One of a new range of Chibi styled Anthromorphic Adventurers from the talented and industrious hand of Andrew May.
Sculpted by Andrew May / Painted by Elizabeth Beckley
Because Medieval Fantasy Kawaii Antho Chibi is what the game was made for, here he is, all statted up and ready to run in your games of Warhammer Warhamster.
Name
Class
M
WS
BS
S
T
W
I
A
Ld
Int
Cl
Wp
Armour
Aslan
Paladin
4
6
6
4
4
3
6
3
9
9
9
9
Full Plate
+ Shield
Oathkeeper - Aslan's Sword, may cast Zone of Sanctuary every 4 turns, and Cure Light Injury once per turn (but may not move or fight in the same turn).
Aslan "The Iron Lyon" - is a fearless and powerful Lyon sworn to bring the Rule of Law to the Outlands. It is rumoured amongst the folk of the lands that he is in fact the True King of the Greatwood, who has taken to the road to rid the world of the forces of Chaos. There are some learned scholars that say Aslans real dominion lays far beyond the Veil of the World in another realm, and that both his power and destiny comes from far beyond this reality. Aslan himself would laugh at such nonsense, and offer the teller of such tall tales a pint of Nutbrown Beer so that ale may quell such foolish words. Loyal to his comrades, feared by his enemies, and always ready to lend a helping paw or raise a glass.
Battlecry: "Iron! Lyon! Zy-On!" Point Value: 103
Darth Vargr and Varlock Von Gefängnis (as I call them)
The Lion figure the wolf the bat and a bunch of others are available as part of the Sword & Tooth Kickstarter - just under 1 day to go - do it now! Anthro Chibi Warriors Go!
C R Brandon of got in touch a while back regarding designing some character sheets for his Heroes & Otherworlds RPG, Here's some photographs of the original art (pen and ink on bristol board)
Wizard Character Sheet
Adventurer Character Sheet
See I photographed them at wonky angles so you can see they are photos-of-objects rather than actual images and if you zoom in you can see the pencil marks left as sizing / crop marks. Ha!
The typographically aware old-schooler will recognise Stonehenge / Satans Minions typeface which I hand lettered on there for true old-school charm (the character sheet stat boxes were added and integrated digitally, with lots of overlapping elements and all that)
The game itself is a classic rules light fantasy RPG - Brandon cites Metagamings Melee & Wizard, which would become The Fantasy Trip (which I'm not all that familiar with) and Moldvay D&D Basic (which I am!). To me it feels a a bit like a slightly more D&D-ish Fighting Fantasy Introductory RPG, and as such contains all those essential late 1970s / early 80s fantasy motifs. The book contains a lot of black and white 'classic' fantasy art, and it would be amiss if I didn't mention much of it comes from the bold and adventurous pen of my good internet buddy Luigi Castellani.
Thank you to C R Brandon for the opportunity to illuminate part of his world of imagination and adventure! The final character sheets are currently being given away (for free!) as PDF dowloads at Heroes & Other Worlds
Welcome to Radio Free Magamund, wherein I listen to stuff whilst doing other things, then
write about it. Here we are listening to the third part of the audiobook of the novel of
the gamebook adaptation of Lone Wolf Legends: Eclipse of the Kai, by Joe Dever and John Grant, read by Edward DeSouza.
Vonotar control of a gang of Giaks, and into the Dungeons of Kaarg. Meeting the dark lord Zargana and blinded so he doesn't go mad looking at him. Zarganna has a kind of Dalek voice modulator, which kinds of work. Vonotar and creates a hallucination of Zargana as a genial old man, offering tea DeSouza voices him as a creakily well. Vonotar initiates himself into the evil Nadziranim magic through a weird psychosexual vampiric oedipal ritual with an old lady vampire. Freud and Crowley would approve.
