Cthulhian Priests, A Group of Geeks and Kickstarters

Cthulhian Priests, A Group of Geeks and Kickstarters

So it has been a busy week for me working on kickstarters, painting Cthulhian Priests to get away from kickstarters and forming a new facebook group because I couldn't find one like it. 

 

 So I thought I would start things off by taking you through the process I did for the Cthulhian priest. The piece actually started many years ago and was a sketch from the first page of my travel sketch book!

So I took the face of that old sketch into photoshop and refined it as well as adding on a posed body. For some reason I was in a Nehru jacket mood so I designed his robe that way. I think it was because I was remembering a Weird Al Song.

Once the sketch was done I did a highly refined value painting of him. To get here I start of the values very softly and in general and then I slowly start tightening up the image into sharp details.

Then using an old photo as reference I took while down in la Jolla cove visiting some good friends I painted an alien world, because any good Lovecraftian will tell you that Cthulhu is just a powerful (godlike) alien and his race is called the Star Spawn. This guy is not Star Spawn but he is related!

I then start washing over the value painting with local or base colors for atmosphere and color balance. When I choose my base colors I am often looking for simultaneous contrast which is a fancy artist term for colors making each other look more vivid by being next to each other.

After laying out out the base colors I threw in a little pattern design to the robe to make it look richer.

 After the robes I start adding more color by adding warm color to the light side of my image and cool colors for the shadow sides of my image. This is one of my favorite parts because it helps bring the image to life!

Lastly comes the final touches, color adjustments, clean up, polishing and final little details! This painting took me all day and I needed that distraction from stress of Kickstarter work.

Toward the end of the week I was looking for Facebook groups to join and I wanted a group that was all about being a geek which I am proud to call myself through and through, but the sad panda cried because I could not find one. So what to do? Well create one of course!

I created We Be Geek to be a safe group in which geeks can share general geekiness with other fellow geeks. There are Facebook groups all over that are very specific in their geek interests, but I felt that a lot of geek interests overlap. By the 3rd day we have already gained 131 members! We talk about all kinds of things from video games, cult movie classics, roleplaying games, cool art, science and more! I have even set the rules for limited self-promotion as long as it is geeky in nature or can help geeks out!

If you become an active member you will also receive an official Geek card with your picture, name and Geek number! Everyone loves them! To get one all you have to do is be a member, be active and show you can get your Geek on! I will then make one for you!






So if you are on Facebook be sure to drop by the group, check out all the fun we are having and feel free to join! All are welcome!    We Be Geek!

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Last but not least, as some of you know or don't know is that for the past 27 days Nathan Maher and I have been running a kickstarter for the first expansion to the game Spooks! Welcome to the Great Beyond! The Kickstarter for Mortal Intrusion is to pay for the time that I can do the artwork, but the writing I am doing for free as I am the coauthor of the book this time! Good art takes time and time requires money which is why we are holding the kickstarter, not only will it be paying for the artwork but also for the publishing costs and goodies we are offering. We want to produce a quality product and while we have met our KS goal, it is only the barebones funds we need to really produce a high quality product so we need more funds.

 Be awesome in what you do and become a backer, share this blog or post in FB or do both to help us reach those stretch goals! Those who become financial backers get great rewards, but you better hurry because we only have about 3 days left!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask them!

From speed painting to full painting!

Back when I was doing the art for Spooks! Welcome to the Great Beyond, I had to do a lot of speed paintings to fill up the book because the budget was low and so it was decided to go economy with some of the art, so the book would not feel unbalanced in art. I am working artist so of course if you are good at something don't do it for free, but on the same token you want what you do look good and to be helpful. Some of those speed paintings, since by contract I still own full copyrights, I decided I would revisit and turn into something wonderful. The last two days I lived up to that promise to one of those pieces.

As many as you know I am a Lovecraftian who often brings in Lovecraftian work into my art. One of the speed paintings I did for Spooks! was a NPC portrait of H.P.Lovecraft which I wrote into the book. This painting took my approximately 30 minutes to do, but it would just one among many that I painted for the book. The NPCs in the book are all historic people painted to look like a variety of different Spooks. According the game, a person rises as a certain type of spook depending on how they died or lived their lives. In the case of Lovecraft, he died of cancer and the book states that most who die from disease rise as zombies.

I loved the speed paint that I did of Lovecraft, not only because he is one of my favorite authors but because painting zombies is fun as hell! So I decided to return and make it something special. Now I mentioned that painting zombies is fun and I will tell you why! Zombies are like old people in that they have so much detail and texture to their faces to the point that it is beautiful. It is like exploring a map to some unknown land. For this composition at first I planned on adding a ton of references to Lovecraft's work like him holding the Necronomicon, as well as a syringe holding the reanimator reagent, and tentacles hugging him around the shoulders, but then I decided that it would make the piece to busy and that I wanted to keep it simple and straight forward. I did however keep the necronomicon in the painting but it is shelved. The syringe design I was going for a steampunk quality but it was really inspired by the memory syringes from the movie Dark City.


If you have any questions about my art please feel free to ask!


