Return to the Cursed Earth

Wooo! to days in a row. I must be on a roll. Nothing to drastic, just a quick update on my Post-Apoc barbarians for an upcoming event at my FLGS.

I've got more on the way. This could have long term consequences like the ork army did...

Still Going

It has been a long road to get to this point, but the Dwarf sculpts have finally been sent to their new home to get casted up and sold on to the world. I'll wait for final confirmation before telling you where to get them from, but it is a UK company, so keep your eyes open. For now though I have other work to continue with so I'll provide more updates about those little critters as they develop.

Regarding "other" work, my main focus is to get everything ready for Age of Savagery, more details and HERE. We've already received a few first drafts and initial story ideas and my own submission is coming along nicely, if I do say so myself.

All that aside, we are still looking for submissions, so if you know an artist or writer that would like to get on board, then pass them the link above.

I should have something more post worthy next time.

Bit of a Grind

This week has been a bit slow on the production of cool stuff. That isn't to say I've been idol, just everything I'm working on is a slow process. As proof of my continued hard work (cough) I have some pictures of my newly completed Dwarf Archers.

These lads and lasses will be marching alongside their combat kitted brethren one I sort out a buyer for the sculpts. I've got a promising lead, but I'll let you know when I have something set in stone.

Also on the cards this week is continued work on my submission for Age of Savagery (still not happy with the title) Although this has been a slow process, I'm enjoying getting back to my painty roots. I've actually started doing this as a means to relax rather than work at the moment.

Again, anyone interested in getting involved with this project, read the guidelines HERE. Short stories, art based on the setting or comics are what we really want for this, so if you have something you want to share, then send it over.

War of Wrath at Firestorm

This weekend was a bit of strange one for me. The missus was away and work had given me the time off (shocking) the stars had aligned perfectly and I was able to pack up my army and go play some Lord of the Rings!

Big thanks to Matt for organising this event. It was small, but a great opportunity to get out of the house, play some games and meet new people. Now on to the pictures! First up the family group shot of my forces. The Corsairs of Umbar led by The Fleetmaster. This army had almost know armour, but a lot of throwing knives. I was hoping to just blade storm my way through anything that got too close and have the dual weapon wielding Reavers deal with the rest.

That was the plan, let's see how it played out....

Game 1 against Ian, a lovely chap until he put these on the table;

Well, they say "Go big or go home" guess Ian took it literally. The mission was one that seemed to play to both our strengths and at that time of the morning it was nice and simple. KILL EVERYTHING!!!!!

The Trolls started off in the middle of the board hoping to use the ruins as cover against the archers on the far flank. My plan was to pin them in place with the large mob of Corsairs and then have the Fleetmaster take the trolls out one by one using smoke bombs to distract the trolls enough to hurt them.

Captain Barry stepped up to stop the archers from getting mauled by the Troll.

Whilst the Fleetmaster and his underlings went to work. In the end it was a close victory to the Corsairs with three of the Trolls dead, but at a heavy price from the Corsairs.

Game 2 was against Dave and his Orc Hunters army led Azog. Mission was to capture the three objectives in the center of the bored and escape. As the orcs were mostly mounted on wargs, I knew this was going to be difficult. Although the Corsairs did their job and carved up the orc rabble sent before them, it was not enough to stop the orcs escaping with all three objectives giving the orcs a solid victory in short order.

Game 3 was against Rob and his Gondor army led by Faramir (fan favourite). This time there were five objectives on the bored that had to be controlled, but to spice things up, casualties were brought back on in the following turn so there was a never ending stream of re-enforcement.

 I felt I had a strong centre field set up and was ready to take on the Gondor heavy infantry head on, unfortunately for the Corsairs, cavalry happened...

Between the Gondorian heavy armour and the cavalry's mobility, I was over run and fighting on the defensive before too long. I tried to changes tactics towards the end and send re-enforcements against the least defended objectives and leave the centre of the field to a last stand. In the end it was too little too late. The Gondorian reserves were arriving as quick as I could kill them off. In the end Rob took a solid win.

Game 4 against (another) Dave and (another) Gondor army. This time led by Madril. This time the objective was to hold the middle of the board as long as possible or until the enemy force was broken. I had a simple plan that should have worked. The archers hold the right flank and whittle down the enemy elites and anyone sitting on the objective, whilst the Corsair mob holds the center in place long enough for the Fleetmaster and his retinue to out flank the Gondor forces. See, simple. Unfortunately Gondor soldiers don't like the idea of dying and the Fleetmaster's flanking force just stalled on the Gondor shield wall. As the Corsair numbers began to drop, I realised that I couldn't grab the center of the field in time. The game ended with a white wash in Gondor's favour.