Banedon stops for the night in a village, where his membership of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star ensures him food and lodgings for the night. DeSouza does a fine west-country accent, for the peasantry (sterotyping of westcountry folk as kindly cider drinking yokels is ever apparant) and his female impersonation (of an old dear) is no where near as jarring as that of the youthful Alyss. It is the music, however that bears most notice - a medieval feel strongly reminicent of Saltarello by Dead Can Dance from their 1990 album Aion (Aion/Aon - a coincidence surely?) Perhaps it's the specific medieval bagpipe instrument - undobtedly synthesised in the Lone Wolf soundtrack - this is a 'digital music sound track' after all and the jaunty rythem bubbles along nicely in the background and effectively conjours green fields and sackcloth...
Banedon leaves the village in the company of two children, in the direction of the Kai Monastry.
Back to Vonotar convinces to Zargana to attack on the Eve of Midsummer, as all the Kai lords will be in one place, and so can be wiped out all at once and so unable to rally he armies of Sommerland against the Dark Lords. We arrive at the Kai Monastry - accompanied by a bombastic synth fanfare to find preperations for the Feast under way, and Silent Wolf on kitchen duties.
Struck by the theme of hospitality which seems to run through this episode -
Banedons warm reception by peasants: one of rural, impoverished, domestic,
familial,
Vonotars other strange, hallucinatory, dungeonesque, manipulative and exotic, vampiric.
power,
Silent Wolf clumsy and inept preparations for the reception of guests at midsummer.
It's perhaps interesting that the PC-character Silent Wolf takes the part of the host, albeit a minor role, wheras both Banedon and Vonotar are guests. But it is the differences between these two magicians experiences that are the are the most striking, and the flipping between them seems to invite we consider the juxtaposition. The moral universe unfolds itself, and the kinds of experiences by the right (Vonotar) and left hand (Banedon) magicians paths manifest - domesticity being un-rewarded, but ultimately positive, ambition leading to debasement, but the inevitable attainment of power. There's also an underlying current of labour and hospitality given freely in Sommerlund, vs. enforced servitude in the Darklands. The grandiose and the rustic, on the one hand slavery and lack of identity contrasted with the Dark Lords, and on the other poor Tradesmen Blacksmiths and Journeymen Wizards clearly individuated with familial ties and an economy of reciprocation to bind them.
Meanwhile Silent Wolf, ever the underachiever, accidentally cuts himself with a knife - which excuses hm from his work, and he takes to slacking off in the woods, which he identifies with in a familial sense, his excessive, almost obsessive compulsive firewood picking interrupted by circling of the great, dark Zlaan beasts in the sky above. Fade to part four....
The year 1987 saw the release of a new breed of science fiction skirmish game, where big shoulderpadded future space warriors squared off against an angry, uncaring universe. No! not that one, this one:
Not Steve " Zenith" Yeovil's finest.
Laser Squad, for the ZX Spectrum (and later converted to a bunch of other stuff, including DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad) by Julian Gollop (probably most famous for the XCOM game series) & Ian Terry.
It's reasonably common knowledge in geekdom that Laser Squad is an implementation of Bryan Ansells 1980 tabletop skirmish game Laserburn, published by TTG.
Laserburn is a small-scale skirmish game, which in turn Bryan had based on western gunfighting rules. Ruleswise it contributes nothing to Games Workshops 1987 Warhammer 40k, published under the management of Bryan, which in background and equipment borrows concepts like the Red Redemption and The Imperium, power armour, dreadnaughts etc. Laserburn did however, go on to be briefly resurrected, edited, redressed and republished in GWs house organ White Dwarf as Confrontation.
Many of Julians early games owe the tabletop scene a great deal, Rebel Star is basically an implementation of Mark Millars Snapshot (itself a development of Traveller) and Chaos (recently kickstarted as Chaos Reborn) very loosely based on the Games Workshop board game Warlock, which also published it. When looking for a publisher for X-COM, Julian takes it to Micropose UK, where it is comissioned by none other than Stephen "Chainsaw Warrior / Chaos Marauders" Hand and Mike "Imagine /White Dwarf / Realm of Chaos Editor" Brunton.
