Dungeon-Crunch Chocolate Beholders!

We had an assignment in my vector drawing class to make a cereal box. So there you go!

Keep on the Shadowfell Heroes

These are the heroes that defeated Kalarel and his evil plans. Along the way, on a side quest, the Genasi and the Half-Orc liberated a war-rhino that they named Spongey. They named him this partly because he drank a bunch of arcane water and turned green, partly because they used him as a bullet sponge while they crawled through the Keep on the Shadowfell.

Spongey didn't come with them on their next quest, but instead became the Winterhaven town mascot.

Pre-Gens vs. Homemades

This season of D&D encounters was supposed to start today, but my comic book store will have to wait until next Wednesday since we received Chapter 2 in the mail and didn't want to start in a weird place.

This season of encounters has a whole new set of pre-generated characters, and the consensus among the regulars is that we would rather make our own characters.

What do you think the purpose of the pre-gens is? Are they an option if you don't bring your own, or a mandatory part of the Encounters experience?

This is a picture of the Goliath Warden concept I'd like to play. He has a pet owl created using the Companion Character rules in DMG 2. The owl has extremely limited healing powers, considering we don't have many regulars at the store that like to play leaders. I'm pretty sure my DM will be down with this idea, but what do you think? Is it more about the authenticity of the Encounters experience, or is it more about just doing what I want?

Comments appreciated!

Thanks!

D&D Essentials Gameday

I'll be DMing at HaJoMaJe Tomorrow at 3pm. Hope you can make it!

Sweet!

Memnon, Deva Avenger

Underdark

Recently, because of some minis I bought, I've been thinking of taking my friends' characters to the Underdark.

I'm also looking forward to the D&D comic book (that takes place in the Underdark) coming out in November. I have issue #0, and I'm liking it. It's inspired me to work on my coloring... which, I'll admit, still needs some work.

Longtooth the Minotaur

Currently, I'm working on some more illustrations for Jeremy of Wastex Games. I've already done a few pictures for his site that you should check out, and there are more on the way, but I thought I'd throw a sneak peek out there for everybody.

Check out Wastex Games and I'd love to get some feedback on this picture too!

The Marsh Lake Minotaur

I had some inspiration while camping that made me want to play a Minotaur again. :)

Read about the M.L.M. here!



MMMOOOOOO!!!

Boffer and Dav

Slick Moves had by All.

Kindrok, Half-Giant Fighter!

I am currently playing this character in the Free RPG day adventure Bloodsand Arena that my friend Eric is DMing. He did an awesome job, and Kindrok did awesome. I've honestly never played a two-weapon fighter before, and I have to say that it's fun, when it's balanced. I don't think I would ever make a dual wielder whose every power was based on the the fact that they have a weapon in each hand. Attacks like "cleave" are certainly fitting.

I also can't wait until the Dark Sun books come out, so I can see the mechanics for all the additional character features! As much as I complain about pregenerated characters, Kindrok has been SWEET!

Here's a doodle I did of the big guy failing an endurance check during the game.

Encounters Season 2, July 21, 2010

This week's encounter went pretty well, but we still conquered in about 60 minutes, leaving us wanting more.

There's a chance I could be DMing a game at the FLGS in the future to fill the rest of the time. I kind of want to put together a campaign based on the locations and baddies of the TV show Adventure Time.

I won't post any details yet, just in case I have from my group reading, but I will say, that I will probably start by adapting the episode called "Dungeon". Fitting, I know. :)

Dark Sun Character

Here's the full image of the character I did for gamefiend's D&D 4e website: http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/
It was a re-imagined version of this image.

Encounters Season 2, session 1: "Oh, Dang!"

I say "Oh, Dang!" because that was about how the entire encounter went. Our goal was to grab supplies from a busted up caravan and make for the hills before the silt runners could rob/kill us. In hind-sight, we probably should have done less supply grabbing and fighting and a little more running.

I played Shikirr the Thri-Kreen Battlemind, and I felt pretty prepared to handle my role as defender... until I became the first to drop below zero hit points. I lay dying on the battlefield until Castri the elf managed to drag me a few feet toward safety. By this point I had also broken my weapon already, but managed to grab a few bone spears off of fallen enemies. I luckily rolled a 20 on one of my death saves, and managed to escape with an ill-gotten 1 hit point by the end of it. Everyone else was not so lucky, though I did revive Castri somewhat while we watched Phye, Barcan and the Tiefling, whose name escapes me, Die with a capital "d".

