Deadwood - Art Preview of a Zombie Attack!

Sheriff Mike Foreman is terrified to see what's
crawled out of Boot Hill! Unless he gets a handle on things fast,
this could be the beginning of the end!

Here it is, folks. Our first actual glimpse of a zombie from our upcoming book/game, Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood. This image features Sheriff Mike Foreman battling a traditional shambler, which is one of the three types of zombies that will be included in our game. In this case, the young law enforcer doesn't know that you need to shoot for the head, so this battle could be very short.

This is a sample image, where I focused primarily on the techniques needed to combine two figures into a single image. I was interested primarily in the lighting (most of it comes from the muzzle flash), expression and creating a sense of dread. I'm mostly happy with the results, although I now think the pose and angle couldbe a little better (for example, I don't like that the gun is aiming straight through him, it should be at an upward angle). I also should have spread out the zombie's legs farther apart to help convey a sense of movement. And, truth be told, the muzzle flash needs a little work.

Nevertheless, I'm generally pleased with the results and think it's a good start.

WIP: Waiting for the Jury Prize Announcement

I had originally planned to announce the winner of the Showdowns & Shootouts Jury prize selection today, but that is not to be. As you will recall, the voting on the contest closed this past weekend, so we had our winner. It was actually a fairly close race, with the winner being decided by only three votes!

We sent an email to the winner but we haven't hear back from him. Since we don't want him to read about this before we've personally contacted him, we're going to put off this announcement until next week.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peak at the Work In Progress (WIP) illustration that will run with the story. Once again, I'm using Strata 3D CX6 to create this image. BTW: You might recognize the cowboy on top of the trophy as being the miniature that was in the bottom of last week's whiskey bottle image.

This image is still very rough (and, of course, I removed the winner's name from the plaque). So far, I'm mostly happy with the design (which, I must admit, is loosely inspired by my own Origins Award sitting on a shelf in my office). So far, I like the general shape, but there are some technical issues I need to resolve to make the image look better. For example, flat surfaces do not really look great with reflections. They tend to look lifeless and uninteresting. I may need to add some curvature to the name plaque, or get creative with my reflection maps in order to make this work.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this sneak peak of this image. Oh, and if you're interested in this sort of thing, here's a wire frame view to show you what the image looks like as raw geometry without the pretty textures applied. As you can see, there is a lot of detail on the cowboy figure, which was actually exported from Poser and placed in Strata 3D. It actually has a lot more detail than I need, but I don't feel its worth the hassle it would take to create a good, lower-polycount version of the model.

See you next week when we finally reveal the winner's name.

Deadwood: Working on the new logo

When I was prepping for OwlCon (wow, was it only two weekends ago?), I found myself scrambling to create some new materials for the Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood game I was running. I had the evening's adventure mostly worked out (it was a simple event called "Last Thing Standing!" -- I set up half the players as humans and half as Zombies and had them go at it to eliminate each other), but I needed some new character sheets for the new Revenant zombies.In our game, this type of Zombie is also called a "Character Zombie" because it's a dead man who retains his memories and skills... and can now only be killed if you manage to blow his brains out (and trust me, folks, these tough sons-of-guns ain't killed by a single bullet to the head -- they're tough).

Anyway, we'll tell more about these bad boys later. Back to my rambling story...

I was working on the character sheets and it hit me that I just didn't like the logo I had created (in haste, I might add) a few years back. It was always intended to serve as a temporary logo, and here I was still using it. You can see it on our Website on the Deadwood miniatures packages (for sale at our Website -- you know I never miss a chance to plug our stuff). For those of you who don't feel like taking a mosey over there, here ya go.

It ain't bad, but it ain't great, either. And it definitely was worth the short amount of time I spent on it. The top font is Algerian (one of my personal favorite Western fonts because it's classy and easy to read). The name of the bottom font eludes me, although I could look it up if anyone really wants to know. So, in a hurry, I modified the logo and came up with this new version:

The logo isn't 100% complete (I need to tweak a few things and consider how much blood we want dripping from it), but I definitely like it more than the first logo. The top has remained the same (Algerian, which has been customized with a black "shadow line") and Bleeding Cowboy. Now, even though Bleeding Cowboy font is a bit overused these days (just go searching for any Weird West stuff and you'll find more than you can shake a sexton's shovel at), I do like the way it looks here. Nevertheless, I suspect this will be another "interim" logo for our upcoming game. Nevertheless, you should probably expect to see this (or at least a version of it) on the Website until we finalize it for print.

By the way, if you're interested in getting this font for yourselves, you can grab it for free over at DaFont.com.

Started working on new material...

I, for one, am very excited that my "day job" schedule has changed enough that I will be able to shift energy back to the various Hawgleg projects we've had sitting on the back burner.

Upcoming work includes:

• Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood
• Showdowns & Shootouts
• Draw RPG

Coupled with some upcoming changes to our back-end practices (scheduling, accounting, etc.), things are definitely looking up to make 2012 a very exciting year for us. Keep checking here, and at our website, for more updates.

www.hawgleg.com

Getting ready for OwlCon...

Here it is on Tuesday night and I'm starting to gear up for OwlCon this weekend. Has it really been 13 years that I've attended?  Well... at least 12. I think I missed on year because I was ill. However, I'm not 100% sure about that.

Last night I worked on cleaning up my "craft room" so I could sit down and start painting again. I've got about 10-15 minis primed, based and partially painted, just waiting for me to finish painting them. I'd like to bring a few new women characters this year, along with some more "character zombies." The latter are definitely necessary, as I will be running a new game this year: Last THING Standing.

I'm looking forward to giving this a shake-down -- it's a variation of the old "Last Man Standing" game where everyone tries to shoot everyone else. Only this time, half of the players will be running zombies! I hope this is a fun change of pace for everyone (and me).

My game will be at 8 pm, Friday Feb. 3, 2012 at Rice University.

Even though my game says it's filled up, I always leave room for 2-3 "walk-ins," so feel free to swing by and see if I can fit you in.

http://owlcon.com/2012/events_minis.php#Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood