Archive for the ‘Miskatonic River Press’ Category

Beeeeeeg frikkin’ news

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

Oh man. Where to start.

I guess i’ll be blunt. I’ve just, as of last week, been given the honour and responsibility of creating the book design and layout for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition.

*ulp*

Not only will i be doing the core rulebook, but i’ll also be designing the Investigator’s Handbook, as well as the Keeper’s Screen.

This, obviously, is a huge deal. And not something i take lightly. As someone who actively plays CoC, and knows about the….various opinions on how CoC 6th edition looks, and how i’m doing the book design for RPG i love the most, it’s a little daunting. Well, okay. A lot daunting. Kinda terrifying, but in a good way.

Anyway. I’ll be discussing my progress right here, at ol’ Squamous. Right now i’m in pre-production, going over the manuscript and getting ideas for the design. At this point, i’m pouring over fonts, how page elements might look, navigation, splash pages, and so on. One thing i’m keeping mind that, as pretty as this could be, it is still a /rule/ book, and needs to be easily referenced by people (one thing that people complained about with 6th ed. (me included) that it’s a bitch to find information in it sometimes). But i still want it to reflect a period look and feel, evocative of the Classic era. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Meanwhile, other stuff has been slithering around in the Squamous camp-

I’ve been pounding out a fiction anthology for Miskatonic River Press, called The Grimscribe’s Puppets:

GPCoverWebThumb.jpg

The first pass is already done; now i’m going back and making corrections and the usual lot. I still hate italics text.

Work continues on the card art for FtS!. I’ve kinda lost track of how many i’ve finished, but i’ve gotta be close to the 30 mark. I need to post more examples about that here. I’ll get on that.

In non-Lovecraftian news, i’ve been hired as book designer for Montag Press! I’ve already received my first assignment from them; more news on that as it happens.

Whew!

Tales of the Sleepless City is out!!

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

Yes, it’s true! Miskatonic River Press’ latest release, Tales of the Sleepless City, is now starting to get into the hands of people as i type this. It should be winding its way to distributors (and then, your FLGS) any day now. Comprised of such acclaimed authors as Dan Harms, Scott David Aniolowski, Tom Lynch, and Oscar Rios, this book features adventures all taking place in New York City, during the Classic era. Get it! It’s damn good! You can order your copy by heading to MRP’s website here.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what the hell’s going on with this card game you keep babbling about from time to time? Well, i’m still neck deep in the art. After the clean up was done, i’ve had to go back and redo all the colouring, as well as do further clean up of the line work i originally did. It’s a long process, and one that i can get to in between other (i.e., paying) design work. To give you an example of what needs to be done, i essentially need to take scans of the original work i did, like this:

Dominate I

 

 

And turn it into something more like this:

Dominate II

 

 

It’s not terribly difficult, mind. It just takes a long time to do, and get right. And there’s a *lot* of art to get done. I think i’ve mentioned it before, but there’s about…80 pieces that need to be done in total. Some of which i need to go back and start over from scratch, as the original art is just too crappy for my tastes.

So…that’s where i’m at with Feed the Shoggoth!. Got a ways to go, but i’ll continue to post progress here as it happens.

 

 

 

 

It’s been a bit quiet around here…

Friday, November 30th, 2012

I hate it when real life gets in the way of work. Ugh. Sadly, it’s put a bit of a stall on projects, but things are ramping up again.

I’ve been working furiously lately to get Tales of the Sleepless City out the door; last night, i made a big push to get the page decoration done, and i think i’m there with it. Again, trying to be pretty without ruining the functionality, and working within an Art Deco style/framework. I think i pulled it off, but i need to see what Tom thinks. After that, i’ve got a round of corrections to comb through, which i’m hoping won’t be too long…

Happy to say that i’ve been given a new book to work on, a fiction anthology called “Undead and Unbound”. Given that it’s been shepherded by Brian Sammons and David Conyers, i’m sure it’s gonna rawk. :)

Feed the Shoggoth is, alas, something i haven’t been able to look at much, mostly because of time constraints, plus i’m still waiting for the art clean up to be done. But it’s still present in my mind.

Lastly, there are a couple of Gaslight-related projects that are in the works, but i can’t say more on that just yet. But don’t fear, that era is going to see some support. :)

A Season in Carcosa is back from the printer

Friday, September 21st, 2012

…which means you should be seeing it in the stores any day now. Which also means that i finished that project. Which also means i need to update my portfolio gallery. ;)

Aaaand it means i’m back on Tales of the Sleepless City. Right now i’ve got the first two scenarios done, and am chugging through the third. My process has been a bit reversed on this particular book; normally, i like to have all the page decoration done prior to laying out the contents, but due to how things worked out, i’m doing the opposite. I have done the scenario splash pages, however, and feedback on them has been positive. I’ve got a vague idea of how i want the page designs to look, but nothing concrete…so i’m essentially letting things percolate until inspiration or (more likely) desperation hits me.

Various stuff. Plus, Gaslight wins a Gold ENnie!

Monday, August 20th, 2012

Sometimes, there are lulls in projects, where i’m not working on much, or i’ve just got one book or something that i’m concentrating on. Other times (and they’re pretty rare), it feels like i’m juggling five very pissed off tigers. That are all on fire. Plus a couple of chainsaws. Juggling them all with one hand. Whilst riding a unicycle. That’s got a seat covered in grease.

This? This is one of those times.