Synopsis: 1. Dark Sun is brutal. 2. Dark Sun is awesome.

I love the setting, and I love that there was an instant scenario where I was forced into role playing, ie: Do I choose to run for it, or do I try to save my dying friends?

Our DM, Dylan, did an awesome job. It was his first time DMing at the comic book store, and he felt a little bad killing everyone, but all in all, he rocked it. I think if were to have a party vote, though, the d20 was using would be officially banned as a DM die. It was on fire.

My only hope as the group's defender is that I can hollow out some beetle or something later and adorn myself with some kind of chitinous heavy shield. The reach weapons I've been breaking/collecting so far are kind of counter-intuitive, considering most of a battlemind's marking abilities require you to be adjacent to your targets.

I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below! Did anything similar happen to your party?

Thri-Kreen Shikirr

Comments welcome!

I Guess This Fits...

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Recognition!

These are some places my name has appeared in the D&D community! There's been a few others, and I'll keep posting, but it's this kind of thing that keeps me motivated to strive to be a professional illustrator one day! Thanks for all of your support everyone!

1. & 2. Some words about this site and also some work I did for a D&D t-shirt.

3. My artwork used on the official D&D community page.

4. A shout out for the banner I did for the "Dungeon Master Guys" podcast on critical-hits.com

The Giths.

Hopefully you'll be seeing this in a Wizards of the Coast D&D article soon! Githyanki vs. Githzerai.

My Minotaur Problem

Someone on twitter the other day accused me of having a Minotaur problem. Maybe they're right.


In a semi-unbiased way, the Minotaur race from Player's Handbook 3 has become a favorite because of the ability to make a character with bonuses in EITHER constitution or wisdom. I like this very much because I'm a fan of primal heroes, and I can customize my minotaur to whichever class I want to play. In short, they make good Barbarians, or good Seekers, as pictured above. Not many classes can do both!

What's your favorite thing about minotaurs?

Arena Battle!

Last night I was hanging out with a couple of members of my Friday D&D Group, and we were talking about our characters a little, when a crazy idea came to us: Let's fight each other.

My goal was to crush my friend's Bullywug Swordmage with my Minotaur. We did a one-on-one, no holds barred fight to the death in a large room. We decided on some rules beforehand, like the allowance of action points and daily powers, etc.

Within the first round I used both of my daily powers and bloodied Jeremiah the Bullfrog. After that he used his Agus of Shielding and no matter what attacks I was landing, I was usually doing around 2 points of damage. In a surprise comeback, Jeremiah almost defeated Fisteron, and were it not for the Minotaur Ferocity racial power, the win would have gone to the Bullywug.

All in all, it was a hilarious fight. I thought I'd share it with you because, to me, RPGs are all about fun, and this was dang fun. I can see how it could cause some contention with players who don't get along, or sensitive characters, but I strongly suggest doing things like this in between sessions to let players explore their characters' weaknesses and strengths.

We might do this more in our group, 1-on-1 or in teams. We might even start making characters specifically for arena fighting. Maybe instead of just fighting we could incorporate skill check competitions or races. American Gladiators anyone?

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Dwarf Shaman!

This originally started out as a doodle, but I liked it so much I thought I had better color it.

This is that Dwarf Shaman I will be using for @Canageek's Play-by-Post Game.

My First Experience DMing D&D Encounters. (posted two weeks late.)

I'll start out by saying that Encounters, overall, was a good experience. There were a few issues along the way, but the level of fun wasn't compromised.

Last week I got the "Halaster's Lost Apprentice" campaign guide and the poster maps from my local comic book store. The guide itself looked good, aside from the D&D logo covering up most of the monster illustration on the front cover, (as an artist, that bugged me.) There were two poster maps, both of which were folded. This didn't bother me until I got home and spread them out. It was like the creases in the map had been ironed in. I set out some minis on the first map area to see how it looked, and my poor halfling mini's starting position was on a small mountain of poster fold. So I put my core handbooks use with their other ability besides containing information: being heavy and flat. I unfolded both maps flattened them with the books for a couple days. I understand the convenience of sending the posters folded, but rolling them is the way to go for a nice visual experience.

