We’re Absolute Beginners…[Monday Meeting Notes]

…And We’re Absolutely Sane.

Although it has been crazy here this last week.

The Deluxe Changeling Kickstarter is ending tomorrow and not only have we added Deluxe C20 Dice as an Add-on, but we are giving a shot at an Ultra-Deluxe version of the C20 cover designed to look like the stained glass effect I always wanted for Changeling. Pledges and messages of interest in the Ultra-Deluxe are flying fast and furious right now as we race to see if we can get commitments for 200 copies of the UDE before the KS is over!

Plus, our shared Scarred Lands Kickstarter has been funded and now is popping along at a good pace through a bunch of Stretch Goals that activate characters from the classic d20 The Wise & The Wicked to be transformed into Pathfinder and 5E versions. If that sentence made sense to you, you need to check out the Scarred Lands KS! And if it didn’t, but you might like what many consider one of the best fantasy settings out there, or just want us to get more of our Onyx Path game books into stores, then you should check it out too!

See the BLURBS! below for links.

And then, there’s MidWinter convention at the end of this week! So much fun! In honor of the pins we’ll be giving away as well as the Early Access version of Pugmire that Fast Eddy Webb will be demoing there, I thought this week to show you folks a step by step look at my process for creating the Breed and Calling symbols in Pugmire. (You can skip down if such a thing is not of interest, but really, how could you not be fascinated by a grown man showing how he gets to create symbols for an uplifted doggy society for a living?) Come by our booth there if you are at the con or in the City of Milwaukee. We’d love to see ya.

 

RICH’S FASCINATING SYMBOL MAKING PROCESS:

I always start with the text.

First, to get an overall feel of the setting, and then to get a specific idea of the groups that need symbols. What sort of imagery is appropriate? What works culturally, thematically, and aesthetically? In the case of Pugmire, I knew a pseudo heraldic look worked right culturally, as well as lending itself to the bright colors I think will be appealing to kids as well as adults. Not too fancy, but with a unique kind of symbolism that would differentiate the society the Dogs have created from our real-world medieval symbolism.

I’ve found that these days, having done so many, that I can sit with a print out of the text and just scrawl ideas in the margins. Some might call these thumbnail sketches, but I wouldn’t dignify them with that appellation.

As you can see, I hit pretty quickly on the idea of making the Callings (classes) in a shield shape, and the Breeds (races) in a circle. You might also be able to see how I’ll often compile lists of adjectives or objects that can define the choice of symbolism. From there I did a bunch of tighter sketches:

You can see me playing around with the various choices of symbols. At one point, based on a partially-remembered conversation with Eddy, I thought both magic-using Callings (the Artisans and the Shepherds) had their blood activated to do magic, so the drop of blood was used several times. Without the cultural context, that might be grim, but for this use it was a symbol of the power of Man that could enable their magic. Oh, it winds up that I remembered wrong, anyway. Bones, though, are very much a positive symbol of success and victory (rather than of warning and death) in Pugmire, and their symbols reflect that.

Now here is the sheet I sent Eddy for comment:

It was here that Eddy pointed out that I completely misread the blood drop thing. Which is actually really cool, because we’re fleshing out this culture as we develop the graphics, which might just be seen as window-dressing, But in world-building, these sorts of things begin to demand answers from the creators, and those answers help build the setting.

With the developer’s OK, I then drew up the various parts of the symbols I would need to scan into Photoshop. I only draw one half of most symmetrical objects, as I’ve learned from hard experience that PShop is more accurate than my eye/hand coordination in making two halves match. My scanner isn’t extra large, so I had to scan the art in two passes at 600dpi b&w.

Next, I’m going to demonstrate the process of how I take these pieces of line art and turn them into the color symbols we’re looking for on the shield for the Strays Calling. First, I had come up with a shield template in PShop that would contain all the shield symbols:

This is in multiple layers so that I could place the symbols and the background color between the metal of the shield interior and the highlights.

You can see that I took the half star and copied it, flipped the copy, and combined them before placing the star in the tree. I deleted anything outside the tree, leaving the interior white. Next I put in the leaves.

The leaves are basically a flat green, with a darker green outline to give just a bit of depth. Depth was something that I wanted for all of these symbols, as I thought it looked more interesting, and sort of suggested that these symbols could actually exist as a real thing somewhere in Pugmire.

Potentially not interesting, but really indicative of my creative process, I was pretty well stuck without a direction for these until the idea of including depth hit me. And it hit me one night at dinner at our local Outback when I looked across the dining room and saw a crest of one of the Australian territories mounted on the wall. It was heraldic, but in 3D like it was carved and painted. “Aha!”, I yelled, “that’s it!” Restaurant staff love it when you do that and then whip out your phone to take a pic of their wall.

In the course of doing these, I created depth in a variety of ways. I used the bevel/emboss layer style tool, I hand painted to make things look volumetric, and I used drop shadows like in the bg of this one. Sometimes all those methods and more.

Here, I colored the tree brown and then hit that layer with a bevel/emboss style with a hard chisel effect that gave it some nice texturing not unlike bark.

And the gold star was also made with the bevel/emboss style pushed to create the interior star shape.

Here are the full range of the shields and buttons:

Hope you’ve enjoyed this little look into my process, and here’s a reminder that we’ll have the buttons as actual pin-backed buttons at MidWinter!

 

 

BLURBS!

 

KICKSTARTER!

