2009 was a year full of epic gaming for me and all the lunatics I roll dice with. It saw the death of my D&D 3.5 campaign (bits and pieces of which have been posted on this blog and more will be unearthed in the year to come) and the start of my Mutant Future campaign (24 sessions in and rolling strong!). It saw me get the original Empire of the Petal Throne game from TSR (love it and am planning on running it soon...) and start playing in a 4e group (heresy in some circles, I know, but I have fun with it). At some point in the spring I discovered Grognardia and got interested in the mythical Old School Renaissance - here we are a few short months later and I have published artwork in Stonehell Dungeon, done maps and monster illustrations for megadungeon.net and started several unfinished projects of my own that I hope to publish in the next year.
Of all the things that happened to me (game related) in 2009, I would have to say that my artwork has been the biggest surprise. I have always enjoyed drawing, but I had not picked up a pen or pencil to tackle a serious illustration or even a doodle for several years when I was inspired by the Ghoul Hound entry on megadungeon.net to make an illustration for the ghastly beast. Turns out I am a pretty good artist when I set my mind to it (I say ever so modestly)! I hope to do more illustration in the upcoming year, for my own work and for the many friends I have made gaming both locally and out there on the interwebs.
Just last week I accepted an invitation to become a staff writer for the gaming website http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/, which is undergoing a transition from being the home of an online magazine for Magic the Gathering to being a general gaming portal. I will be writing reviews and articles with an emphasis on the old-school movement, so look for links to those coming soon.
Of course, my real life duties have kept me pretty busy as well; being a loving partner to my fiancee, playing in a band and working full time on top of my addiction to pen and paper RPGs makes me a pretty busy guy. But who isn't?
I never make New Years resolutions and I am not going to start now, but I wish myself and everyone reading this a happy, healthy and productive 2010.
To close, here are the original drawings (not colored or touched up) that I produced this year for megadungeon.net and Stonehell Dungeon:
Awesome Carl!
ReplyDeleteGreat art, glad to see/hear your going to be doing even more stuff.
Happy New Year!
Fight on! Such great artwork. . .
ReplyDelete