Deadwood - Art Update

Mike Foreman -- This young Deputy just got a
big promotion when the Sheriff got mauled by wild
animals... at least they THINK it was animals!

Wow, has it really been that long since my last post here? That's frightening. I haven't been completely silent at the Hawgleg Website, or even at our Facebook page.

I thought I'd give you a glimpse at some artwork that we're developing for the upcoming game, Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood.

This is a simple character study of a character who will be featured in some of the images that will go into the Deadwood book.

If you're not sure what I mean, let me explain. You see, when we created the original Gutshot book, we were able to tap into a vast collection of public domain artwork from pulp magazines published in the 1920s - 1940s. There were a lot of great Western magazines published back then, and we really benefited from the artistry of those bygone days; we found dozens of great images of cowboys, gunfighters, gamblers, and so on.

But, as we move forward with our new project, we can no longer find suitable artwork from the past. As you might imagine, there aren't a lot of zombie cowboys to be found in those old magazines. So, we must create new artwork for our new book. Although this creates some difficulties, it also creates some new opportunities. By creating a "cast of characters," our examples will be able to tell a more unified story than we did in our first book. I don't mean we're going to include a lot of fiction, but rather that when we provide an example, we will be able to tell a mini-story the progresses throughout the book. This is sort of what they did back in the Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Darkness books from White Wolf.

Hence, the need for "characters" who will appear in both text and art throughout the book. This first one is Mike Foreman, a young sheriff in a small Western town. He got the job when his old boss was mauled by wild animals. At least they THINK it was wild animals. I mean, what else could it be? His first job will be to investigate who stole the sheriff's body from the undertaker's office before it could be buried.

Stay tuned -- I'll be posting new images here soon, of Mike and some of the other characters from the Deadwood game.