Also don't forget to check out the Kickstarter for the first expansion to Spooks!Welcome to the Great Beyond. We need all the support we can get!

The Art of Mortal Intrusion

In my last blog entry I introduced our new kickstarter for Spooks! Mortal Intrusion. To this date we are currently 57% funded of our minimum goal but if we don't meet our minimum goal by the deadline then we don't get funded. In order to inspire everyone to be backers or at least supporters who will spread the word around I have created new character art for the game it self.

Introducing Espers, who are Divergents who are the psychic archetype of the game. Espers come in many varieties such as telepaths, telekinetics, pyrokenetics and many more. They are powerful but they are often hunted because common folk fear them and often mistake them as witches! To sweeten the deal I have created to speed videos of my painting process! So please enjoy them and if you are so inclined become a backer or helps spread the word or do both! Every little bit helps and the more we pull in the better the book will be!

A return to blogging and news of Spooks! Mortal Intrusion

               Hi everyone, I was to apologize from my absence of doing blog posts. Sometimes life can get very hectic and there is only so much time or energy I can gather to get thing done that I want done. I do want to return to have blog articles done on a regular basis.

Spooks! WTTGB: Mortal Intrusion

More money means more time I can work on art!

               I will start off by announcing a new Spooks! Welcome to the Great Beyond book called Mortal Intrusion is currently in the works, but not only am I the main artist again, but I am also the co-author. However, while the first book has been published it is a still a budding company, so we are turning to Kickstarter once again to help generate funds. We are doing this so that we have the time to work on the game  because time is money and that is what needed to complete the book! So please check out the Kickstarter video below, visit our Kickstarter page to become a backer by donating or if you can't donate then by spreading the word of our game because word of mouth is a powerful thing.
Spooks! WTTGB Mortal Intrusion KickStarter


Spooks! WTTGB & Mortal Intrusion
               If you don't already know, Spooks! Welcome to the Great Beyond is a game set in the afterlife and beyond where players take the roles of the deceased and have adventures because the afterlife wasn't what we expected at all! The game is a classless point buy skill game system allowing players to customize their characters anyway they see fit. While there are no traditional classes like you might find in games such as Dungeons and Dragons, but in a sense there are races like in D&D because in Spooks! you get to choose what type of dead spirit you rise as. Your character may be a skeleton, a ghost or even a vampire, but you are not just limited to those choices! Lastly the game is centered around being family friendly, educational because much of the content is based on actual Earth history and best of all your character can never die because you're already dead!



               Now comes along Spooks! Mortal Intrusion which is all about the more lively side of Spooks Welcome to the Great Beyond. In the first book we barely mentioned the living because the focus on on the dead, but of course our fans wanted to haunt and also wanted to play mortals, however we felt that the mortal side deserved its own book! In mortal intrusion you take on the role of Common Folk or Divergents, Divergents are human mortals who have extraordinary ability through either magical bloodlines or evolution. For example, you can player Divergents such as ESPers who are psychics and telekinetics or the mighty Zoonthropes which include Werewolves, but you are not limited to choosing that form for you could easily become lions, tigers, and bears . . . Oh My! In Mortal Intrusion you adventure both in the living world where you can experience the supernatural, clandestine agencies, and more, but not only that there are ways to crossover into the Great Beyond and still be alive and adventure there as well! However, unlike the core game, in Mortal Intrusion your character can and will probably die, it is just a matter of when it will happen, but do not worry because if you die then you just rise as the undead and keep on adventuring!

We are also holding a contest which is free and easy to enter and the prize is that you get to have your very own NPC (non player character) in the book which will have its own portrait and you get to decide what their personality will be like, what they are and what they look like! Follow the link to enter
Mortal Intrusion Contest!

               If you win then you get to have your own NPC (non-player character) that will be featured in the book who will play a role in the history of the book and have its own portrait. Plus you get to decide their personality, how they look and what kind of Spook or Divergent they are! Here is the catch though, there can be only one winner and the winner will either be on the Spooks side or the Mortal side. Entry is easy but winning can be hard.

**********Rules **********

1) To enter the contest you must have “liked” our official Spooks Welcome to the Great beyond Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/spooksrpg and “liked” either the “Vote Spooks” or the “Vote Mortals” photo. Voting for both sides or not voting for the page is grounds for disqualification.
2) To win the contest whatever “Vote for” photo gets the most likes will be the winning side. From the list of names from the “likes” on that winning photo we will randomly draw all eligible one winner.
3)The contest will starts today 2/12/2015 and ends on Saturday 3/21/2015.

**********Increasing your odds of winning:********* 

               The best way to increase your odds of winning is by making sure the side you vote for has the most votes! So if you want your side to win and increase your chances of winning then share this post and get your friends to enter the contest as well!

Ready to be a Spook?

