M is for Mucoids: Work-in-Progress (August, 2017)

More Work-in-Progress, this time a sample from a Wermspittle project that has been coming together nicely. The Palegator wasn't a fluke, there's a whole series of ABCs coming along. The old entry on the Mucoid (Fighter) is getting revised along with everything else going into this project since there are some peculiarities and special qualities worth mentioning and detailing for their use in Wermspittle such as their spells, lift-crystals, vicious gold-straws, and so on and so forth. The three main degenerate tribes and the remaining few Keepers of the Old Ways who hold vigil atop their yellow thrones within the ruins of the Cylinder-Keeps will be revealed in their dubious glory...

There will also be versions of the Mucoids in the new and improved, revised Space Age Sorcery (v.2). But those Mucoids will be of the starfaring, planet-invading and civilization-toppling tyrant variety noted for their cool, inhuman intellects and penchant for colonizing and changing entire worlds to suit them whims.

Raaaarrrr

Another sample for Volume 2. Again, the color-scheme may shift a bit as things get finalized...

Work-in-Progress (August 2017)

At the left is another of the Clatterdelve Wizards. It's a work-in-progress, so the color-scheme may shift a little bit as I get the other ones colorized and start comparing them against one another.

This is the Patron/Instigator/Employer who gathers together a band of ne'erdowells fools desperate adventurers heroes to explore a second passage that might lead to Clatterdelve...

We'll have more details on Clatterdelve in the weeks ahead. A local group recently play-tested the first installment and the feed-back was quite favorable.

Work-in-Progress: Little Tomb

A New Series of T-Shirts

I'm in the process of colorizing a series of 36+ images similar to the one I posted earlier. Each of them will become a T-shirt design, as well as featuring in an Adventure/Resource pdf of some sort, most likely for Labyrinth Lord.

HW 2017 Series One: Aadrille (1) T-Shirt

by hereticwerks

Work-In-Progress: A Little Color...

Experimenting with some coloration. My elbow is still a little stiff, but it's getting better everyday. What do you think of this panel? I have a whole series of these sitting on my desk. Think I'll color-up a few more...

Work-in-Progress: A Few New Geomorphs

So in-between bouts of drawing more monsters and getting some work done on Wermspittle, I've been tinkering around with some sketchy geomorphs, for example...

and...

and...

...all of which are works-in-progress and the final versions will no doubt undergo a few changes or revisions as things move along.

The first sample tile is part of a set that I've been building for Dave's Mapper off and on for a while now. The full set will be simple black and white, but I wanted to experiment a little with some gray tones toward the center of the tile.

The second sample-tile is for a set for what's beneath Wermspittle. The grays were dropped-in willy-nilly in order to test how it works--the final version will have a more coordinated gradation scheme and I may add-in a few more details. I was toying with the notion of converting all of these tiles over to a sepia-esque look, perhaps something like this...

...or not. Once the set is completed, I'll try-out some variations and will post a few more samples here to solicit some feedback.

The third sample-tile is part of a set of four I did while still a bit feverish and were intended for the Community Geomorph Project at the Save Vs Dragon blog. I'm not sure how well they'll fit into that effort, but if they aren't suitable, I'll use them as seed-morphs for building some new maps for something else.

Well, those give you some idea of what sort of geomorphs I have simmering on the back-burner. My main focus has been in getting a stockpile of new monsters drawn-up so that if I do go ahead and set-up a Patreon thingy, I have stuff already done and ready to go before I open it up. The goal for this was to have 500 sketches done before the end of the year and I've broken the 400-mark. I just might make this goal after all, which cheers me up a great deal since I lost quite a bit of productivity-time being sick these last few months. Since I'm feeling better, I'm getting more stuff done and hopefully I can get caught-up on a few projects that have been nagging at me. I'm happy to be making progress again and getting things done.

Oh and speaking of getting things done, I have some aliens coming out in the new OSR Quarterly, and will be sending Tim some critters for The Manor and I think there's another item on my To-Do list that ought to go out later today...so yeah...it feels good to get things done and out. Very good.

Work-in-Progress: T'zugri

---

My hands feel good today, so I'm getting things done for a change, which makes me very happy.
The piece above is still getting touched-up a bit, but it gives you a fair idea of what this strange little thing is going to look like when it goes out in the next little bit. T'zugri is a smaller-scale setting like what Jack has been telling me to do, so well, I'm doing it. Finally.