As far as reading the campaign guide goes, I would strongly suggest a couple of things. The first is to pay attention to the advice on page 7 of "Halaster's Lost Apprentice" where it talks about adjusting the encounters. If you are playing with a group larger than five, or a fairly experienced group of power gamers, or both for that matter, they will FLY through the encounter. The enemies are designed for 5 level 1 characters and they are also on the easy side (so far) so people with little RPG experience can get in on the game with the pregenerated characters. I DMed one table and the session went almost two and a half hours, the other table was done with the fight in a little less than two hours. One reason is that they had 6 experienced players.

The other reason is that I follow Wizards_DnD on Twitter. Yesterday they tweeted some additional affects and ideas for the game, and while not all of them were implemented, it helped rein in some of the power gamers in the group who would otherwise destroy all the opposition without taking a scratch.

I'd also suggest that you separate "buddies" on the table as much as possible, so the story can take place without having to say "listen up" too many times. We had a couple of easily resolvable issues in that department.

The actual session was really fun. We had a good mix of pregenerated characters and homemade characters. I had to fudge the story a little when the entire party approached Fayne and her hirelings in the first three seconds of their experience in the Yawning Portal Tavern, but when does a little fudging NOT happen as a DM? The party ran outside and half of them fell off the bridge by either getting smacked by the dwarf squire or just falling of their own volition.

Probably the most negative part of the whole session was giving out renown points. Some people felt pretty jipped. Because I knew the point system ahead of time, I would have made a Wilden Seeker with a PHB3 feat on the Character Builder, and I would have done everything I could to deal more than 15 points of damage. The renown points I would have received as a player would have been 12, enough to receive my first reward. On the other hand, say you're new to the game and you use the pregenerated human paladin named Alvenor, and you don't deal more than 15 points of damage. You are looking at a solid 3 Renown points at the end of the first encounter. There were some mad people. Next time we will probably have two more Wilden Seekers in the group with no experience. Yay. Maybe Wizards of the Coast should think about the effects of some of the renown point accomplishments.

The campaign guide instructed me to go to the organizer after the game to "collect my reward." He had no idea what this was alluding to, and we both wondered if this "reward" was different than the standard DM Rewards program. It seems like it, because the instruction to "collect your reward" is under the section "At the end of your first session" in the campaign guide. This is still a mystery to me.

Anyway. It was a little bit of a hassle to get everyone in the groove, but the actual game was a great success. People had fun, and the comic book store got a lot of business. Looking forward to next Wednesday!

One Dang-Good Session!

Tonight's game of Dungeons & Dragons was one dang-good session. For starters it was really nice to get to play a character tonight, with my friend, Josh, taking the Dungeon Master's seat.
I chose to make a Minotaur Character, and I was insanely pleased with the results. Fisteron Shacklehand was his name, (please hold your applause until the end...) and being a brawling fighter was his game. I made him especially to grab the faces of baddies and hold them still. I even illustrated the concept here.


Two of the other guys at the table decided to play Bullywugs, which I have to admit, I thought that was going to be lame. I was so wrong. Jeremiah made a cleric that looked like a Bullfrog, and he even named him Jeremiah in tribute to the song my 3 Dog Night. ("Jeremiah was a bullfrog!") Chris made a Bullywug Monk that looked more like a black and blue tree frog, and that was just hilarious by itself. Chris was very clear that "Sammy", as he named him, was totally naked, but that no one should care, because he's a frog. I drew "the Bullywug Brothers here.


We also had a "pirate" on our little team, who managed to drink himself to a stupor and then almost get beat up by his own teammates within 24 hours of meeting the rest of the party.


We also had a human ranger and a shifter warden who lent themselves well to the team. I won't go into agonizing detail, but there was a lot of face grabbing and horn stabbing tonight. Oh yeah!


Between sliding down and fireman's pole and dragging a warforged guard all over the place, I would have to say it was one of the best games I've been able to play in. The roleplaying was great, the combat was fun, and most everyone really liked their characters. This is the kind of session I hope people have every time I DM.

Deer Spirits!

This is a doodle I did this morning of a male version of my Seeker from PHB3 Gameday on Saturday.

This doodle is complete with one of the deer spirits that bursts from his arrows. :P

Which Character?

I've had a few different ideas for what kind of character I want to play for this weekend's D&D game, most of the ideas coming from Player's Handbook 3.

