Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Lilith can be Yours

Normally I like to spend the profits from my books on more art for the next book or something like that. You know, put it back into the creative effort.  But this was a particularly good couple of months so I splurged and got something nice for myself and my game room.




I got this from the artist's, Israel Llona aka Isra2007, shop over at Deviant Art.


The great thing is, you can get one of these prints too!
Just go to the prints page, http://www.deviantart.com/art/Lilith-142131246 and choose one of the prints.
This is the 12" x 18" art print.

Plus all the money goes to the artist, well minus whatever DA takes, but I don't get any. Not even a commission.   So if you liked my book and the cover, or you picked up my book for the cover, grab an art print too! It will look great on your wall.

You can also see all his great art here, http://israllona.wix.com/isra
He has a few more that I think would make awesome book covers.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Art of Eldritch Witchery

One of the things that I love about working on RPG books is looking for art.  Sure there are other aspects I enjoy, but once I am done I love looking for art. It's like a treasure hunt for me.  But for Eldritch Witchery I knew EXACTLY what I wanted before I began.


Back when I was younger and wrote what would become by first ever witch I loved books on witchcraft, demonology and the occult.  I still do in fact. I love all the great artwork from these books, whether medieval woodcuts, drawings on pamphlets denouncing witchcraft on up to the art of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

One of the more influential books on my writing was Rossell Hope Robbins's "Encyclopedia of Witchcraft of Demonology".


For me it was not just a great book of ideas for my class in particular and D&D in general, it was also a manual of style.

It features fantastic works of art that I just knew I wanted to include in a book of my own.
Since Eldritch Witchery is my ode to Original D&D, I didn't want to include anything really new.






I also enjoyed adding art about fairy tale witches; an equally important aspect of my witch as the mytho-historical one.





While some of these (or similar ones) appeared in The Witch, for Eldritch Witchery I wanted just these sort of images.

I hope you enjoy this art as much as I do.  For me it really is like picking up a copy of The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology or even a copy of Eldritch Wizardry.

Eldritch Witchery is available now at DriveThruRPG!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Happy Birthday Larry Elmore

Today is Larry Elmore's birthday. I have not posted this in the past because I am usually at Gen Con at this time and wish him a happy birthday personally.

Elmore usually gets shorted by the proponents of pure  old-school proponents.  Some associate his art with what they have felt was the decline of the old-school or even 1st generation mentality of *D&D.  His art appears very prominently in the Mentzer versions of the D&D Basic rules, and on through the BECMI series.  His art is central to the Dragonlance modules and books, so he gets lumped in with people feelings about that; good and ill.

I am a fan. I always have been. I like his work and I like the man.  Plus he does some damn fine witches.
So I want to wish him a Happy Birthday today!





Tuesday, July 16, 2013

John William Waterhouse

I have mentioned here before that I am a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood style of painting. I am also a fan of their poetry and philiosophy, but that might be another post.  It is one of the few artistic styles where I see it overlapping most of my gaming interests (fantasy, horror, Victorian).  In particular I am a fan of John Collier (whose Lilith is still one of my favorites), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and his sister Christina Rossetti (author of the poem "The Goblin Market"), though she was not part of their "Brotherhood".

Though my favorite is John William Waterhouse.  He rose to prominence a few decades after the Pre-Raphaelites but his style was considered to be part of their tradition and he is often called the Modern Pre-Raphaelite.


I seen his work many, many times before.  I think it had to be the cover of Rosemary Ellen Guiley's 1999 "The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft" that made me want to seek out who this artist was.  From that point on I knew I wanted to have his art on the cover of one of my books.

The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, Second Edition
The original painting done in in 1886, oil on canvas, was purchased for £650. It is on display at Tate Britain galleries.  Called "The Magic Circle" it features an unnamed witch (thought to be Morgan Le Fey) creating what is commonly believed to be a summoning circle or a protection circle. There are a multitude of diverse pagan elements in this painting reflecting the magical beliefs of many different cultures that it is not hard to see why it is embraced by those who like witches.  There are number of little things in the picture that I enjoy.  She is using her right hand to draw a counter-clockwise circle  for example.  This means this witch is up to nothing good.  Her brazier is more Mediterranean or even Middle Eastern than it is Anglo-Saxon, though her hair style and sickle are Anglo-Saxon style.  There is just a lot going on here.