I'm also working on a pdf for the Trinkets & Trash entries from Wermspittle (with some fresh new entries to make it worth the while) and the first Little Brown Journal is nearing completion as well, again that will include some fresh, new content and not just be some stuff scraped off of the blog. It is nice to be making some progress again...

Progress Report: July 2014

A Few of this week's Sketches

This month I managed to get a short-short story published over at 365 Tomorrows, posted another flash fiction piece inspired by a prompt from Ganymeder, and finally got all the links fixed and updated for Zeelia Episodes 1-20, as well as posting the Datadex/Appendix, and the entry for the Jarpha.

I'm going to be writing a slew of new eight-sentence-episodes for Series Two of Zeelia in the next couple of days, depending on how things go with a couple of other very time-consuming projects. The goal is to get back to posting weekly eight-sentence installments of Zeelia's continuing adventures every Saturday at my writing blog. Maybe I can get that going next week...fingers crossed.

In-between all the work on Zeelia, Bujilli (99 Episodes!), Charlotte, and the other serial currently under-production, I have a few more short stories about to go through the editorial wringer, so wish me luck. There's a couple of Wermspittle stories in the mix, and I'm working on some stuff for another site as well now that Gnosiomandus has left the Academy...I'll have more details on that in the coming weeks.

Last week I cleared-out some old designs from our Zazzle shops and uploaded a few new things, like the Stomper T-shirt...and a few things from some projects that'll be coming out in August (if all goes according to plan).

I'm still working on a few Hereticwerks projects as well...including the Octopo and Others Counter-set for Heroes & Other Worlds, A new character sheet, some more paper minis, Three New Mini-Dungeons, GL-2, Ghoulish Glyphs, and the first volume of the Blue Grimoire. I also uncovered my folder of AD&D articles that I did back in the day for Silver Griffin, including a few things that never got into print for whatever reason. I'm considering putting together an compilation pdf of this stuff...Or I might send some of it off to & Magazine.

GL-1: Taglar's Tomb (Revised & Expanded) has been doing pretty well over at RPGnow / DriveThruRPG. It looks like we're going to hit the beer-money mark just in time for my birthday, so we'll get a photo or two taken at our favorite local brew-pub as we toast all you wonderful people who have generously supported the ongoing silly-gamer-stuff we do here at Hereticwerks. Thank you, a million times over, thank you!

I also have an adventure that will be appearing in Tim Short's excellent RPG-zine The Manor issue 7...not sure if it will come out before the end of the month, but it was fun to do and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Tomorrow we begin Series Six for Bujilli with Episode 100, then I'm taking Friday off for my birthday. Posting will be a bit sporadic for the next couple of weeks as I wrap-up a lot of work offline in order to get some more projects completed and out there.

Bugs...

Here's a sample image from a series of nasty little bugs who live in the dim-spaces in-between the actual sewers, tunnels and cellars...and sometimes in-between the walls of particularly disreputable or dilapidated buildings...in Wermspittle and elsewhere. Not quite a cricket, not exactly a roach, they are an accidentally hybridized species who owe their unfortunate existence in no small part to random dumpings of Spectral Brine and other hazardous waste-products left behind by illicit distillers and the like. These verminous things fashion cuirasses from other creatures' cocoons or egg-husks and they are very adept at using mandible-sickles to catch and cut-off the antennae of their preferred insectine enemies...though they have developed a definite taste for the flesh of rats...which has led to some intense interstitial skirmishes between the two unter-factions...

A Quick Peek at my Workspace for Jack

This is a photo of my current work-in-progress this morning, not counting the writing-chores, editing, revision and lay-out stuff, but you get some idea of what I'm up to: Critters, counters, caverns, cut-up critters, mucoids...yeah, more mucoids...and Octopos, or rather Octosoldiers over there on the upper left.

Here's a web-friendly version of the raw scan of the sketchbook on the left...

If the counter set works out, we're going to look into converting some of them into tokens for one of the virtual table-top services, as well as convert a few into paper-miniatures.

Oh, I forgot to include the other dozen robots. Well, gotta leave something for next time...