BBQ Meatballs Fantasy Style...

+Bryan Fazekas  of the +& Publishing Group  asked if I could come up with an idea for one of his articles entitled "Gaming Gourmet" which will see publication in & Magazine issue 10 due in august. It is an article feature in which a real recipe is given and then a "fantasy" picture usually accompanies it to go along with the theme. 

I drew up several thumbnails today while at work and thought I would post up the one that I liked the most and see what any of you had to say about it.

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This is a VERY rough sketch and in the next few days I will be fleshing it out and inking it. My thought here was to have "some sort" of giant creature roasting his "BBQ meatballs and sausage" over an open fire. He would have had to find something large enough to skewer the beholders and the purple worm, and so what better thing to use than a bent over and broken pine tree. They are readily available in any fantasy setting and would work out as a decent skewer for such a big guy. 

I am not sure I will keep the pose of him, but it is quite funny having him in just shadow and the "BBQ" in full detail. I will have to decide. With thoughts about where the lighting will be coming from (ie fire), he would probably be illuminated slightly from the front, which would require a bit more work. 

Overall I am happy with the layout and concept. Let me know what you think. 

Thanks for looking, thanks for the +'s and comments always welcome. 

Roving Eye Tavern Isometric

This third installment of the isometric "domiciles" from & Magazine Issue 9 is of the Roving Eye Tavern. A simple dive of an eating and drinking establishment. The front tap-room has enough sitting room, and a small bar with accompanying kegs. There is a hearth for warming and place for the "bouncer" to sit. 

The back room has a kitchen with cooking hearth, and plenty of counter space for chopping and prepping. A stair in the back leads up to the owners and servants quarters and a door leads to a back alley where deliveries might be made. 

Again this Isometric comes from the article "Three Shops" by Jeff Bowes that was published in Issue 9, and I am told will be reformatted and published as a stand alone product that will be available in pdf form. Check & Publishing's website for more details in the coming weeks. 

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This being the third of my Isometrics, I used the lessons I learned from the first two in this one. The textures of the exterior are better, and the interior details are much more clean. The 1st level is simple, just a front room and a kitchen area. Again the stairway gave me fits in isometric style, but I am much more happy with it than with Proudfoot & Archer

Little touches make this building interesting, the rat in the keg room, the torches on the wall, and all of the kitchen accouterments work well. 

The upstairs isn't much dissimilar than that of Proudfoot & Archer, the beds are of the same style and the doors as well are wooden and simple in design. 

I wish I would have planned better on the page, so that I could have included more of the roof line and details, but for play-ability it wasn't necessary. The second level exterior I am very proud of, with the varied types of siding, and scale details under the front windows. The gables too work quite well. 

I hope you can use these in your games. 

Thanks for looking, comments always welcome. Thanks for all of the +'s they are appreciated.

Norwind Arms Exchange

This is the second of three posts dealing with the isometrics that I had published in & Magazine issue 9. The first Proudfoot & Archer detailed a "finders" shop, with secret door and upper story with living quarters and closet. I found that I learned alot about drawing in isometrics, including remembering some of the things that I learned in 9th grade technical drawing class. 

Things like making sure the page is well secured to the drawing board, not using a white eraser and letting the dust get under the T-square, all came back to haunt me in that first isometric. It was quite frustrating for me. 

With Norwind Arms Exchange from the same article by Jeff Bowes I was able to accomplish a lot more drawing in less time due to some of the things I either learned or remembered while working on Proudfoot & Archer. 

Norwind Arms took me about nine hours to complete and once I started it with a thumbnail sketch of what I wanted I quickly was able to get the full size isometric down on paper and work my way up the page. 

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The article states that the exchange was built against the outer wall of the city/keep and so adding the detailed back wall was fun, including the wooden support columns it added a bit of interesting detail that Proudfoot & Archer was lacking. I admit that it took longer than expected to fill in all of those stones but I think it was worth it in the overall finished product. 

I have to admit I made a mistake on this one at the wrong time, as ink was already put down and so much of the drawing was done that, with the deadline approaching, I wasn't able to re-draw the whole thing. No one has yet pointed it out, but if you look at the 1st level of the tower on the left, the elevation should not be there, and I ended up duplicating it with more detail in the elevation at the top. It sort of has that "see through" feel but it was definitely a mistake in the drawing process. 