 

The Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Kickstarter IS DOWN TO ITS LAST DAY! As pointed out above, we now are offering C20 Deluxe Dice Sets as Add-ons because the Dice Stretch Goal was passed! We have upcoming Stretch Goals to get a sequel novel to the Immortal Eyes fiction trilogy written by Jackie Cassada, and to add a further Chimeric section to Changeling 20th itself!

Most importantly, we are pushing to get commitments for 200 or more Ultra-Deluxe C20s featuring a stained glass style cover.

And here is an interview C20 developer Black Hat Matt McFarland and I did for FlamesRising: http://www.flamesrising.com/talking-c20-with-onyx-path/

 

 

In the heady days of the D20 explosion, White Wolf created our own fantasy setting featuring a world devastated by the brutal war between gods and ancient titans. The Scarred Lands will return as this Kickstarter for the new edition of Scarred Lands Players Guide was funded last week! Hosted on KS by our partner, Nocturnal Media, this Kickstarter is not only for a new edition but for a print run to get Pathfinder AND 5E editions into stores!

 

ON SALE!

The Tales From the Age of Sorrows Exalted 3rd fiction anthology goes on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG in PDF/ePub/Mobi and PoD versions!

 

The Demon Storyteller Guide has dropped its cover and is on sale as an Advance PDF on DTRPG! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170165/Demon-Storytellers-Guide

 

V20 Lore of the Clans in PDF and PoD versions now on sale at DTRPG!

 

M20 How Do You DO That? is now available at DTRPG in PDF and PoD versions!

 

 

 

The Pugmire Pamphlet we had available at Gen Con is now ready for PDF download. Read about the world of Pugmire from the enthusiastic and optimistic pen of Princess Yosha Pug, as well as notes from the gruff and worldly hunter Pan Daschund: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153518/Pugmire-Gen-Con-Brochure

There are also six Pugmire posters available as free PDFs or $.99 physical posters, suitable for framing:

• Spike Mutt: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150845/Spike-Mutt-Pugmire-Poster-6
• Pan Dachshund: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150844/Pan-Dachshund-Pugmire-Poster-5
• Jack Rat-Terrier: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150944/Jack-RatTerrier-Pugmire-Poster-4
• Sgt. Leo Bulldog: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150843/Sgt-Leo-Bulldog-Pugmire-Poster-3
• Princess Yosha Pug: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/149750/Princess-Yosha-Pug-Pugmire-Poster-2
• Sister Picassa Collie: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148516/Sister-Picassa-Collie-Pugmire-Poster-1

Start spreading the Code of Man!

 

 

CONVENTIONS!

THIS IS THE WEEK! We’re one of the Contributing Sponsors at Midwinter Con this year this January in Milwaukee! We are so looking forward to catching up with all our friends at the Con and showing off our newest projects. This is the first year we are in the dealers hall, so come by and say hi! RichT, Fast Eddy Webb, and Newlywed Neall Raemonn Price will be there at our booth as well as running demo games of Scion and Pugmire. There will be panels for What’s Up With Onyx Path?, WoD 20th Anniversary Games and a Pugmire/Scion/StoryPath System one. In the meantime, check out the show here: http://www.midwintergamingconvention.com/ SEE YOU THERE!

 

 

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And now, the new project status updates!

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

• M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
• Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
• CtL anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
• Scion: Alpha (Scion 2nd Edition Playtest Alpha Slice)
• Ring of Spiragos (Scarred Lands)
• Ex Backer Charms (Exalted 3rd Edition)
• DA Tome of Secrets (Vampire 20th Dark Ages)

Redlines

Second Draft

Development

• StoryPath System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)
• W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
• VtM Lore of the Bloodlines (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
• W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
• Beast Ready Made Characters (Beast: the Primordial)
• Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
• WtA Kinfolk (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

• V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
• Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
• Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad (Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

 

 

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

• V20 Ghouls – Awaiting text.
• W20 Shattered Dreams – Awaiting artnotes for Ch. 5. Doing up the KS shirt this week. Got sidetracked by Mid Winter stuff last week.
• Promethean: the Created Second – Ron art rolling in… once all in I’ll send it over for approval.
  
• Scarred Lands PG – Wrangling last bit of art out of artists and recontracting some.
• Dark Eras – Art in progress. Got sketches in from a couple of artists already.
• Dark Eras Companion – Still sorting through that buy.
• The Pack – Contracting about done.

 

In Layout

• Guide to the Black Hand – Working on it. 
• Chronicles of Darkness Condition Cards – After the errata pass is done on CofD core.
• Beast Screen – Off for approvals at Paradox.
• Mage: the Awakening Second – Awaiting approved text… working on some design tweaks for the interior.
• Pugmire Early Access – Waiting on the last of the art to come in… but layout is complete.
• Beast Anthology –  Knocking that out this week.

 

 

Proofing

• Beast: The Primordial – Indexing.
• Ex 3 core book – From RichT: Notated PDF sent to Maria, she has to finish another project today and will dive into the correx Tues/Weds.
• Truth Beyond Paradox – Still proofing with Phil.

 

At Press

• M20 – Deluxes printing (Screen is finished and awaiting book).
• M20 How Do You Do That ?!? – Hopefully available this week.
• Chronicles of Darkness – Should be entering in errata this week.
• Demon STG – Errata collecting.
• Dreams of Avarice – Errata collecting.

 

Special- projects on hold in the art and production area until an external factor is resolved

• Wraith 20 – Can’t go further until art notes come in, still being developed by Rich Dansky.
• Pentex Employee Indoctrination Manual – Some added and amended text needs to come in.