New releases and other cool stuff I worked on you should go check out....

First awesome thing off the bat is Convention Book: Progenitors. The second Technocracy book I've AD'd (well 95% of it) and designed released today on DTRPG. You can pick it up in both PoD and PDF formats. 

Worked with some really great artists on this project including Vince Locke, Andy Trabbold, Alex Sheikman, Joel Biske and Cathy Wilkins.

Scary thing is this book came out about 19 years ago....I remember packing these into about 1000 individual Barnes and Noble store orders. Ahh...the olden days when I had hair down to my butt.

This one released a month ago, but it's still a pretty cool looking book if I do say so myself. Mummy the Curse is actually the first core book I've AD'd since Hunter the Vigil back in 2008. 

The book was designed by my buddy Craig Grant and we both handled the layout duties (he handled the Player's half, I handled the Storyteller half). 

I'm hoping that I'll have a shot of the limited edition cover in the near future. Jpgs of covers are great, but nothing beats a photo of the genuine article.

You can pick up Mummy on DTRPG as well...in both digital and PoD formats.

And last but certainly not least, Scion Extras. This is the April Fool product Onyx Path did this year. 

The artwork was done by Brian Leblanc and Jeff Holt...and of course I was the AD and Layout dude. The PDF is available for free on DTRPG at the moment, so go check it out. Seriously, free and full color....go check it out.

That's all until next week...I should have another pile of stuff to post up....I've been busy.

Saturday Nights Alright for Pencilling....

Pop quiz hot shot:

What thrash metal band did a cover of Elton John's Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting?

Now onto artsy stuff. Spent a good chunk of Saturday night refining the pencils for two Pimp cards...France and the Neutron Bomb.

Pretty happy with the France piece.

He went from looking like a cartoony Saddam Hussein to a cartoony French guy in only 3 sketches and 3 pencil attempts.

In case you are wondering what the hell that all meant, here is "my process".

1. Sketch out a few ideas.
2. Go play video games or paint minis.
3. Come back and look at sketches a few hours later.
4. Pick one, grab light table and start "refinement".
5. Once sketch is refined enough, get distracted with "work" and leave it alone for 5-7 days.
6. Pick pencils back up on Saturday and break out light table again...and refine some more.
7. After three more refinements, it is ready.
8. Remark that holy crap it is after 11.
9. Proceed to next piece.

Pretty awesome. Normally, I'll only do a few refinements, but this style is outside my normal work style...so it needed some more love.

Next is the Neutron Bomb. I sort of envision this one as more of just an object rather than a scene...so I kept is simple. It will probably go through one more phase of "refinement" just so all the seams look right. Normally, this would be a cut and dry sort of thing...but more than likely I'll turn the object into more of a scene...although I really don't want to draw motion lines or anything like that.

So there you have it. This is what I did last night (and part of this afternoon).

Sketch'ning: The New Era

The sketch for the Paris card I'm doing for Pimp. The figure himself needs a little more work...broader shoulders mainly. I also need to add a nicer Eiffel Tower in the back...which I'll probably cheat and throw a photo in there to get the proportions right.

Once that is all done, I'll go to the light table and get the final version done.

Vampirez'd

Out last week on DTRPG...Silent Knife.

This is the first WoD novel that I designed for PoD, PDF, Epub, and Mobi formats. Needless to say, quite a bit of trial and error but in the end it all came together nicely.

So, if you find yourself in need of something to read...or if you know someone who is getting an Ipad or Kindle for Xmas, why not go and pick up Silent Knife. C'mon...it has the word Knife in the title. That is enough for Chad Brown to be all over that thing.

Yes, as a matter of fact I can do cutesy art....

Back in October, I was asked to do artwork for a children's app for Christmas. I know what you are thinking..."Mike you do children oriented artwork all the time...this should be easy". Well, you are kind of right. I have always love cartoons...I grew up watching Looney Tunes every morning before and after school. Heck, I still watch them whenever they are on.

But, after about 20 years of drawing guns and monsters (and getting payed to do it) I jumped at the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary for me. Granted, I've done some illo work in the "cartoony" style, but that had been for goofy one off gags for Mwahahaha! and assorted goofiness at the White Wolf offices (although, I never got to make the "How to use the Bathroom Correctly starring the Wizz'rd" and lord knows it would have been useful there). All of this artwork was influenced by my love of Christmas specials from the 70s and 80s (Garfield's Christmas Special was a tour de force when you are a kid). I also brought in some influences from some modern cartoons such as Adventure Time, Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Dexter's Laboratory, & Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (and yes, I still watch all of them on Cartoon Network and Boomerang).

All of the artwork you see here orginally started out as a pencil drawing which I then "inked" and colored in Illustrator. Up until that time, I had used Illustrator primarily as a tool to create logos and simple graphics and icons, but never full blow artwork. Luckily, Craig Grant posted a link to a Youtube video that would turn out to be my Rosetta Stone for Illustrator. Seriously, I will whip out Illustrator at the drop of a hat now...the hell with Photoshop.

What I think set this illustration gig apart from many others is I had a lot of fun doing it. I haven't had this much fun drawing something since I did Freak Legion back in "the Olden Tymes". I'm really hoping to get the chance to do some more art in this style. Got my fingers crossed.

Need some holiday reading?

If you are like me, you don't want to be anywhere near a store, mall, outlet, or market of any kind over the next couple of days. Why not spend it curled up with a nice book (or vitual one for whatever tablet/e-reader you might have). What's that? What book should you be reading?

May I suggest the God-Machine Chronicle? Well, I'm gonna anyway. 

Go check it out.

Deadlands'd...

My first project for Pinnacle is out today...well in PDF form anyway. I did the layout and some cartography for this particular book (I did a map and it's more of an artifact that an actual map).

The book has some fantastic art on the inside as well as the cover. And the format gave me a chance to do some cool stuff that I don't get to normally do (although if you have the SAS version of Falling Scales 2 I did manage to slip some of that in there as well). Let's just say after this book, I really love the gradient feather effect in Indesign.

So, if you have the time and a couple of bucks to spare, why not go and treat  yourself. Hopefully, I'll be doing a lot more of these in the future.