Thursday 31 January 2013

Tiles of the Dead


In a previous post I mentioned that I have been working on a new tile-set recently, but at the time I was a little reluctant to say exactly what - just in case it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

I had also expected to have the set finished (or at least mostly completed) by the end of this month - but since I've only managed to finish roughly half of what I'd like to include, it's a pretty safe bet to assume that it's more likely to be a late February / Early March release.


Anyway, if you're a regular follower of this blog, you might have half-guessed the theme of this new set when I posted a picture of some of my (modern) zombie miniatures a little while back ...and since I have no new releases to announce this month, I thought that over the coming weeks, I would instead post a few sample pictures of some of the finished* images that will be appearing in this new, zombie-themed, tile-set.

So, with that being said, here's a quick look at one of these new tiles (in this instance - an 'empty' bedroom):


(note that the tile-set will probably have an initial price tag of around $5/£3, and will include rooms commonly found in small houses/apartments)


*might still be modified slightly before release


Friday 25 January 2013

Treasures in the Attic



As most of you are probably already aware, Wizards of the Coast has started to re-release a few pdf versions of some of their older D&D books/modules over on RPGNow and DriveThruRPG (or if your prefer, their own dndclassics.com storefront) - and from what I can gather, these are new (and improved) scans, that are also fully bookmarked.

And although I have a few issues with WotC pulling the pdfs from the aforementioned stores several years ago, you can't ignore that fact that there's been a bit of a buzz regarding this first batch of re-releases.

Anyway...

...somewhat coincidentally, I've recently dug these out of the attic (I was actually looking for my original 40k 'rogue trader' rule book - which I still haven't found), and so I thought I would share a quick pic of my old D&D books:


However, I don't actually remember playing the game all that much (I think a friend might have run a couple of games for a few of us before switching to something else), but I definitely remember that it was the first RPG I ever played ...and subsequently (as soon as my birthday came around), the first RPG I ever owned.

Oh ...and there's also a character sheet for Questor the elf (who took on the Ghost of Lion Castle solo adventure, and probably died a horrible death):


...who coincidentally looks somewhat like Questor from the original Gauntlet game (which was another favourite of mine at the time) :)

Anyway, getting back to my original topic, I think that it's great to see some of these books/modules making a return in pdf form, and I'm now hoping that some of these are also made available as print on demand booklets at some point in the near future.



Note that you can grab B1 - In Search of the Unknown for free during the opening week (as well as a couple of other titles).




Tuesday 15 January 2013

Dungeon Monthly & the DM Sketchpad


A few years back I was part of a little project called the DM sketchpad - which was basically a free d20 'zine that was run by Mark Gedak (of Purple Duck Games) via the Grand OGL Wiki website.

Anyway, I've only recently discovered that Mark has re-launched the DM sketchpad as a shiny new G+ Community (and if you're not familiar with google+ communities - they're somewhat similar to forums/message boards) ...which can be found HERE.



But how is that relevant to my own 'Dungeon Monthly' project?

Well, my part in the original DM Sketchpad was (not surprisingly) to provide a new map (dungeon or otherwise) for each monthly issue - which, when you come to think of it, is exactly what I'm doing now with the new 'Dungeon Monthly' feature of this blog :)

So, Mark has invited me to share these maps with the DM Sketchpad community over on G+ ...however the idea this time is to see if people would be interested in adding their own ideas for room descriptions/encounters/etc. for each area of the map (be it system neutral or with full stats for their game of choice) - thus creating a nice little mini-adventure (or two) every single month.

Folks could take on just one room (perhaps working to a general theme - in order to keep things somewhat consistent), or stat out the entire dungeon, or even expand on the map with a few of my existing geomorphs (though my favourite idea is to assume that each of these maps is an area within a larger dungeon complex, and thus the dungeon would expand each month with the inclusion of a new map and, if folks are willing, a few encounters to go along with it).

Anyway, that's the idea. So if it sounds like something that you might be interested in getting involved with (even if it's only to offer a bit of feedback or to suggest what kind of area gets mapped out next) then feel free to head on over to the new DM Sketchpad and join in on what should hopefully be a fun little project :)

Saturday 12 January 2013

Dungeon Monthly (January 2013)


If you've been a follower of this blog for any amount of time you will no doubt be familiar with the Map-a-Monday project, and the 105 geomorph-style maps that were created during that time.

You might also have noticed that when the project eventually came to an end (after two years of mapping madness), I also mentioned that I might still produce a few similar maps from time to time - because lets face it, these dungeon maps have been a major part of the blog for a long time now, and are almost synonymous with it.

So, with that being said, I'd like to announce the beginning of a new project that I'm calling 'Dungeon Monthly' - which will feature a new dungeon map each and every month for as long as I can manage it.

So without further ado, here's the very first map of the new year...



...and as you can see, the aim is to have them be fully compatible with the existing Map-a-Monday images (though they'll often cover an area that will be equivalent to two or more Map-a-Monday tiles).

And if you'd like the original (50 pixels per grid square) version of the map without any numbers (perhaps to use on a VTT) then just head over to THIS google+ album.


* * *
EDIT: Since the Roll20 Virtual TableTop uses a grid size of 70 pixels per square (or fractions thereof) an upscaled version of this map (at 70 pixels per square) is also available in THIS album.
* * *

Monday 7 January 2013

The Start of a Zombie Horde


Now that the Map-a-Monday project has come to an end, I should hopefully have a bit more time to spend on a few other hobby-type things from time to time ...like getting some paint slapped on the various miniatures I've got lying around (of which there are quite a few I'm somewhat ashamed to admit :( ).

So, to start things off, I thought I would post my progress on a zombie horde that I've decided to try and speed-paint (though the following picture is not helped by the fact that the 'matt' varnish that I have used has dried slightly glossy, and looks even worse in the photograph than it does in person :( ):



Anyway, the figures themselves come from the Zombies box (well bag really) from Wargames Factory - a package that contains 30 plastic (multi-part) 28mm zombies for roughly £15. And while they might not be the most detailed miniatures in the world (i.e. there is not much depth in some of the recesses, and the edges are not super crisp), I think they're perfectly serviceable models, and will do the job nicely.

As I say, the aim here was to just get them painted as quickly as possible (which is something I'm more inclined to do on cheap plastic models such as these), so all I've done is primed them, given them a base coat (i.e. painted all the different areas a suitable colour), and then 'washed' the miniatures (using some of the old GamesWorkshop washes) to add a bit of shading (which has also made them look a bit grimy too).

So while they don't look particularly great individually or up close, I think the overall effect of 'the horde' isn't too bad .

However, my main gripe with these figures is that there are only male zombies in this particular set ...which means that I'm now on the lookout for the accompanying 'Zombie Vixens' box, so that I can add a bunch female zombies to the horde ...which is sort of counter productive, since I'm actually trying to lessen the pile of unpainted miniatures that I have lying around, rather than adding to it :)