Ostensible Cat

Alright, this is the last of the Alphabetical related blog posts. It certainly was challenging to do. I know some folks are looking forward to getting back to gamer related business. I'll admit that I'm looking forward to a more freeform posting. Anyway, Daisey and I just finished some cover work for the Expeditious Retreat Press OSRIC/AD&D 1e tournament module The Obsidian Sands of Syncrates . I'm very pleased with our collaborative work. I think we make a great team in so many ways and it really shines through in our artistic collaborations. Here's a look at our latest.

OK, another music post, but damn these guys just make me want to rip it up and make some art! I just recently heard of them but they take me back to my punker days. Great psychobilly sound there. If you like the Reverend Horton Heat, these guys'll rock your socks off. Now I wanna go jam out with some werewolves! Oh yeah, have a great Friday everyone!!

When in doubt, go back to your root right? Well, comic books is where it all started for me. Yeah, the gateway drug into the greater nerdery. As a kid, I think Batman was a favorite but when I entered my teens, I discovered the X-Men. And things changed for me. This was the first time that I could really identify with the characters. Sure, they were mutant rebel outcasts, but I was going through puberty when I discovered them and those changes alomost seemed like a mutation. Add to that that I was almost cataclysmically shy, just got braces, had to start wearing glasses, grew to be a 6'2" super skinny (oh, yeah, that was long ago wasn't it?), and all the rest, and I really felt like a mutant. Since my mother had remarried and we relocated to Nuremburg, Germany from Mascoutah, Illinois - yeah, I felt like an outcast as well. So the X-Men spoke to me for sure. For me, the classic team was Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. The John Byrne/Chris Claremont idea is good (and ...

If you have not been following Trey Causey's work over at From The Sorcerer's Skull , I gotta say, you're missing out on one of the freshest takes on a fantasy setting that is currently out there. Weird in a sort of crazy 1920's pulp meets seriealized sci-fi and cliff hanger movies meets lost highway Route 66 weird roadside attraction - aw hell, this thing just oozes flavor. Go check out the downloadable preview Strange Trails and read through it. Oh yeah, this is also where Daisey and I began our collaboration work so here's a piece that we worked on for Wierd adventures: Got check it out!

Vendettas are a good way to bring either a single encounter, recurring story arc or the basis for a whole campaign to the game. Often times, vendettas are vengeful actions carried out by someone with a perceived wrong against them by the Player Characters. Most often, vendettas are the result of a perceived insult that may be directed at the wrong persons or even entirely fallacious. Persons carrying out a vendetta are usually acting in a heightened emotional state and thus the vendetta may not even be based upon any logical. Here’s a random table for some more, er, unusual vendetta ideas that are free to use. 1. Fezmin Seven Finger at the local watering hole doesn’t like the way the PCs look. Adventuring types always mean trouble and Fezmin has an axe to grind with anyone of the adventuring stripe since he lost three fingers on his right hand as a torch bearer for a party that left him for dead during an adventure. Fezmin, a grizzled and scarred from many delves is a sour old...

As I've been maturing as an artist, I've noticed a definite evolution of my work from simple line art to something more, well, more on the lines of a woodcut print I suppose. I used to have quite a penchant for crazy detail pretty much all made up of line as you can see here: While I still have a tendancy towards that stylistically, I've been trying to steer away from that style and move to a more "noir" style I suppose. Guys like Mike Mignola make the minimalism involved look easy but to be honest, I find it quite intimidating. It's not easy to "let go" and trust yourself enough to let go of the detail and define a picture by form rather than line. I find myself quite often taking much more time on my pencils than I ever did previously. Most of this time is actually involved in a process that is called "spotting blacks". When trying to define an image through form, it becomes critical that the positive and negative areas define vo...

OK, I'll admit to being way outside the cutting edge of the music scene. I guess that kinda happens when you become a family man. I'm not complaining, it just means that I'm a little slow on the uptake on what's going on out there. At any rate, I just got turned on to The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, an awesome Cthulhu Punk rock band. I've been a fan of bands like the Misfits and the Cramps for many years so these guys are right up my alley to be sure. Go check out their site here . Here's a youtube link to one of my current favotite songs by these guys: . My investigations into Darkest of the Hillside Thickets have also yeilded some other cool findings such as Rue Morgue . The Rue Morgue Facebook page also turned me onto another cool Horror Punk/Rockabilly band the Young Werewolves. Here's a cool video from those guys. So I'm happy. I've lost a few sanity points, added some new bands to my punk rotation on my iPod, discovered som...