Given my love of all things witch and witchy it was Waterhouse and the Pre-Raphaelites that I associate with my early gaming memories as much as Otus, Dee, Caldwell and Elmore.

The Witch: A sourcebook for Basic Edition fantasy games

Obviously I am not the only one.

Magic & Miracles
and

10 Witch Magic Items (PFRPG)

I feel like I am in pretty good company here.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Deviant Art: Raven

Been a busy weekend this weekend.  The neighbor's apple tree fell in our yard so I have been out with the chainsaw and cleaning up wood.  So here are some pictures of Raven, my other favorite DC magic girl.



Raven from Titans by ~MLauNeim on deviantART


Raven by ~KidNotorious on deviantART


Raven by ~CeruleanRaven on deviantART


Raven Inks by *Jon-Moss on deviantART


Raven Rising by =JamieFayX on deviantART


Not creepy, just different. by *oO-Fotisha-Oo on deviantART

Have a great Sunday!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

UGH. Do we have to do this one again?? IP theft, Part 2

Here is a comparison of the map from Tracey Alley's book and the map from the Expert set.



Tracey's map


The Known World from the Expert Set


And both at 50% opacity.

So not just redrawn, but maybe even traced.

In better news I am going to pick winners later tonight!

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Zatannurday: Tumblr

I have been playing around with Tumblr of late.

No idea what to do with it that I can't do here.  But all the cool kids seem to have it. http://timsbrannan.tumblr.com/

The thing is it seems to be perfect for pictures.
So I went on and searched for a bunch of Zatanna images.

http://comicbookcosplay.tumblr.com/tagged/zatanna
This one is great, all sort of Zatanna cosplay on Tumblr.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/zatanna
This is just a search of posts tagged "zatanna".

Here are some of my recent faves.










Saturday, March 2, 2013

Red Sonja: She Devil with a Sword: Gail Simone on Red Sonja #1

Reblogged from Red Sonja: She Devil with a Sword: Gail Simone on Red Sonja #1

From: http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2013/03/gail-simone-to-wield-red-sonjas-sword.html
and http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/03/red-sonja-gail-simone/
and http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/03/01/red-sonja-gail-simone-dynamite-comics-emerald-city-2013-fiona-staples/

Gail Simone, one of the biggest names in comics right now, is taking up the sword and mail bikini of Red Sonja in a new Red Sonja #1.
In addition cover art will be done by Fiona Staples, Nicola Scott, Colleen Doran, Jenny Frisson, and Stephanie Buscem

Here is Fiona Staples art for Issue #1.


According to Simone:
"It's like this...even most of the best female heroines when I was a kid were pretty polite. What I love about Sonja is that she isn't polite, she says what she means and if you give her any lip about it, hello, sword in the gut. She's smart, she has a heart, she has some compassion. But when it's go time, she's a hellraiser, a mad general, she's a sword edge virtuosa, she's death on wheels. She is the woman you never want to mess with. I can relate, Sonja. No offense to all her guy writers, but THIS Red Sonja is about sex and swords! It's everything you love about Red Sonja, except with more monsters getting stabbed in the eye."
Red Sonia #1 is out in July.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

More Mykal Lakim

So there is more going on in the saga of Mykal Lakim.  I am probably giving this guy more attention than he deserves to be honest.  I am also aware that by doing so I going to inevitably send someone to his site that sees his stuff and buys it.  If so then I just ask that you come back here to let me know what you honestly think of it.  If you hate, tell me why, if you love it, also tell me why.

Wil Hutton over at Aggregate Cognizance has also been following this drama and has a number of posts on it. http://rivetgeek.blogspot.com/search/label/mykal%20lakim.

There is also this thread over at White Wolf talking about it.
http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=67770

The new claim (new to me) is that Lakim is now saying that White Wolf ripped him off.
No. Really.

