Fight Ongoing

After what seems like ages* Fight On! magazine returns with issue #15!

I've got a couple of pictures in there, plus a comic strip with Jonathan Linneman. Fight On! is where I started in rpg art and writing, so it's good to see it return. Let's hope #16 isn't too far away.

You can get Fight On! #15 in pdf here and print here.

*(That's because it has been ages! I think #14 came out in 2014!)

Golf Bag Syndrome III

Here's a piece for an upcoming issue of Fight On!; the magazine that refused to die.

I'm very rusty, but it's been fun to draw again.

LASERBEAR

This is an older one but I don't think I've posted it before and it seemed a shame to miss it out given that a theme seems to be developing.

This fine fellow was drawn for Fight On! #6 in 2009. Yikes.

Doxy #6

Still Fighting On

After a lengthy absence old school gaming magazine Fight On! has returned with its fourteenth issue!

I have a couple of bits of art in the issue but the real treat is the ninety-ish pages of old school gaming goodness from Lee Barber, Patrick Farley, Jeff Rients, Gabor Lux, Peitsa Veteli, Kevin Mayle, Douglas Cox, Chris Kutalik, Jennifer Weigel, Tom Gordon, Michael Curtis, Sniderman, Calithena, Richard Rittenhouse, Hudson Bell, Michael Mornard, Baz Blatt, Jonathan Linneman, Simon Forster, Gavin Norman, and more. I believe there will be one more issue after this one then the magazine will be retired; I hope that ultimate plan changes.

You can buy the issue in old-fashioned paper format here and in pdf here.

Doxy #4

Electropop Cowboy

Sawbear

Carry On Fighting On

Fight On! -- the magazine of funny shaped dice and pretending to be elves -- has released its eleventh issue, and I'm in it.

Observant readers may notice that the image above is not my cover, but I did get the back, and I have a couple of other pieces in there. Doxy makes an appearance, of course.

If you also like funny-shaped dice and pretending to be an elf, you can order a copy -- in print or pdf -- from the link at the top of this post.

Under the Sea

A gladiator fighting a giant shrimp. Underwater. For Fight On! #11, coming soon.

Doxy #2

Cover Me!

I have been contributing art to the gaming magazine Fight On! for a while now -- I think it's been two years -- but so far it's been internal illustrations only. I'd never even considered doing a cover, in part because I'd not been struck by a good idea for one, and also because I didn't consider myself in the same league as the usual cover artists:

They're working on the eleventh issue right now, and the editor put out an open call for a cover image. The subject is to be something from the Runequest game, and one of the suggestions was the Crimson Bat, which is a kind of massive chiropteran Godzilla, flapping about and destroying everything in its path.

I can imagine it would be quite easy to come up with an epic bit of fantasy artwork to illustrate such a creature, but another quite different image sprang to mind instead. As I mentioned above, I've not had an idea push its way forward like that before, so I've gone with it.

While all the pieces above are very good, they're also all of a stock, illustrative fantasy style, and what occurred to me was something more "designy", iconic and abstract:

What I have in mind for the title and text is for it to go somewhere near the bottom, and to be plain white and unobtrusive, making the cover as a whole rather stark and simple.

The editor is unsure. He likes the image, but thinks the readership might respond in the negative, so he's not sure about making it the cover.

What do you think?

600

Sepulcrow

If You Go Into the Woods Today

Do You Think He Saw Us?

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Up Above the Streets and Houses

I think I first encountered The Rainbow Orchid about ten years ago (!), at a time when I was exploring the British small press comics scene. I'm not sure how I first heard of the title, or what attracted me to it; although the T word was chucked about a lot back then, I don't think that did it, as I was always more of an Asterix fan. Anyway, what I discovered was a globe-trotting adventure story with a distinctive British feel (distinguished gentlemen discussing matters of import in wood-panelled rooms), but a fair bit of pulp excess (extravagantly mustachioed French stunt pilots and a clown or two) in there too. It's a bit Herge, a bit Wells, a bit Indiana Jones, even a bit Haggard (or maybe Kipling), and all good fun.

After a while, writer/artist Garen Ewing started publishing the title online, previewing pages from the story in the run up to a more high-profile release than had been done before. It wasn't a webcomic as such, but the growing audience treated it as one, and I believe it became quite popular; there's some wisdom in there about the best advertising being the act of giving your product away for nothing. Garen put out a limited edition hardback collection of The Story So far about a year ago (which the missus bought me as a birthday present), a self-published thing which was again intended to drum up interest in the oft-mentioned professional publication of The Rainbow Orchid, and now things have come full circle with the announcement that Egmont, former publishers of 2000AD and current custodians of, yes, Tintin, are to publish Garen's comic. It's been one of my favourite titles for a while, and soon I'll be able to see how the story ends!

It's also Garen's birthday today. Happy birthday Garen!

On a completely unrelated note, I've done some more art for Fight On!, this time for the fifth issue, and I also entered an art competition the magazine was running, although I didn't win anything besides an honourable mention; the winning entries were of stunning quality though, so I don't mind losing out to them. It still feels a bit odd to be one of the regular artists for a magazine about something of which I have so little experience (Dungeons & Dragons mostly), but it's been good fun, and it's also been useful to have an actual deadline to make sure I keep drawing. I've taken the opportunity to update my long-fallow website with some of my more recent art, as well as give the whole thing a bit of a tidy. There's still a lot of work to be done, the comics and writing sections in particular, but it's a start.

Raccoons and Mind Flayers

I celebrated my promotion by buying myself a copy of Blood Bowl, since it's perhaps my favourite board game ever. I was never any good at the painting of miniatures, but I'm going to give it another go as I assemble a dark elf team for the game. If the painting isn't too incompetent, I'll post the results here. I might post the results anyway, just for a laugh.

In other news, I've completed another in my increasingly-infrequent series of character profiles for Comics Bulletin, this time focusing on Rocket Raccoon, one of Marvel's best but most underrated characters. I have jotted down some ideas for my next article in this series, and fans of my acerbic approach will be pleased to know that the next victim is one of Marvel's most ill-conceived and cretinous characters (not Dark Speedball), so I'll be pulling no punches.

Finally, I've done some art for a magazine called Fight On!. It's a magazine for fans of the Dungeons & Dragons game, something I haven't had much involvement with since I was about twelve, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to draw dinosaur riding barbarians, fungoid bone sorcerers and octopus-headed spacemen. It's completely unpaid, but it was great fun to do, and I hope to be a regular contributor, perhaps doing some kind of comic strip for them if we can work out the logistics.

Just Because I Can