Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day - Non official participant ;)

Heya Gang,

I'm sure by now that most or all of you know that this is the Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day.  While I'm not officially signed up to be a participating blog, I did want to chime in supporting Swords and Wizardry.  I'm a big supporter of all the verious "retroclone" systems out there (although I must admit to being more heavily in the OSRIC camp) and if you've played any of the older editions, it is a snap to convert between any of them.  In fact, I'm pretty confident that it is so easy, I'm going to give away five pdf copies of my zine Delve! at random to people that post comments in the comment section below.  So if only five folks post, then they all get copies.  At any rate, Swords and Wizardry is a great system.  Matt Finch, the mastermind behind it, was also the originating force behind OSRIC before turning it over to Stuart Marshall.  The main point of all of the clones, regardless of what you play, is getting out there and playing!  Bill Web and Frog God Games have done a lot to get the old school message out there beyond the OSR crowd into the wilds of gaming land.  Bill, Frog God, and Matt Finch have been incredibly supportive of old school gaming and are great folks to interact with.  So, go check out some cool deals on 25% off Swords and Wizardry stuff from Frog God.  Also, go check out the listed blogs and all of the activity going on in support of Swords and Wizardry.  You'll be glad you did.  OK, time to get back to the art cave to work on some more pictures for other Old School Gaming goodness!    

Heavenly Bodies

Ah yes, Petty Gods is a most fun project to work on.  I give you two of my latest pieces for the Petty Gods Project - The Lady of Lost Angels and Loe-Hann, the Goddess of Licentious Behavior.  Enjoy!

Have a Petty Gods Easter

Heya gang, I hope everyone one is doing well.  It's been very busy here at Casa Bingham.  I've been doing tons of art for Expeditious Retreat Press, Stuart Marshall's latest OSRIC Companion book, and the resurrected Petty Gods OSR Project.  So yeah, I've been a rather busy boy lately (that's good) and with upcoming stuff like art for Gygax magazine, Delve!, and my Lamentations of the Flame Princess project (as well as some stuff for Tim Shorts - eh Tim?) and possibly a few more - my art should be getting around this year.  So just to prove that I'm not a complete slacker, here's a look at two of my Petty Gods:  Nebius the Shrouded Lord - God of Dismal Mists and Dreary Fogs and Iracaecus the Flaming Fury - God of Blind Rages.

 

New Art Stuff!!

I've been a rather busy little bee knocking out artwork for various projects.  Here's the back cover piece for Advanced Adventures #28 Bitteroot Briar.  I think Daisey really nailed to color work on this one.  I've also been playing around with some ink wash and having a lot of fun with it.  Here's the frontispiece for Advanced Adventures #30 To End the Rising.  I'm pleased how it turned out.  Well, time to go back to the drawing board and knock out some more work ;)!

I'm Going to Garry Con (well, not really but sort of)

I just sent a box of four original pieces of art to Lake Geneva, WI today to be auctioned at Gary Con V to help raise money for Ernie Gygax after he lost pretty much everything in a fire.  I like to give to give where I can.  I'll have to admit, that it was a bit surreal mounting, bagging, labeling and shipping art to the fabled land of Lake Geneva.  Making it in to the WotC reprint of the A Series Slaver modules last week and then messaging Luke Gygax about the benefit auction this week has been a bit, um surreal.  So if you are going to Gary Con, have a great time and let me know how the auction goes ;).

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I got my notification this morning that I was a winner in the WotC A Series art contest.  So it looks like I'll have my myconid picture in the upcoming premium release of the A Series modules by WotC this June.  Another of my friends Chet Minton also was notified of being a winner with his cool roper pic.

Hell Yes!! OD&D Whitebox to be re-released

OK, yeah, I've already got the original set and I have the Swords and Wizardry version, but I'm definitely down for WotCs re-release of the OD&D premium edition.  I am sure there is or will be a lot of banter as to WotC's motives and pricing ($150 is not cheap for a lot of folks).  Sure, this is not aimed at the casual gamer.  I do hope that WotC releases the pdf versions for the folks that don't want to pony up for a premium edition.  I for one am glad that at this point WotC is releasing all of their old material and reprinting some of it in premium formats.  I hope they continue to acknowledge that ALL of the versions of the game are viable options and none is necessarily a replacement for another.  I also hope they continue to at least maintain the live and let live attitude towards the clones and OSR material.  I see this as all potentially being a hell of a great time for being a gamer whether you are old school or not.  I do think it would be cool to see a re-release of the Rules Cyclopedia and the Holmes Basic amongst others.  What other stuff would you guys like to see?