Wil Hutton has also been doing some digging into his posts over at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mykal_lakim
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mykal_lakim
In particular all the pages he created for his own games and their near immediate deletion.  That's not the issue really, RPGs get deleted all the time from Wikipedia.  It's the drama he brings after the fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Vampire:_Undeath_v.1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/G.A.M.E (love the "P.S. White Wolf blows)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Dark_Phoenix_Publishing,_Inc.

And this rant on users' pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nishkid64&direction=next&oldid=190786257
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Alexf&diff=prev&oldid=393979249, i love how all his "fans" will be boycotting Wikipedia.

Why bring all this up?
Well obviously this guy has some stones on him if he thinks he an stand up to White Wolf or that Wikipedia cares about his temper-tantrum.

I think the only reason that WW has not sued the guy is because he is too small for them to have noticed yet.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Zatannurday: World's Finest

This image is floating around the various game blogs this week.
It comes from Kyle Latino and it is pretty cool.


http://kylelatino.deviantart.com/#/d5t9pg6

All my favorite DC characters playing a game of D&D.  And to further make this more about me (!!) I also worked at Pizza Hut in college.  The Mt. Dews are a nice touch.

Kyle has a lot of cool stuff on his Deviant Art page and his own webcomic.

So what characters do you think everyone is playing?
I'd like to think Zee would try out something like a Barbarian like Dresden did when he played "D&D" in the books.  Batgirl plays the cleric, Black Canary plays the Wizard (to irritate Zee) and Hawkgirl plays the thief, but she is not enjoying it as much as she might like.

He also a cute retro Zatanna.


Zatanna by ~kylelatino on deviantART

Stop by his DeviantArt page and comic and have a look!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Ugh...Here We Go Again.

Just when I was beginning to forget about Jim Shipman we get another one.

This time I am not going to post any of this guy's "art" since he is sending out DMCA notices to all sites doing this.  Effectively silencing all his critics.

Who is this guy?  Mykal Lakim of Dark Phoenix Publishing.
What is the charge?  Stealing art is the big one, but he is also accused of blatantly ripping of White Wolf's games.

First the art.
Steven Trustrum of Misfit Studios has been collecting all of these.
You can see all the art and the comparisons on his Plus page.
The amount is not Shipman staggering, but still very damning. Of course the balls this guy has claiming his stuff is original is just as staggering.

If it were only one person making this claim that's one thing.  But this is Matt McElroy and he is not prone to this sort of thing.  More to the point he is a professional and would not make claims like this lightly.
Also he is not the only one.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/02/02/swipe-file-j-scott-campbell-and-dark-phoenix/

Secondly is the content of his books.
Matt McElroy also covers some of that in his link, but your best bet is read the RPG.net forum threads.
A review, http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15765.phtml
Discussion on the review, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?667642-RPG-Vampire-Undeath-reviewed-by-Darren-MacLennan-(1-1)
and finally a discussion on the books and art that got Lakim permabanned, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?665698-Holy-White-Wolf-Ripoff-Batman!

Now keep in mind that I have seen dozens of D&D-clones in the last few years.  Some are built on the SRD others are rip offs.  This seems to be a different sort.

You be the judge and report back here if you see it or see it differently.

Edited to add:  I added Steve's link instead of Matt's.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Zatannurday: Happy Birthday to my Brother!

Wednesday was my brother's birthday!

Here is a a Zatanna drawing he sent me earlier in the week.


Love the rabits!

Daniel has done art for me before and you have seen some of it.  You have seen more if you picked up a copy of my Witch book.

The Xothia

Xothia of the Rock by Daniel Brannan

Halfling Witch
Halfling Herb Woman by Daniel Brannan


Druther

Druther by Daniel Brannan


Thanks so much Dan!!

Monday, January 14, 2013

Justice is Returning

I have been really, really negligent in keeping up with posts on my supers character Justice.  In fact it looks like the last time I posted about her was March.

That's just not right.

So I do plan on posting some stats.  But in the mean time here is something to keep you entertained.