End of the day and fun was had by all. A big thank you to everyone who attended and to my opponents for the games. I ended up joint forth and joint most sproting with Ian in both accounts so not a bad run. I'm hoping Matt will run a few more one day events like this in the future so I can get some more of my LOTR miniatures painted.

On an unrelated note, here's the link to the anthology project I'm working on with Deadstar Publishing. If you have a short story or fancy getting involved with drawing some comics, give it a look HERE. We are taking submissions now.

GRINNING LOON & DEADSTAR NEED YOU!!!!!

Attention all writers and artists! This is the call out to anyone interested in being involved in something cool. A project that I have been working on for some time now, building a world and a short narrative so that others may follow and expand upon. I've presented the idea to Deadstar Publishing, local indy publisher that I've worked with in the past and they are on board too, as are several collaborators who I was lucky enough to speak too over the weekend at Comic Con.

So, what is this master plan I hear you cry? I've built the ground work for a fantasy world and now I want writers and illustrators to fill it with stories, comics and art based on the original concepts. I've kept a lot of the world quite vague in places intentionally as I want other people to still have the freedom to expand on the brief and make awesome tales of heroism and villainy that are all set in the same world. Once everything is collected together my good buddy Kev over at Deadstar Publishing will get the whole anthology bound and printed and ready to hit the trade shows.

This will be a personal project that relies on submissions and I am not asking anyone to do something I'm not prepared to do myself. The artwork shown in my previous blog post are the first pages in an 8 page full colour story that will be part of the anthology. I will be submitting whatever concept and filler art we need to finish it off as well, but the dream is to have a professionally printed 80 page full colour collection of comics and written prose showcasing the talent of not only the indy crowd, but those creatives just stepping into the industry and looking to get their work out there and be part of something community driven. It is hard (and expensive) to self publish and get a full product ready to go, but a one off comic or short story where all the printing costs are covered and you will be able to carry it off to other shows yourself? That is something of a relief to a lot of people in my opinion. It certainly is to me. Which is why I'm putting this out there now.

Below is a link to the PDF of the final brief with all the relevant information for anyone wishing to be involved.

Age of Savagery Submission Call

All submissions need to be sent to ageofsavagery@deadstarpublishing.co.uk as well as any questions you may have. Kev and myself will answer these as soon as we are able.

 Thanks for listening to me ramble and I look forward to seeing everything that gets submitted.

The Next Big Thing!

Cardiff Comic Con is done for now and a great time was had by all. It was fun to see all my fellow trader buddies and con friends, both old and new. A big hanks to Kev over at Deadstar Publishing for sending people to my stall and I hope I repaid the favour, lord knows I tried.

As I promised, here are the final pieces that I've been working on the last week or so. It's always fun to work on a new project, but this one was particularly satisfying, especially to hear so much feedback from con attendees on the weekend plus various people involved in the creative industry of small press and indy publishing.

There is a very big reason why I was so pleased with the reseption of these pieces on the weekend as they heralded the next major project from myself and Deadstar Publishing. I have spent weeks drawing and scheming a barbarian fantasy world for next comic and now I've laid the ground work I want to open the world up to others. Between myself, Deadstar and various other contributors we will be creating an anthology of stories set in the savage world. I'm aiming for a September release date and will be taking submissions from writers, artist, poets, frankly anything that will go on the printed page. This will be a real collaborative effort of all involved as it will hopefully provide a few opportunities to people looking to get themselves into independent publishing as well building a career.

I will have all the important details, as well as the finalized brief for anyone interested in submitting work for the anthology later this week. For now, I'll just say thanks to everyone who stopped by the stand and can't wait to see you at my next attended event, Caerphilly Comic Con.

All Coming Together

Last week or so has been a mad scramble to get artwork finished for Cardiff Film & Comic Con this weekend. A long with dealing printers, restocks and last minute running around I've got the ashcans finished with time to spare.

For those unfortunate peoples unable to attend (sucks I know) I will be posting the Ashcan artwork here after the weekend so everyone gets a sneaky peak at what I have in the works.

I'm hoping to see a bunch of people this weekend and do my usual level best to sell them comics and art as well as chatting absolute nonsense all day long... going to be great