But that's all in the future. Back to the 8bit, let's compare and contrast some character data between Laserburn and Laser Squad:
Laserburn Character Sheet
Laser Squad Character Info Screen
The basic 3-stat WS / CC / I (or AG). The Action Point system, armour locations,
The Instruction Manual reads like a rules-light wargame from the 1970s, all the data seems to be there, but somehow actually making a game out of it seems an impossible task. Fortunately you don't have to work it out, because you can play Laser Squad online here. or watch someone else laying it to get gist of it (hint: save your APs for overwatch / opportunity fire or whatever it is called):
It's actually a lot of fun for a turn based strategy game, the action flows really nicely and the UI is quite easy to get the hang of.
By the 1990s Atari ST / Amiga version, everything started to look a bit Rogue Trader, which is quite funny, considering.
Not-Beakie Marines attack Not-Daleks
while some aged copyright cyber-lawyer pulls his base face (via)
Laser Squad seems to have built a dedicated following, and garners much positive nostlagia, there's Russian game editors, people reverse engineering it, mobile versions, a long faded MMOSCG (Massive Multiplayer Online Skirmish Combat Game) and various android, remakes and the such ( Laser-squad.co.uk being the best palce for updates and whatnot) which is cool, because it basically is Jullians house-ruled version of Laserburn being kept alive on digital platforms.
Haven't looked at Jullians XCOM series just yet (time), but it is widely recognised to have been based on Laser Squad (and indeed was pitched as Laser Squad II), and could well retain some of its Laserburn heritage, but unfortunately not 16-bit Rogue Trader Space Marines, nor Confrontation style new-romantic punk gangers... now wouldn't that be a thing...
Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 108: Sewer Skirmish!
-
Hi!
I managed to play another game of Planet 28 yesterday evening featuring
Vash and an ad hoc team exploring the sewers under Freeport City in search
...
Blog posts I would put in a gamebooks textbook
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Hello gamebook team!
How are things going? I'm going to try to get a regular weekly schedule.
I'm just feeling out what to write as well as whether a bl...
Counterfeit Map & Dice Playing Cards
-
I’m finding pirated copies of my Inked Adventures Map & Dice playing cards.
They even use my own product photos. The following sites are NOT legitimate
sel...
Starfaring in Moves Magazine
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In a comment to a previous post, James Mishler asked me to post the review
of Ken St. Andre's science fiction RPG, *Starfaring, *that appeared in
issue #...
World Eaters : Land Raider
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Hello everyone! Second and last article regarding heavy support for the
legion. The 3D printing stroke again and still as efficiant in termes of
overall ...
Our Heroic Age
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*This post first appeared in 2015...*
Though we played a lot of fantasy games (mostly AD&D) in my middle and high
school years--probably more than anyth...
Killing no murder?
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It was a Victorian setting, and the player-characters had pursued a mad
scientist to the top of the world. (There's something about mad scientists
and th...
Miniatures for Star Wars: Lando
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The comic *Star Wars: Lando *is the greatest Star Wars movie that's never
been made. It's a perfect script for a tight, 90-minute adventure film: To
cle...
Welcome to Zone 3 - a New Backdrop
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A new backdrop for my miniatures photography is long overdue! The last one
I made was back in 2019, and I could do with another location for a bit of
var...
Dahyak Grekh, Kroot tracker - Blackstone Fortress
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Alright people, so here's a new character for BSF ! I've decided to look at
the Xenos and prepared both Dahyak and Ammallyn but running out of some
colou...
Stargrave Town: Mos Xcellent
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I’m excited about the upcoming release of Stargrave, so I dropped
everything else that I was working on for a while, struck while enthusiasm
was high, and ...
A Date for Monsters! Monsters! Monsters! Galore
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Everything leaves a trace. That's been my guiding principle researching the
history of early wargames and role-playing games: any commercial product
t...
Cult of the New Colossus: Beauty of the Beast
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*Brother Olaus Wermius Augustine surveyed the scene before him, eyes bright
with both academic fervour and the reflected light of the pallid moon that
wa...