I am proud to announce that I am part of a new and upcoming tabletop roleplaying game called Spooks Welcome to the Great Beyond by Nathan Reese Maher. Spooks is a family friendly RPG that is easy to learn and is set in the afterlife, but the afterlife isn't what we expected at all! The game can be learned in a manner of minutes but offer hundreds upon hundreds of hours of game play. In Spooks you can play a variety of spirits and undead which include Bhoots, Dolls, Ghosts, Vampires and much much more.  While playing these unearthly characters you can have them socialize in the great city of Necropolis, call out to the Spirit Realm for knowledge, or explore the Dream Realm for riches. My role in this game is that of the primary artist, but I have also help shaped the game. However, art is never free and Nathan needs your help in getting the funds to afford the art that he wants in the book for a quality gaming product.

This is where you can help, Nathan has started a kickstarter campaign with a minimum goal of only $3,000 but with a high goal of $13,000. The more that is donated the more art he can afford. For those of you who don't know Kickstarter is a fundraising campaign in which the general public can help by donating through their credit cards. Whatever you donate is not taken off your credit card until the both the goal is achieved and fundraising campaign is finished so it makes it fair for both sides. Help us by becoming a spooky backer and also help spread the word on your networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on.









Ways to Pay!
Normally payments are made to the Kickstarter Campaign through amazon which requires a creditcard, but did you know that a debit card with a sharecheck option on it will work just as well? Yes that is right you can use your debit card if it has one of those small Visa or Mastercard logos on it. Don't have a creditcard or a sharechek debit card? Then you can always pick up a prepaid credit card at Walmart or other fine stores which work just as well! So don't delay, help support our kickstarter today!

Help Show Your Support!
Help show your support of our kickstarter campaign by proudly sporting one of these cool Spooks! Avatars on your FB and forum accounts. Currently we have Bhoots and a Ghost but we will have four different Doll Avatars coming soon! Remember when they ask where you got so Spooky, just send them a link of this blog!

The Setting

The Setting of Spooks is of course set in the afterlife and it is a amalgamation of many if not all different cultural beliefs but with it's own unique foundation of what its society is like and has a strong emphasis on Egyptian lore. However, when the book is finished there will be a chapter about storytelling and in this chapter you will find that there can be more than one great beyond, so the setting will be very flexible to play the game YOU want to play! This allows you to have different flavors of campaign approaches. Perhaps you want to play a game similar to the movie Beatlejuice or maybe you want something closer to how the afterlife is in the movie Frighteners and have haunt or hunt haunt fest? Or perhaps you want something a little more Lovecraftian? 

In fact, we have plans that will be . . . infecting . . . Lovecraftian lore into the world of Spooks and it is something that I will be having a personal hand in creating; the void holds many dark mysteries that even drive the dead mad! 

The Races

Bhoots: One of the undead races you can play in Spooks are the Bhoots. Bhoots are corporeal undead who died in a tragic death or who were murdered. They are hard to track because their foot prints are backwards, they can summon ghost fire which can provide light but can also set things quickly on fire and they can also handle incorporeal objects that normally can only be handled by spooks like ghosts and wraiths.

Dolls: Another race of undead that you can play are dolls. The innocent or very young that have died arrive in the afterlife as a spirit that inhabits various constructs. Such constructs include rag dolls, suits of armor, mannequins, toys and anything that your imagination allows. Dolls are powerful magic users, they can detach their limbs (which can then act independent of the body), and they can repair themselves if damaged with the appropriate skills.









The there are six additional undead you can play which include zombies, vampires, skeletons, ghouls, wraiths, and ghosts.



 The Magic!

Spooks uses a unique magic system based on magic points and two different decks of playing cards. One deck represents the powers of the Spider and the other the powers of the Bone. As you play through the game, your character may gain cards for their personal deck. Each card represents a different spell and with a different cost. In addition, you can also enhance your other action rolls with these spell cards in addition to the magic point cost to help grant success. Any normal deck of playing cards will work as long as the backs of the two decks are different, so that one represents Bones and the other Spider. However, official Spooks card decks will be available in the future.

More than one way to play!

 There are three breed of roleplayers out in the world which include tabletop, video, and live action roleplayers. We have tabletop covered and maybe someday we will get a Spooks video game made, but until then Nathan Maher is also including rules for live action play which will be included in the core rule book. Like with most larping game, props are used which is why it is so easy to include live action rules into Spooks. One of the reasons that makes the conversion so easy is that the magic system of using cards already starts the player off with a way to display when they are casting a spell. Dressing the part will be easy for the most part since all undead type have human form and normal Halloween masks and costume makeup will do. This is just another reason to support this game.

 See the Art Come to Life!
Check out the first video of the making of the artwork! Another video to come soon!

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More updates to come on this post the sooner we get closer to our goals! So come back often, help support us by backing us on kickstarter and or sharing us on FB and Twitter . . . oh and now don't forget, enter the contest below to win free promotional posters.


Poster Giveaway Contest!

 We have a winner, Bjorn Bonten has just won all three posters and it will be mailed to him shortly. We will give notice if we hold another raffle!

We are holding a Rafflecopter Poster Giveaway. You can enter at this Link, like the page and then follow the directions. No purchase is needed, just need to do some actions such as comments, each day you can do more actions which earns points that improves your chances at winning!

These are the posters which you can win! Each are 18X24 quality print.