Mysterio's Fishbowl Head

05 September 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Comics
 

What the world needs right now is universal peace.

That, and a drawing of Quentin Beck's head as a fishbowl.

NEEDS MOAR MOTION CONTROL AND CGI!
 

Salvage Ops Card Art

03 September 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Misc Sci-Fi
 

Here are a series of artwork for Salvage Ops card game by DWD Studios. Players play members from four space salvage corporations. Here are five of the gear in space derelicts that the players could grab for points during the game, and two of the hazard card artwork that might thwart your operations!

Purchase the game, which is now available at GameCrafters!

No relation to Felicia Day

Cybergenetic Codex

No relations to the Constructicon gestalt bot

Devastator Cannon

I am under the impression that this folds space

Jump Gate Generator

For your energy generation needs

Multifusion Reactor

Yes, that is a Top Secret movie quote right there

Polylingual Decoder

Some sort of extraterrestrial bad guy

Hazard: Alien

Kill all meatbags
 

Hazard: Robot

 

Eclipse Phase: A Jovian Jovially Joins

26 August 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star... the Gamera Security hypercorp gang was involved in several events, namely Cable played by Kai having a freefall date with Gretchen Ambelina of Pax Familae down through the lethal atmosphere of Venus, and Darren's AGI DANAI having to perform an impromptu psychosurgery on the other AGI Wandering Ina, played by Andrew.

But I was absent because of Eid vacation and stuff. In-character, Hokusai was busy setting up a new online ID and creating an art community site called the Digital Easel to boost his F-Rep and attempt intelligence gathering there. (Or is he?)

This week!

We were met by Captain Christoph de Beers an envoy from the Jovian Republic with military background, played by Matthew. Christoph's superior Ambassador Marie MacDonnoll will be attending the invitation-only Marquis d’Homem-Christos' art show, which will showcase the sculpture he acquired from the mysterious aliens called the Factors to be held at the ballroom of the Cumulus Hotel at the aerostat Aphrodite Prime.

Gamera Security was recommended by one Jovian Major Kate Stackhoff (from episode #somenumber which I did not participate in) back in Jupiter space, who noticed that Gamera matched the profile of another troubleshooter hypercorp she was familiar with named the Fastball Express. (All the forks all the time!)

God forgive me for what I am about to do
 

Salvage Ops Box Art

24 August 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Misc Sci-Fi
 

I have been working on artwork for card prototypes for a card game entitled Salvage Ops by DWD Studios. The game allows players to take charge of four space salvage corporations. They play the cards to explore, encounter threats, retrieve salvagable gear (see my Google+ post here for samples of the gear) and win points.

The box art can be seen below.

Raise your salvage ops hand high!

I hope this game sees production soon!

Update (30th Aug 2013): The game is now available at GameCrafters!

 

Miridon - with Stats!

17 August 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

I owe this blog a Miridon stats entry. Miridon is a sea monster that appeared in the Droids animated series.

Some sort of aquatic dinosaur

Miridon

This big aquatic carnivorous reptile was seen swimming in the oceans of Tarnoonga used by pirates to dispose of unwanted guests, and also trying to eat said pirates who were not really smart to begin with. It spends its time in rocky caverns and crevices underwater

 

Hokusai's New Morph

06 August 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, Misc Sci-Fi, Role Playing Games
 

In Eclipse Phase roleplaying game, I play the Neo-octopus Hokusai Tarnungshaut. Hokusai used to be in an uplifted octopus in an enhanced octomorph body.

Used to.

After his death by postal bomb, he was loaded into a worker pod morph. Later, he farcasted into an arachnoid morph on Venus and died again there. Without knowing he died there once,  Hokusai farcasted again to Venus, this time in a slitheroid morph. This is what he looks like now.

I heard you was dead
 

Using the fake Mesh ID Heinrich Ausfahrt Plissken, he is now part of the Fastball Express contingent (using the Gamera Security hypercorp front) investigating stuff among the aerostat cities of Venus.

While on Venus, Hokusai - after being a freelance troubleshooter in Fastball Express for many months - has decided to go back into the public eye as an artist, but this time with another fake online persona, and perhaps an art studio hypercorp. He feels like being safe from the Nine Lives cartel has made him slack off as an artist. All his uploads into the art social Mesh sites have been uninspiring in the interim. Will this catch the attention of Nine Lives? Will this inspire Hokusai as an artist?

In any case, it's time to buy some f-rep.

 

Peter and Tony

01 August 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Comics
 

It's been months since I used ink and watercolours, so I drew Peter Quill and Tony Stark to flex the my traditional artwork muscles.

Star Lord and Iron Man

Can't wait for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy next year!