The first one is one I've already mentioned, the Druid/Shaman hybrid. The concept is that I want to be a bear that can summon a bear. The only foreseeable problem is that I might not be able to control the Spirit Companion bear without coming out of wildshape to use my implement, that's not a big deal though, considering I can just use a minor action to change back before controlling my bear buddy. I've already taken the feat that allows me to summon bear buddy as a free action.


The second idea comes largely from the character I got to play at Player's Handbook 3 Gameday on Saturday. This Character, however would be Handaxe-Throwing Spiritbond Seeker instead of a Bloodbond Seeker. Can't wait!

What do you think? Which character should I choose?

Bears!

I was experimenting with the Hybrid options in D&D Player's Handbook 3, and I had a wicked idea. The Druid/Shaman class.

Think about it! You could wildshape into a bear, and then summon a bear spirit companion! Holy Awesome! There'd be bears all over the place!

The Wilden, PH3 Race

I'm intrigued by the new player character race in the Player's Handbook 3 of Dungeons and Dragons. The Wilden are like nature's answer to all the evil in the D&D world: Plant-people.

One of the suggested classes is obviously a druid, but they don't suggest a Warden, which I just think is perfect, especially if you pick the Form of the Willow Sentinel as your daily power. "Let's attack that living tree!" and then "Gah! It's an even bigger living tree!" All in all, I think the Warden and Wilden characteristics lend themselves nicely to each other, the only problem occurring with redundancy.

I hope you enjoy the picture of my Wilden Warden!

Rock and Gnoll!

I finally got all of my art software reloaded, so it's time to Rock and Gnoll!

The Day My Computer Died

Yesterday I had an experience that really stressed me out. My computer died.

I recovered it, so know it runs like brand new, the only downside is that I lost a great many things that I hadn't backed up on my external hard-drive.

All I can say is that Norton Anti Virus is like having a security blanket when you jump out of a plane. You feel safe right until you realize that it's not going to help you at all. And then you die.

It might be a couple days before I post anything illustration wise, considering I have to reload all of my art software, I'm really hoping I don't run into any problems there.

Warforged Portrait

I was making a character sheet for a Warforged Fighter using the DDI character builder demo. I was sad that there weren't any stock Warforged pictures to use as a portrait on the sheet.

Then I thought, "Hey! I'm an Illustrator, why don't I draw one?"

So, I did. You are welcome to use it! Just save this image to your "ddi" picture folder, and choose it in your options.

I love warforged characters, I wish that they were featured in Player's Handbook 2 instead of Dragon Magazine that I can't afford to subscribe to. Here's hoping for PHB 3!

Tiefling Barbarian 2

I drew this one live too, but I think it was too late, because no one watched!

Oh well. Next time.

Tiefling Barbarian, Live!

I drew this Tiefling Barbarian earlier today. If you like the way it looks, you'll have to check out the process! I recorded myself drawing it here: http://bit.ly/5vWzOr

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Maybe next time I'll post on twitter when I'm drawing and you could watch me LIVE! Thanks for your comments.

Getting Beat Up Again.

Once again I tried to get a cool picture of my fighter doing well, and instead he's just getting mobbed.

It's a funny screen-shot though, so I though I'd share.

Not Exactly a Glamor Shot...

I wanted to try and take an awesome screen-capture of my dwarf fighter, Ivarock, in an epic battle on Dungeons & Dragons online.

Unfortunately, I got this picture of the poor guy taking damage instead of dishing it out. Oh well.

You can just take my word for it that he won. :D

Which Came First?

Click to enlarge!

Which came first, the work or the experience?

Forge of Worldsoul

BOOM!!!


The massive hammer strikes the top of the Anvil shaped mountain, and live sparks fly from the peak!

Hooray for 4e!

A little while ago I blog-complained that my rpg group was stagnating. Some were defecting to only videogames, while others were getting bored/frustrated with d20modern.

Yesterday we had an amazing thing happen. Our regular DM, Mark, busted out his old D&D minis and maps... and we had a hilarious 3.5 edition session of Dungeons and Dragons.

Then, another amazing thing happened. One of the NPCs shouted, "What is that terrible odor?" and I sarcastically made a "smell" check. This ended up being a perfect segway to explaining how the perception skill replaces the spot, search, and listen skill in 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Long story short, next week I'll be Dungeon Mastering a 4e campaign with my group! Wish me luck!