Blog posts

Sketched in Clip Studio Paint.

Something tangential to this site's public purpose (but within the bounds of its ultimate purpose) is this artifact from my childhood, from a time when I lived on the east coast and is one of the things that have made me always love Halloween.

This book followed us throughout my childhood, in our travels it was always just part of the Halloween decorations, but I always had a great fondness for it, and would often set it aside from the decorations being packed away so it could reside on a bookshelf, handy for perusal. Nobody in the family objected.

8-bit Show and Tell's JRPG-Style Menu in C64 BASIC with LOADSTAR's Toolbox 181: This has some intriguing possibilities for adventure games, and features a ton of stuff I never even thought of.

Art like this reminds me why I really love Erol Otus' work. It's iconic, graphic, and I've always loved the colorful and cartoonlike approach to his fantasy art.

Pure, quintessential of a lot of 1970s and early 1980s fantasy art. (Scanned from the “Days of the Dragon” calendar for 1982.)

In this watercolor, I resume the monster alphabet from seven years past, this time for a goblin, one of many possible kinds.

I'm still working on a new entry for Game Restart, but I wanted to pass along something I've been learning about rolling up characters on an 8-bit home computer from the 80s.

After a number of years (seven, apparently)—and thanks to an ideal subject prompt requested from Grackleflint—I finally got around to doing the sixth letter of the monster alphabet. 

Not great, maybe, but … I've been away.

A new watercolor for a new year. Forests have been on my mind a lot this year. (I’m considering scenarios which hinge on the issue of a civilization which destroys forests is likely doomed—like in the real world.)

Yesterday, I successfully implemented private/direct messages between users of this site. It was a feat, but my next sentence may seem like a non-sequitur, so bear with me a moment. 

I sometimes worry about the trap of nostalgia.

 

It can keep you from advancing, from trying new things, or, while trying new things, keep you from accepting the way newer, more derived things are. The differences become magnified and made larger at the expense of more meaningful things.

These photos of painted metal-cast toy knights have a story.

12 December 2010:

Recently*, I painted some solid-cast lead toy soldiers and knights for a friend to sell in a craft show. 
 I really miss working with enamels. And how cool is it to help make toys, especially in a December?

That would be Brianne. This moment in 2010 was a rare moment where I was able to paint a little.