 

Pacific Rim: Tacit Ronin

24 July 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Misc Sci-Fi
 

So I quickly painted the PPDC Jaeger Tacit Ronin, which was seen for about 0.4 seconds on screen in the movie Pacific Rim, Guillermo Del Toro's mecha vs kaiju movie which I immensely enjoyed by the way.

Assembled in Lima, then assigned to Tokyo

Check out the larger image of Tacit Ronin on my Tumblr.

 

Eclipse Phase: Moose Kipper

23 July 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

Posthumanity is just hands out awesomeLast Sunday, the Eclipse Phase group, playing the members of the Gamera Security hypercorp finished off our investigation of Cloud Nine aerostat on Venus.

After their "patron" Kage Musha ordered all GamSec operatives off Cloud Nine so his personal force can take over what seemes to be the hypercorp Yamaha-Pacifica's illegal weapon manufacturing facility there, Billy Cable Jr. and Hokusai Tarnungshaut pilot their airship back there to pick up DANAI and Wandering Ina, both in the Venusian glider body.

DANAI-δ, DANAI's delta fork in Cloud Nine's mesh network, masked an airlock from the security systems so DANAI/Ina could jump off the aerostat and onto their airship. (Cable had rolled critical success for airship piloting and was expertly flying the ship, cloaked in Venusian clouds.) Suddenly, DANAI/Ina was/were interrupted by the inner airlock door opening. It hid by jumping off the airlock's external platform and hanging on to its edge.

It was Dario Silvestri from the factory who was enjoying a bit of recreational drug Alpha. DANAI/Ina used its electronic rope to grapple Silvestri, then used a Zap round from a coilgun to blow a whole quarter of his head off. (It was a mistake. Honest. A Zap round usually stuns. But not just at so close a range.) DANAI/Ina pried off Silvestri's cortical stack from his exposed spine and glided off the aerostat.

However, it wasn't used to the morph and air thermals blew it off course. Thankfully, Cable's awesome piloting skills allowed him to match DANAI/Ina's erratic fall and for the second time caught a morph falling off an aerostat.

Then they returned to Octavia, the largest aerostat in the skies of Venus where they considered their next move.

First they decided to open a physical office on Venus, and thought the Parvarti aerostat would be a good place to be. They sent word to Wandering Kid and Dexter Morgan (the PCs with absent players) to begin moving their stuff from the current office on the Gerlach habitat in space to Parvarti, but leave a barebones office presence back on Gerlach.

Secondly, DANAI wanted a new morph. After much deliberation, the team spent credits to custom design a brand new morph for it. The new morph is basically, two human-looking hands (synthmorph) connected with a cord of 10 meter-long electronic rope, fitted with a cyberbrain with mesh insert, cortical stack, voicebox, sensory equipment on its knuckles, lidar, grip pads, skinlink, eelware and chameleon skin. It would be able to function as an extra set of hands if wound around another person, or be a thrown weapon that would be able to stun an enemy with its eelware, or creep up to an enemy to inject a drug into him or her. We also purchased two skillsofts in Unarmed Combat and Infiltration. Its initial WOUND THRESHOLD is 5 and DURABILITY 25.

We called it the "Janet" morph. 

And now there exists a character in our Eclipse Phase game that looks like this:

He'll never get a leg up on things

Which i think is pretty freaking awesome.

Wait a second. Whatever happened to Danai-δ?

To be continued next time on "Eclipse Phase: Clouds of the Morning Star".

 

Blixus - With Stats!

11 July 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Among the many entertaining obstacles you could use as challenges for players of the Star Wars RPG are creatures. Defeating a critter is a natural Star Wars storytelling element, as can be seen in the movies. A host of new and original creatures had been created in the Star Wars The Clone Wars animated series, such as mastiff phalones, skalders, rupings and gutkurrs. Most have not had official roleplaying stats to them for gamemasters to use.

However, here are my home-made stats of the blixus, a cephalopod with huge, flailing tentacles, a crab-like shell and and a ravenous maw as it appeared in the fourth season episode "Kidnapped".

A fun fact: the blixus first appeared in the Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars The Clone Wars #2 "Slave Traders of Zygerria" written by Henry Gilroy. This story arc was adapted into the three-episode Zygerrian slavers arc of which "Kidnapped" was the first.

Here are D6 and Edge of the Empire stats for the blixus. Also, let's assume these stats are for the "blue-speckled, yellow-bellied blixus" that originate from the Tingel Arm and are now widespread on a thousand other systems in the Outer Rim Territories. When the official blixus stats are eventually published, they would not supercede this subspecies of the creature

 

Eclipse Phase: A Hidden Industry

08 July 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

We're friend of the children. We even have a FREE CANDY white van.GOKL's Eclipse Phase "Clouds of the Morning Star" story arc (gamemastered by Ivan) continues from the previous session. Wandering Ina (played by Andrew) and DANAI (played by Darren) - both in a single Venusian glider morph - continued their investigation of a massive ego theft ring that may have passed through the Cloud Nine aerostat - a floating city in the skies of Venus. Meanwhile, Cable and Hokusai (played by me) manned their newly purchased airship, hidden in the clouds out of sight from Cloud Nine.