Soporific Sorcery - Sarcophagus Symphony II (2010)
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There is a valley in a distant land, and standing far below those drifting
sands, a dead forgotten pharaoh dreams in endless slumber. Surrounding the
sa...
Agrat the C27 Goblin Fanatic.
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Goblins...
...ah yes, Goblins. Got to love them (well, I do anyway). I have shamefully
neglected my Goblins for some time, and that's not a good thing to...
GREEN STUFF AND SPAM
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Not a Dr. Suess book, but a post warning I've introduced Captcha to my
comments after a barrage of spam (I was warned by Thansants, and should
have paid...
B/X House Rules: Potion Miscibility
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In working on the layout for Fang, Faith, and Legerdemain, I realized I
had waaaaay too much room for illustrations in the Alchemy section. So I
asked m...
On time running out
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I've been live streaming for 19 hours. I will continue to do so for another
10!!
My Kickstarter just crossed 12.8k!!! Don't miss out.
You will be sad. Y...
A first stab at the megadungeon campaign
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A couple of weeks ago, some of our regular players couldn't make our daily
D&D session. I decided that this was an opportunity to start up the episodic...
The Spine of Night Premiering at SXSW Tonight!
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*The Spine of Night* will be premiering tonight at *SXSW*. I am extremely
excited about this one! If the past output from Morgan King/Gorgonaut has
been ...
The Management Regrets To Announce...
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The Management of this little confection deeply regrets to announce the
passing of Captain Sir Thomas Moore, late of the Duke of Wellington's
Regiment. Mo...
The Best of the Journal: The Pettigrew Selections
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Mark Pettigrew wrote the delightful swashbuckling role-playing game,
Flashing Blades. He also wrote two Tekumel adventures, A Jakallan Intrigue
and The Tom...
The Legion of Sérqu: Sword of the Empire
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It took me much too long to paint 68 of the gorgeous Tekumel Club figures
for the Legion of Sérqu: Sword of the Empire. Once again, Howard Fielding
has don...
What happened to 2020?
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Sadly, my Tekumel gaming hit a speed bump when I discovered that 54mm
"scale" does not necessarily mean 54 actual millimeters, and that "54mm
scale" manu...
What is so Special About The Story of Jasmine?
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The Story of Jasmine is truly unique and remarkable—not only from the
standpoint of the story being told but from other key aspects as well. I
thought...
Alignment II: Complications and Excuses
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Revisiting my musings on the D&D concept of alignment ten years ago, I
stand by the observation that conceptually, it's a mess. Is alignment:
* A force t...
The Saints will Eat You
-
*The Sphere in Judgement, a common motif in the art of the Western Church,
by Chris Huth *
James at Grognardia recently made a post about his use of sai...
I Forged a Hero!
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OK, so I used Hero Forge Custom Miniatures to create my own custom mini
using their library of virtual bits and bobs. I know they've been around
for a co...
While the Toys Were Out
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Straying from the orc theme, but in the spirit of Halloween, here's my
Undead army...
Currently they weigh in around 1750 points. I've got enough zombie...
Oldhammer Fun: My "Citadel Colour" Paints
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*My private little collection of Citadel Colour paints is all I need. Well,
that and a few good brushes.*
Warning: This is another frothy Oldhammer Blog p...
Gog (1954)
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So I've been wrestling with Blogger like it was Hal from 2001 but I think I
now have control back with out having to pull out it's memory
chips....althou...
Gardens of Hecate Studio
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*D*ear readers,
You are looking at the final post of this blog. It's been going for more
than eight years, and time has come for it to shut down... Because...
The White Dwarf Covers Compendium
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Here are all the White Dwarf covers, from issue 1 to 106 (when I stopped
buying it), arranged and listed next to their credited artist. It’s a
veritable fe...
Circular Argument
-
Magic resistance in AD&D is not *very* precisely defined, although it’s not
too bad compared to some rules. It is initially covered in the Monster
Manual...
