Kay, dumb story:

Over on the D&D message boards, amongst the whine and revelry surrounding 4th edition D&D, some board member used the term “4th edition Kool-Aid” to describe posts that are saccharine sweet on the prospect of 4th edition, and some other poster was like, “We need a picture of this.” Now, I actually like the prospect of 4e and hope it’s going to be a cool game, but the immediate mental imprint I got from the idea was too corny to pass up. So, to my fellow RPG message board junkies:

So… yeah.  A kool-aid man beholder.  With little ice-cube eyeballs.  Someone obviously needs to shoot me.   Also, I have to go shovel myself out of the driveway now, which is even more lame.

Quickie - Renfield

 

Also maybe a Ravenloft character that I will be playing…

Quickie - RuneQuest pics

Here’s some more work I just wrapped up for Mongoose Publishing’s RuneQuest. I’ll add these to the main site as soon as I get around to making room for them. I haven’t decided whether I want to shrink down all the thumbnails or just do some site reformatting and divide my work up into pages.

No comic this week - I was doing these instead. I’ve got some new stuff kicking around, and more comics coming up, so stay tuned.

Michael Whelan lecture

Well, I just got back from a lecture in Danbury, CT by fantasy/science fiction illustrator Michael Whelan. I’m afraid I really didn’t get to introduce myself or anything thanks to being in a line of people impatiently waiting to get their books signed, but I did get to say hi and listen in on a great talk.

His slide lecture focused pretty much on his career and his thought processes behind a lot of his paintings. What struck me was that in every painting he does he seems to add some secret personal meaning to it to keep himself invested in it. For instance, he came to a slide of a horror story cover he’d done in 1980 and explained how, even though on the surface it’s just a horror story cover, to him it represented a rough time in his life, and there were little vignettes and personal messages seeded throughout the image that meant things to him, even though to everyone else, it was essentially a skull with some smoke pouring out of it. Maybe it’s little obvious to some people, but I thought this idea of “secret meanings” was pretty interesting.

Anyways, if you haven’t checked out Michael Whelan, he’s an awesome painter and in all respects seems to be a genuinely nice guy, so here’s his website link: http://www.michaelwhelan.com/. I meant to ask him a bit about his technique, but I’m pretty sure one of the sci-fi fans behind me was going to beat me with her copy of The Dark Tower that she wanted autographed, so I thought better of it.

In other news, I’m currently working on some more illustrations for Mongoose Publishing’s RuneQuest, so stay tuned for those later this week.

Enjoying: How hilarious the internet is. Especially the three comments and the corresponding three 5-star ratings.
Anticipating: Some RPGin’ next month!
Studying: some books on Pre-Raphaelite painters I got from my local public library

The universe is flux. Life is opinion.

Nerdvana - P.C. PCs

I’m usually not very political at all, but I wasn’t old enough to have an opinion when this sort of thing was getting talked about in the 80’s, so I guess I’m retroactively getting it out of my system. This is apropos the recent change of the cover of D&D’s upcoming Player’s Handbook because one of the heroes on the cover is a tiefling, which, for those unfamiliar with the geek parlance, is a demony-lookin’-guy. I actually support the change in cover, not because of the tiefling, but because the same artist is doing the new cover, which means I get to see more of his work, which is great. I can also understand WotC’s decision, since they are, you know, a business and do well to listen to their vendors when they voice concerns about whether or not something will be popular, which I read was the reason for the switch. Really the issue and the subsequent message board discussions just got my mental wheels turning about the nature of personal offense. I think my own stance is that it’s possible to keep one’s faith and one’s imagination in separate, well-labeled boxes.

Nerdvana - Ch-ch-ch-changes

The barrage of nerd in-jokes continues.  The font is a tad too small to read without the help of special ocular implants, so unless you’re Steve Austin, you’re going to have to click on the preview image to read it.  A brief forewarning, if the word “eladrin” means nothing to you, you’re not liable to take much away from this one.  Actually, that’s not true.  My dad liked the part about the sideburns.

Nerdvana - Your thoughts betray you

I guess this one has a slightly broader appeal than the last one. I had to explain to a couple people why the bad lady with the ‘fro was bisecting those poor rats. Nobody call PETA. Anyways, a proper blog entry to come soon, promise.

Nerdvana - Twink outside the Box

If you don’t get this, don’t worry. It’s either because you don’t play Dungeons and Dragons or because you haven’t played long enough to abuse the rules in an attempt to gain imaginary power at the expense of self-respect. Or because you don’t know what an iPod is, in which case, like, wow, where have you been?

Nerdvana - The Heirarchy of Accessibility

 

 

This is an observation I’ve made, not just in my group of nerd friends, but amongst nerds at large.

 

The nerd friend depicted on the right was born on this day. It occurs to me that although I got the date right, the age eludes me. However old you are, Happy Birthday Jane. You should go check out some of her work.

Nerdvana- She has a wonderful personality