Observations of the Fox

A while ago I was commissioned for some cartography work, looking back through the blog I can see that it was 18 months ago . Now it's available. You can visit the Kickstarter here. I'm not posting about it because I haven't been paid for my work.  +Sean Nittner  was great to work with, knew what he wanted, and it was a great project to be a part of (...and yes, I was paid). I'm posting because it was such a fun project, and because I'd like other people to see my stuff in print so that I can possibly get a few more commissions later from various people across the industry. Anyway...go and take a look. There probably aren't many more physical copies of the product available.

I was working on this commission over a month ago, when my scanner went down. As a result, I've had to wait until now, when I'm using my parents' scanner to digitize a whole lot of recent imagery. I'm not really happy with the way this one has turned out, so I've performed a few tricks to make it a bit better. Firstly, the image was drawn at A2 (420mm x 594mm) I had to scan it in four A4 passes, then use Photoshop to reassemble the final image. This always causes problems. Next, the edges of the A4 quarters became dimmed, dulled and slightly blurred along the middle joins because the excess paper caused the image to bend away from the scanning plate. To cover this, I've used stock footage of folded and slightly crumpled paper and a multiplied background for the image. Hopefully this gives it the vibe of a military map that might have been found in the pocket of a soldier and unfolded before characters go in for the mission. I wanted to add some colour...

I've just signed the paperwork to become a regular freelancer for two game publishers. Here's hoping that things will turn for the better, and one of these options might prove to be a regular source of minor income. Or might lead to some good portfolio pieces that get me into larger companies for some regular work. I'm not holding my breath though, this year started out looking so good, but it turned dark so quickly. The companies I'll be writing for are : Avalon Games and QT Games Both seem enthusiastic, both targeting very different ends of the market. Avalon happy to quickly and continually publish pdfs through online retailers, while QT is taking a slower path and wants to make some big moves when they are ready. It will be an interesting journey.