Ostensible Cat

I've played around with ink wash in the past with varying results but I've never really been satisfied with the results.  Here's a quick ink wash I did this weekend and overall, I found it to be a satisfactory experience that bears further experiments.  In the meanwhile, I'm toying around with some ideas that I'm rather excited about.  I'm feeling rather inspired by Christian's Loviatar zine and am thinking of doing something along those lines.  Time and energy will tell ;)...

Joe Browning just announced the latest Expeditious Retreat Press Advanced Adventure:  Stonepick Crossing .  I had a lot of fun doing the illustration work for that one.  Here's a look at the work I did for the covers with Daisey doing an amazing job as always on the color: I've been working on some other stuff too and am pretty excited about it.  But more on that soon ;)...

So, I have a gaming group and I'm digging the whole DMing thing again.  As I've mentioned, we are running through a heavily modified version of Keep on the Borderlands using OSRIC.  So far, we've explored a bit of the keep and the kobold section of the Caves of Chaos.  I've placed the keep in the requisite human frontier.  The Moinar Marches, as I've mentioned is a politically turbulent place.  Not only are there political minefields to be navigated, but spiritual as well.  For instance, there is the Church of Daegraed, the Lord of the Dawn.  Daegread is the half mortal/half devine son of the Mortal Celestial King Charondros I and Gaehoen the Divine Mother.  Gaehoen herself is the basis of many other religions.  In some, she is the only god (monotheistic) and in others, she is part of a pantheon.  There are splinters off the church, cults, sects, etc.  I want there to be a very tangible feel of political strife (between the Moinar and Stennish peoples and aligned fa

Bah, this winter has been rather crummy due to various forms of crud going around.  I ended up calling in sick to my gaming group due to a new crud that I picked up.  I'm not feeling terrible, but I knew I couldn't really hold up to 3+ hours of DMing.  Ah, such is life.  However, not all is a total loss.  I spent the day mapping my adventure for Polstrus Lev.  I'm going to finish the highly modified Keep on the Borderlands adventure and then entice the players over to the small road side rest stop/holy shrine Restover.  This will become the new base for launching into Polstrus Lev and surrounding environs.  I've established the campaign in a rather wild part of the world known as the Moinar Marches.  There is lots of political tension as the invading Stennish people have pretty much an ongoing conflict with the native Moinar people.  The church of Daegraed, Lord of the Dawn is striving to drive out the older religions and this is just adding to the political strife. 

WotC's decision to reprint the original 1e core books with new covers in support of the Gygax Memorial Fund is sheer awesomeness.  The thing that isn't so awesome for active old schooler like myself that live outside the US is that it looks like I'm not going to have any direct means of purchasing these items.  If the goal is to honor one of the founders of the game by raising money for the memorial, why not let folks order them from the web so that fans around the world can not only have a nifty new printing of the edition they love, but get a chance to chip in to the fund as well?  Seems a bit exclusive and looks like I'll be forced to go the eBay route.  Ah, sigh... more cheese please ;).

I just received a box in the mail containing back issues of the gaming zine Loviatar from Christian of the blogs Destination Unknown and Loviatar .  These things are fun as hell and contain a lot of gaming goodness packed into a sweet little zine package.  Back in my punker days, I was into the zine thing but kinda fell away from it all for one reason or another.  However, in recent years with my resurgent gaming itch, comic itch and punk rock itch, the love of zines burns bright again.  If you haven't checked out what Christian has been up to, I highly encourage you to go check out this effort.  You'll be glad you did!

Finally got my game on this weekend and had some great fun.  I DMed a group of three using OSRIC/1e rules through a modified version of Keep on the Borderlands.  So far the group has hired some mercenary muscle and managed to talk the Priest at the Temple of Daegraed, Lord of the Dawn to lend one of his novices to the expedition.  They picked up some rumors at the Pickled Boar from some grizzled vets and then headed off towards the unknown. They spotted a kobold off the trail and decided to investigate.  The party's initial inattention lead to one of the mercinaries to fall into a pit trap and while they were rescuing him, they were ambushed by kobolds hidden in the woods.  After a heated combat, one kobold escaped, they slew seven of them and captured one.  The elven fighter/mage questioned the prisoner who was reluctant to talk, but the elf applied some torture and cut off a couple of fingers.  The kobold gave some ominous warnings and then bit off its own tongue and died a rat

Wahoo!!!! This Saturday it's game time. I finally managed to have the time, motivation, and opportunity to assemble a gaming group and play some OSRIC/AD&D this weekend! I'm testing out my adventure idea for Polstrus Lev City of Degenerates. I'm a bit nervous as its been years since I've gotten my game on. However, the good news is that none of my group is really experienced in gaming (other than a recent foray into trying out some 3.5) and extremely excited to try out Old School game play. I had them read Matt Finch's excellent Quick Primer to Old School Gaming to familiarize them with the old school gaming ethos. So Saturday it is. Here's an excerpt of my background for Polstrus Lev: Over six hundred years ago, the citizens of Dustchapel Downs established the colony of Polstrus Lev as a detention camp for the diseased, malformed, mentally infirm, and other such undesirables believing that they were the cursed of the gods and they thus sought t

I hope everyone's 2012 is off to a good start. So far, it has been slow going for Team Bingham with a bout of influenza ushering in the new year, but it seems that is all behind us now. So finally back to projects! I'm revisiting my idea for a low level adventure, the Warrens of Polstrus Lev. A while back, I mused on my idea for dark elves. I never really cared for how dark elves have been portrayed. I picture Dark Elves akin to the degenerate humanoids found in R.E. Howard's "Children of the Night" (you can read the short story here ). To me, dark elves seem, well, too cultured and not degenerate enough. At any rate, I've always wanted to do something with that. So, I'm currently working on a low level adventure entitled "The Warrens of Polstrus Lev, the City of Degenerates". I picture it as a pulpy romp through an underground "city" full of degenerate humanoids. Think of Howard's story meets the movie Night Breed and th

Happy New Year! You know, for some reason, the New Year's holiday has always been a bit melancholy for me ever since I was a kid. It never seemed like a new beginning but more of an ending of the holiday season and that meant getting back to the grind and facing the long Winter until the first blush of Spring. 2011 was a good year for me and many things were accomplished that I'm proud of. There were several good things going on, I sold my house, sort of received a promotion at my day job, attended Gen Con for the first time, did a lot of commissioned art. The down sides were few but one was significant in that I lost my grandmother to complications to Alzheimer's. But all in all, I'm happy with 2011. I'm not sure what 2012 will bring but that's part of the ride. So here's a look back at some of the artwork of 2011: So, now 2012 is here, I'll try not to squander it ;)!