This building is so wrought with detail it was difficult deciding what to put in each of the "counting rooms", The doors tended to obscure the rooms quite a bit, and to make it playable I had to get the "walls" in and still allow the DM/GM to be able to use it in game. I varied the type of doors in this building as well, whereas those in Proudfoot were all common doors made of wood, the exchange needed to have a sense of security so, iron bound doors and steel doors were also used. The vault room on the far right is just crammed full of commodities, including jewels hanging from the shelf and a few ledge books. 

I thought it was important to show ledgers in each of the rooms, as well as a coinage tray for counting. The main office near the rear of the building has a separate safe in the cabinet and a set of scales for measuring "raw" commodities. 

I am pretty proud of the elevation in this one as well. With the plaster chipping off of the lathe and the Post and Beam construction showing through. The metal laced windows suggest a very secure building, and the fact that the owner allows men-at-arms from the city/keep to patrol from his rooftop, was a touch that I added close to the end of the drawing. 

I think I am most unhappy with how I decided to render the exchange windows. The bars obscure the detail of the rooms beyond and look like they are floating in space. I am not sure how else I could have shown the fact that the common exchange clerks were protected behind bars, but I did the best I could come up with. 

I hope you like it and are able to use in in your games, I would love to hear about it if you do. 

Thanks for looking and comments are always welcome. 

Update: & Magazine will be publishing "Three Shops" supliment which details Norwind Arms Exchange, Proudfoot & Archer, and Roving Eye Tavern. I posted the cover for the supliment here. 

Del Teigeler gives permission to print, and/or photocopy for personal use the images on this blog post. 

Proud Foot and Archer Isometric

& Magazine issue 9 had me drawing three isometric floor plans. I know I have posted these before on G+ but those were not very high quality, and when perusing issue 9 I found them to be blurry and (to me) unacceptable for use in game etc. So, I present them again in a png format which when printed, blown up and viewed on large format screens tends to maintain detail better than jpg. 

The first one I did was Proudfoot & Archer, and the article was written by Jeff Bowes.

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I not only wanted to capture the floor plan for each of the "Domiciles" but also a feel for the exterior and each of the levels as discussed in the article. I have to say that being the first, this particular isometric took me forever to layout. It started in sketch form, just trying to get the feel that I wanted out of it, and then progressing. I actually did three different ones of this particular isometric before I settled on the one I was happy with. (I can post those up if there is interest.) 

I started with the very bottom of the image and worked my way up, as everything inside and outside of the building overlapped. The entire drawing took over twelve hours to complete over multiple days. I penciled everything in to start, and checked size relationships before final inking.

For the most part I winged it on what should be in the joint. As the article suggested these two "finders" essentially stole, or borrowed items to resell later. Everything from adventure gear, to weapons to rare magical finds. 

I am most happy with the back room where the items are strewn across that long table. And most unhappy with the stairway, I have found that stairs in isometric are very complicated to render. 

Ink covered everything and then I went back in with black prismacolor colored pencil for shading and textures. 

Hope you like it and are able to use it in one of your gaming session. 

Thanks for looking, comments are always welcome. 

What Mimics Mimic

     It is interesting when we think about what in the dungeon environment that the creature known as a Mimic can actually mimic. In an article coming soon in & Magazine "Why Solids Don't Understand", by +Michael Corrinet  describes in detail some of the interesting takes on what these creatures can turn into in order to confuddle and complicate an adventurer's life in many settings. 

The following art should accompany that article in issue 10 if the editor deems it appropriate. In my opinion it is not my best work, but it was another attempt at using shadows and whites and blacks. 

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It has a cartoonish feel to it, but that is not always a bad thing when it accompanies an article. A little whimsy goes along way when the art is quarter page. I like the way the shadow of the dwarf turned out, but the warrior leaves something to be desired. 

As with every piece of artwork there is always something that could be better. I would love to hear what you think, please put a comment in the spaces provided. 

....And check out & Magazine issue 10 when it publishes in August. 

Thanks for looking, comments always welcome.