To keep track of everything that i’ve got going on, i assembled a list on my whiteboard, complete with status and colour coding. I’ve got, uh, nine things in various states.

Ulp.

Obviously, there’s no way in hell i can devote all my limited time to every single project, so i attack things where and when i can. Right now, the two things that have my attention are:

Medieval Tales: Work continues apace on this. Mostly been concentrating on the Tales section, though i was able to get the chapter heading page wrapped up as well (and man was that a lot more difficult to put together than i anticipated). The artwork looks really great; you can see a couple of examples of the progress on Red Lion Publishing’s news page.

A Season in Carcosa: This kinda came up on me so fast, i haven’t had an opportunity to even mention this one yet. It’s a collection of Cthulhu Mythos fiction, all centering around The King in Yellow, edited by Joe Pulver, Sr. Trying to crank this one out as soon as possible (which, since it’s almost all text, is a fairly quick project. Although italicized text is my bane at the moment). This one will be published by Miskatonic River Press. You can read more about it here.

Meanwhile, Tales of the Sleepless City is temporarily put on hold until Carcosa is done; right now i’m mostly through formatting the text, and gathering source material for the page decoration. As far as my Feed the Shoggoth! game goes, i have someone assisting with some art production duties, cleaning up the artwork that i’ve done. I laid out a spreadsheet for all the cards, and figure that i’ve got about 17 pieces of art that need re-doing. So i’m glad that’s going on in the background whilst i devote time to this other stuff.

The beeeeeeg news, however, is that the Gen Con ENnie awards were announced over the weekend, and Cthulhu by Gaslight won the Gold for Best Supplement! Hot damn! I can now officially say i’ve been part of an award-winning book. Big congrats to Kevin Ross and William Barton, the authors of the book, all the artists who came through big time, as well as Paul Carrick, who won a Silver for best Cover Art.

I feel a little justified, then, in slapping this graphic right here:

The contract is in the mail…

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

…literally. I just got a contract from MRP, so now i can officially announce that i’ll be working on Tales of the Sleepless City, a collection of Call of Cthulhu adventures centered in and around New Yawk. I’m sure the fact that Tom Lynch is from NY has absolutely nothing to do with this. ;) In addition, there’s a couple of other projects attached to that contract, but, um, i can’t talk about them yet.

Meanwhile, the art situation seems to be slowly untangling itself. It looks like i’ll have found some people to help out soon, so i need to get some raw card scans done and sent to them, and see what they can do with the designs. If absolutely nothing else, i’ve gone and proven to myself that i *can*, if i need to, clean up the card designs well enough. And i’ve already got the template going (fonts, border, etc.) so that they’ll all be legible.  Looking through them, though, i know that at least some card art needs to be redone entirely. Not to get down on myself, but some of it just looks like crap, and i know i can do better.

Work on the Medieval Tales book has been going in fits and starts. I need to finish designing the chapter head sections, which is proving more difficult than i first thought.

Happy New Year!

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Sorry for the lack of updates, but the holidays kinda put a crimp in time. I can report that Horror for the Holidays has been released, and should be available at your local bookstore…or you can order it on Amazon.com, or directly from Miskatonic River Press, of course!

Cthulhu by Gaslight has been coming along nicely, and it’s getting close to being done…well, until it gets reviewed and sent back for corrections, of course. :P

To whet your appetite for Gaslight, i’m presenting here, for the first time, some of the artwork done by the esteemed artists for the book; Adam Denton, David Grilla, and John T. Snyder. To wit:

 

 

 

And here we go!

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

The final, corrected file for Horror for the Holidays has been sent!

(Altered) Resonance manuscript has been mailed off to Pagan Publishing!

 

Holy crap!

A new book in record time

Monday, November 28th, 2011

No sooner had i finished off Dissecting Cthulhu for Miskatonic River Press when Tom Lynch contacted me and said, “hey, we’ve got this collection of short stories that we really want to get out on the shelves by Christmas…any chance you could crank this out? You’ve got about, uh, three days.” Lunatic that i am, i immediately jumped at the challenge, and managed to crank this thing faster than any book i’ve ever done. Granted, it’s just a fiction collection, so there weren’t a lot of moving parts, but still, it wasn’t easy.

There will be the usual round of corrections (which i’m currently waiting for), but barring any unexpected problems, you should be able to get your own copy of Horror for the Holidays some time in December! Oh, and check out the list of authors- it really is a damn good collection of stories. Anything with Scott David Aniolowski’s name on it is going to be full of win.

Done, almost done, and, uh, not quite done.

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

It’s official- Lux In Tenebras has been released to the public! You can purchase a copy of this lovely .pdf release for Cthulhu Invictus at Miskatonic River Press’ website here.

Meanwhile, we’re getting very close with Dissecting Cthulhu, S.T. Joshi’s collection of essays on HP Lovecraft’s writings. I’d say we’re about 95% done; right now, i’m waiting on proofreading corrections, after had just finished putting the index in.

As for Cthulhu by Gaslight…it goes. Doing what work that i can on it. I’m taking a new approach to the layout, to hopefully speed up the process for when the artwork does indeed arrive.

I’ve slowly but steadily working on my revision for (Altered) Resonance, my World War II/Delta Green one shot scenario. It’s somehow ballooned to over 17,000 words. Not exactly sure how that happened. I’ve reworked the ending of it a bit, but not so drastically that it wouldn’t hold up under another playtest. It’s getting close to being done; the next step after this will be to submit it to Pagan and see what they think of it…