A commission from my friend David Reynolds of ShadowGirls fame.


Not sure what the Penguin's name is yet.  But I do know she finds him in her father's Fortress of Solitude.

As for Stats, I am hoping to do some FASERIP/Marvel/4C, Super Babes, Villains & Vigilantes and some Capes, Cowls and Villains Foul.

EDITED TO ADD: David is taking commissions again. http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d5rjqrc

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Zatannurday: *Other* Costume Choices

So Zatanna, as many comic book heroes has a distinctive costume.  Her's also happens to double up as her stage costume.  That doesn't mean though she is immune to mixing it up a bit.

Course some of her choices have been odd, bizarre and others downright ridiculous. The most interesting thing about her latest costume is that it is mostly normal looking.

Well leave it to the fans to make changes they think need to be done.  Here are some new costume designs I ran across recently.


Reittuls Emutsoc by *inspector97 on deviantART


Sorceress Zatanna by *inspector97 on deviantART


Zatanna Circus Style by *TorqueArtStudio on deviantART


Zatanna says Hi by powerbook125 by ~talha122 on deviantART
Changed her fishnets here.


zatanna by ~edgarlll on deviantART
and here.


Zatanna Zatanna By Duss005 by ~talha122 on deviantART
No fishnets here.


All Those Zatanna's by =penguincoco on deviantART
I like this one, all the different animated Zatanna costumes.


Zatanna 2 by ~FrozenSceptre on deviantART
Something of a cross between her JLD outfit and her classic one.


Zatanna by ~melodramaticmelon on deviantART


ZATANNA original art by RODEL MARTIN by ~rodelsm21 on deviantART


Zatanna by *Szajnie on deviantART
First time I have seen her in some pink.


And one more



Saturday, December 1, 2012

Zatannurday: Zatanna Covers

Recently the Justice League Detroit Blog recently did a post  on the top 20 Zatanna covers.  It is worth checking out.
http://justiceleaguedetroit.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-top-20-zatanna-covers.html

While I liked the covers that were picked I didn't always like the reasons or the order.
So here are some of my favorite covers and why.  I am not putting them in any particular order.


Up first a Catwoman cover from Catwoman 50.  I like how you know this is a Catwoman book but Zee is larger  than life.  Plus it is a great bit of art and sets up the story well.


Zatanna #1 of the legendary Paul Dini run.  MUST reading for any Dini or Zatanna fan.


Not the first Justice League Dark cover, but I like how Zee is front and center here.   Surrounded by magic and featuring her new costume.  Love the look on her face. 


I rather like this one. It has all the things we expect to see in a Zatanna cover except for maybe her top hat.


 Fishnet on the arms didn't start in JLC.  I love how her eye seems to be glowing.


Love this cover too.  I like the black/dark blue lipstick.


 Everyday Magic is just a great collection I love the title.  I also love this cover.  Zee is not hyper-sexualized, but still attractive and feminine in her tux.  Plus I dig the boots.



More stars and more "Cute" Zee.  I like Adam Hughes art and I think he does a particularily good job of drawing women that look like women.  Like Frank mentions on Justice League Detroit. This reminds that Zee can be sweet, but she is no stranger to the dark.  Speaking of which...


I am on record as not being a big fan of Identity Crisis.  But it is/was such a pivotal moment in the history of the character I would be remiss if I didn't include it.  Plus this cover has other things going on.  First it features Zee in her "Supers" costume.  Not often seen anymore.  Also she is once again front and center here.  She is the focus, not the Gods standing around her.


An iconic cover.  More of the fishnet gloves too.


I like this cover. It has a lot of the iconic Zatanna imagery.  Her hat, fish nets, magic.  It has been said that among the supers a woman in a tux, top hat, tails and fishnets looks sorta...well dull.  I don't think so.  They have messed with her style before and this really is the one that works the best.


Going back a bit here.  This is the collection of the earliest Zatanna stories.  The cover is newer than that rest of the book, but that is cool.  I think it also very evocative of what Zatanna is all about.

There are others to be sure.  But these are the ones I most wanted to talk about.