Photoshop Map Parchment

One of the more popular entries here on the blog has been the post in the map library for parchment paper that I was fooling around with some time ago. Well I have been continuing my investigations into how to create a good looking parchment paper since then and this is what I have come up with.

Butch Curry of Zombienirvana.com has created a great set of tutorials covering how to do RPG maps in Photoshop and the first two lessons are on how to create the parchment effect that he uses. I first found these tutorials back when Butch first started releasing them but have only just managed to spend more time with them. These video tutorials seem to have ended now with the last one posted back in early 2008. However they are well worth watching as Butch leads the viewer step by step through his techniques to create some amazing cartographic artwork. he’s what I have come up with today, just following the first two lessons.

Tavern Map Comparison

Her are two maps that I was working on over the weekend, just to get a feel for how complex some of the issues are with mapping in Photoshop and with CC3.

Both are rough designs of a tavern with an outside stables and both were limited to only 60 minutes work. How did it go? Well the CC3 version is much more complete and has some nice effects overall, whereas the Photoshop map is no where near done. I did learn some new tricks with the Photoshop map and made use of some new patterns and brushes that I created in the same 60 minute period. Overall I think both look pretty good, but with more training I think that I could get a lot further with the Photoshop one within the 60 minutes.

Art for arts sake?

What is it with artwork in RPG’s? Surely the whole point of an RPG is that it is designed to allow peoples imagination to fill a whole world with flights of fancy. How you image the world is how it should be seen and not some other person interpretation of it.

Artwork in any RPG book is the most expensive part of the endevour both in cold, hard cash and page real estate. Cost for artwork for a game can range from $25 for a small line drawing to over $1000 for a cover piece. The cover piece I can understand as I dicussed before, this is one of the things that helps to sell the book off the shelf. But with the price of books being a big issue for some, surely the cost savings of using less or no art is rather tempting.

Think about the latest Jackie Collins or Dan Brown… no artwork there apart from the cover, and last I knew good old Dan was busy basking in the glow of his mega fortunes. Compare this to RPG’s and every book released awash with art and is tight on profit margins. So what is the answer? Cheaper art? Less art? No art?…. might be worth an experimental PDF or two here just to test the waters.

Character Library 015 – Game of Thrones D20

Back by popular demand, the Character Library is reborn with a new slant. As a lot of people, im a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire(SoIF) series by George R.R Martin. With this in mind and the release of the new RPG based upon the series I thought it would be fun to create a character in both the old RPG and the new RPG and compare them. Here is the character for the old system, Game of Thrones release by Guardians of the Order just before they went out of business. It was a real shame that they did as the game is quite promising. The only criticism i have of it is that they based it on the D20 system which I don’t think is a good fit for SoIF due to the nature of levels, feats, etc, etc. However they did make it work quite well and fair play to them it is a good quality product. So here is the first incarnation of Sir Oberon with a followup in the new system next week (hopefully).

Sir Oberon is a young noble of the House Martell, related to the current heir Princess Arianne as a distant cousin. In his formative years he spent much time in study and has shown himself to be a quick learner and a dedicated potential ruler. Everything he does is accompanied by a wry grin and his charismatic charm is infectious. Sir Oberon has already been earmarked for greatness by his teachers and now just needs to warrant their opinions with the nobles of House Martell. At least that way he might get a nice boost in influence and a quiet manor house in the country to rule over.

CL015 -Sir Oberon – Game of Thrones (D20) (PDF – 536Kb)

The Traveller Fauna Concordance

So what do you think…???

Traveller Fauna Concordance

Naming games – Traveller Edition

Following from yesterdays post, im currently designing a supplement for Mongoose Traveller  (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/) thanks mainly to their SRD and open licence for the game. That inspiration and encouragement got me started when the game first came out last year. However despite the early posts on this blog I never progressed far enough that I even considered actually getting to the point of publishing it. Well the time has come to throw off that uncertainty. The license application has been posted and the development continues apace. So now what to call the thing.

The names the thing

One of the most important things that RPG developers have their arsenal when trying to get people interested in their games is the title of the book. Be it a core rule book or a supplement, the title is often the first thing that a customer picks up on, not the cover art, not the setting and certainly not the system. So why is it that we have so many bad examples of titles for games?

Back in the Kitchen…

So i’ve had a few days off from the blog and have been thinking on what I should do now that my original dreams were crushed. This is what I have come up with…

1. Cover more development of things I have going currently, in more depth.
2. Post more adventures/scenarios, both system specific and generic
3. Cut down on “tiny idea posts”, those taht are a few lines of an idea. Flesh them out a bit, then post as per point 1.
4. Quality, not quantity! Less posts, more substance.
5. More reviews, and post them to RPG.net as well (already in progress!)

Thats the basic “jist” of what im going to be looking at here in the coming weeks, but I will stick to my old ideals about providing ideas and content that is not another comment on “this-weeks-hot-topic” i.e who’s passed on or which company is making a stink in the marketplace. There are other blogs that do that, lots of them.

Crossroads…

So I applied to the RPGBloggers network, as should anyone who writes an RPG based blog. And surprise, surprise I got rejected. I did start a big post calling into question why they rejected the blog, etc, etc but it was just another faceless rant in the blogsphere. What is the point?

Now I’m in two minds over what to do here. Carry on regardless?, Change the content?, Stop the blog? Reduce the posts?  No idea at the moment. Think I might go back to my original idea of just posting when I like, rather than constant updates and just regard it as a personal info bank rather than for anyone to read.

Fun with Planets

Another post in the series of “Not only maps in Photoshop…”  This is just me messing around trying to get images for planets for my sci-fi games that Im preparing.  These 3 images took around an hour to build thanks to the many great filters in PS. This would be a lot harder without them.