Imperial Wolfbane Commandos
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Last time I went to visit the great sho3box he treated me to a day out at
Prince August – Ireland’s finest toy soldier factory. It was the greatest
day e...
Citadel Ad&d Gnolls Part I
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Here’s my taken on the Citadel Ad&d Gnolls, c.1985 I did the Halberders
first in honour of Gary Gygax. Next up, the battle-axers.
The Void
-
*Void, the spaces between galaxy filaments that contain no galaxies. Void,
a pore that remains unoccupied in a composite material. Void, synonym for
vac...
Blood Sundown Review
-
I've actually been running games recently! Bully for me. I decided that I'd
start reviewing the products I actually use - this was my first review on
Drive...
Gen Con 2019 - Pictures and Brief Recap
-
Last August me and my local gaming pals, Steve Ellis and Matt Ryan, made a
road trip to Gen Con. Steve is an artist who does the excellent Only Living
Boy ...
Dark Crystal TV Show
-
*Edit: I have changed my mind drastically about this show. I plan on
writing a follow-up sometime soon, but after watching the rest of episode
1, I watched...
Class Wargames Admires Red Vienna
-
“Every month my grandmother used to say, like a kind of mantra, ‘What an
enormous amount of freedom we have gained’.” – Jutta Schwarz Taste of
Power: the g...
Trial by Dice – Crush the Demoniac
-
Has your life felt empty and worthless since last years Trial By Dice
tournament? Have things not been quite the same since you last heard the
ring of batt...
We've Moved
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Hey all, just to update you guys The Duke has officially moved to be part
of my other site Unboxed the Board Game Blog. You can continue to follow me
over ...
[chapter 2]
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The children’s names were Abdan and Mershi. Preteens, traumatized. Everyone
helped, but Mazi turned out to be surprisingly good with them. Jase started
tea...
Bestiary of the Fabled Occident
-
A long time ago I started to put together a bestiary. I've pursued various
other projects in the time since but I still have a fair bit of material
I'd lik...
Dernier article
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Hé oui, c'est le fin de Chaotica Cloaquis, sur Canalblog.
En effet, après dix ans de bons et loyaux services, je vais quitter cette
plateforme pour Blogg...
Game Testing a Simple 40k Ruleset for Epic
-
I've got a nice little set of Epic sized space marines. They're basically
painted up as Space Wolves and Emperor's Children. Since my last post on
the to...
Iain Lovecraft, 3D Sculptor
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Nope, it's got nothing to do with Cthulhu. I just did a video conversation
with Iain Lovecraft, who designs 3D miniatures and terrain. If you're not
doin...
Blink Dogs
-
AD&D Blink DogsThis month I have been entirely focused on sorting through
my storage and rebasing all my figures to Renedra 25mm bases. Boring
stuff. So...
Averaigne royal family
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Every kingdom has a royal family. In the case of my campaign setting of
Averaigne, it's a fairly young kingdom but they are still on their eleventh
king in...
How can We Destroy this Campaign World?
-
d12
1. You must trick a bard into strumming the *Chords of Fate* on the *Lute
of Annihilation*
2. Legends tell of thermonuclear weapons beneath megadungeo...
TV remote Landspeeder
-
It has been a long while since I updated, as I've had my hands full with
work. However, I took a few hours off last weekend to participate in
July's "Tr...
Long Time No Blog: Purchases At Carronade
-
It's been a long time since I posted, I know, but the following video about
my purchases at the Carronade show in Falkirk will hopefully assure you all
tha...
The Gates of Death
-
Remember how I started the last entry, for *The Port of Peril*?
Of course you do, you read this blog every day.
The _____ of _____. It's back for this late...
The Orchid Club
-
Bral caters to almost every vice, from grand scale corruption, via most
types of imaginable gambling, to lotus addiction, with each sin having its
own v...
Citadel Spectres and Skeletons
-
I - III [remastered] by Spectral Kingdom
FEAR not loyal reader, the prolonged absence since my last post is not
indicative of a weakening resolve regarding ...
Citadel Spectres and Skeletons
-
I - III [remastered] by Spectral Kingdom
FEAR not loyal reader, the prolonged absence since my last post is not
indicative of a weakening resolve regarding ...
Can I have too much stuff, I don't need?
-
Well, today has turned into a day of not doing particularly anything due to
snow which fell over night and continues to fall. So, I find myself with
time t...
-
This is the entry for Harry Scott (age 10) for the Monster Man monster
design contest...
*WERETIGER-SHARK*
Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armour ...
Empire of the Petal Throne!
-
The new hardcover and softcover editions of Empire of the Petal Throne
arrived and are available now at DriveThruRPG.com! Here’s a link:
http://www.driveth...
Portfolio Images from an old CD from a while ago
-
This one contains some game art, a few 3d images I created from 3d CAD
models, some 2d line art drawings etc. Again, fun work!
Air Warrior pilot wing...
That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie...
-
...and in strange aeons, even this blog may be updated.
Believe or not I have a half-written post for* Temple of Terror *that I
intend to complete and publ...
Interesting, Extended Review of WFRP1e
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So, I'm not on this blog much. Or blogging much at all, neither here or on
my main blog. I've been running some Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e - The
Warlock...
A solitary Heroquest fimir
-
The handsome fellows over on the Scale Creep blog invited me to join their
Heroquest Hero Quest and I could hardly turn them down. After all, I
had already...
Army Builder: WFB3 - v2.5
-
Version 2.5 of the WFB3 army builder data files have been published. They
can be downloaded through a licensed Army Builder or at the link below.
Just open...
long awaited Aequatherium scenario.
-
I must admit that I've had this one sitting around for a while but have had
other distractions to contend with. The rules for the figures can be found
on t...
Our bags are packed for the Pacific Northwest
-
The summer seems to be rushing by. I think it feels like that because we
haven’t really had any summer yet. I know, I know, some of you have been
having RE...
Paper Experiments
-
I tried playing with a limited color palatte and a reduced number of images
today. Everything else was open to whatever I wanted to do; I just couldn't
use...
Challenger and IT Terrain.
-
Odd how things coalesced, and one day can define years to come...
Occasionally in this Life in Miniature, I 'be been around successful
protects, at GW lat...
-
Prohibition has ended and so has the shortage of AFS back issues! While
supplies last all 6 issues are available as I recently did a re-print run,
had thes...
-
Not going to be maintaining the FF blog on Google anymore. Mainly because
of this which seems to be the thin end of the wedge.
http://www.theguardian.co...
ECHOLALIACS
-
*Number Appearing:* 2-8
*Size:* 10' to peak of cone
*Armor:* Rolls of thick, dense hide as plate armor
*Resilience:* As 8 human warriors
*Intelligence:* St...
What Happened to VHS Archive?!
-
Some of you may have been wondering, and some of you may not have even
noticed, but VHS Archive has pretty much ceased to operate. I live in
Seattle where ...
I'M BACK!!!
-
Hello everyone I'm back, I am actually still alive and able to paint. Sorry
for the huge absence, last year was fairly shitty and since then I've
completel...
¡Otro dragón en Birmingham!
-
El 5 de Septiembre de 1981 Ian será el encargado de oficiar como maestro de
ceremonias en la apertura de la tercera tienda oficial de Games Workshop...
DIY Paint Station/Hobby Board.
-
Yay! Finally got something done to post about. My old board that I use to
paint and construct my miniatures on started life as a sort of temporary
coffee t...
A Ruined Castle of Aventurien
-
Another map courtesy of *Das Schwarze Auge*, in this case, a ruined keep on
the water. I imagine the keep above plagued by skeletons and the ghosts,
rat...
Interesting Places: Tomb of Yekelil
-
Today's map is dedicated to all my Internet friends who hate blue maps.
This map revisits last year's map of the Tomb of Yekelil, one of the many
levels w...