Since Kai was unable to make it, this session had three player characters, but with two of them inhabiting one body, which was a great concept in roleplaying.

The Setup

It was time Hokusai delivered more weapons and gear by sneaking onto Cloud Nine. DANAI/Ina had managed to hack into Cloud Nine's aerostat administration network and gave themselves Security-level permissions in the system. Employing The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down gambit, Ina saved 30 minutes of video footage in all security cameras and wrote a script that would override the camera feed with the looped captured footage where and when required.

DANAI/Ina upgraded their user permission to Admin-level in the system and discovered that the hypercorp that leased the unmarked commercial and manufacturing spaces was Yamaha-Pacifica, producer of habitat machinery. Digging deeper, they discovered that the faces behind the hypercorp had tie to the Night Cartel crime syndicate.

DANAI also peeled off a Delta Fork of its ego - named DANAI-δ - to be implanted in the security system and would take over sousveillance operation when required. They created a faux Mesh ID that would be tagged on Hokusai when he arrived aboard. Then they suppressed the external security camera as Cable drove the airship from below toward a low-security airlock. (Cable might have seen spiral shapes in the Venusian clouds as he piloted the ship, but there has been no confirmation.)

 

Westward Art: Sneak Attack

05 July 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

Recently, I was assigned to draw a vertical "sneak attack" scene for Wicked North Games' upcoming Westward RPG. The scene involved a dark-clad assassin about to attack a nervous looking gentleman in the city streets at night. The final artwork is displayed above.

Below are some process artwork for the piece. The first image shows three black and white sketches / studies. #1 is the original sketch where the assassin was changed into the verson in #2 because she did not convey enough physical steampunk tropes. It's quite difficult to design a skin-tight assassin's garb, because most steampunk costumes are loose and puffed up in parts. After #2 was approved, I created a grayscale study in the form of #3 to see how light will play off the characters, objects and building.

 

Westward RPG: Brawling

28 June 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

I sometimes use MyPaint, an open source painting program to create my work. It has less features than GIMP, but I love how the brush paint digitally as I move the Wacom tablet stylus. This is how I painted the "Brawling" artwork for Wicked North Games upcoming Westward RPG that was featured in a previous post.

At first I sketched the scene quickly in MyPaint using one of the Pencil tools. Initially the person who was throwing the punch was a man, but then I changed it to a woman in mid-sketch.

I decided on a yellowish hue for the image before I started painting the sky upon the layer immediately below the pencil sketch layer.

 

Eclipse Phase: Blimps and Back Seat Driving

24 June 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

We're friend of the children. We even have a FREE CANDY white van.The adventure continued on and around Venus... even as the atmosphere outside where we played appeared to resemble Venus in texture and colour. But we're not talking about the Great Smothering Haze of 2013; we're talking about last Sunday's Eclipse Phase session.

As Kage's people began investigating the unregistered airlock from which the Spulturatorah Arcology ego bank thieves of had escaped from Gerlach station, Gamera Security returned to their office, leaving Wandering Kid in his battered arachnoid morph to help guard the airlock.

Aggregators via Mesh links alerted them to a relevant news story that developed in the in Jupiter space: Diz, the infomorph inhabiting their old spacecaft the Fastball Special had hacked into Jovian traffic control to allow itself a clear path upwards from the ecliptic plane... toward interstellar space. The ship was unoccupied at the time, other than a hundred kilos of paper cranes. Cable informed this to async Quill - in real life this was communicated by text message - who suggests the dog-shaped sociopath flexbot Kay be launched from Jovian space to go after the wayward ship. "Fetch, boy!" Hokusai thought that Kay would return, hurtling back from deep space with the Special in his jaws.

In other news, the Jovians had started playing nice with Planetary Consortium, and then promptly started unilaterally dropping giant mobile atmospheric processors on the Galilean moons to begin terraforming them.

Finally, they learnt that Hitoha Hiroshii, sister of their teammate Mitsuba had started to extend her influence in the Planetary Consortium. Their uncle Miyazaki had gained a position in the Consortium.

 

Monsters of the Shattered World Podcast, Season 2

12 June 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

In the debut season of Monsters of the Shattered World, an imaginative fantasy podcast that features the story of an adventuring party produced by Brent Newhall, I was commissioned to illustrate two out of the five episodes that were made.

The second season, however, I was tasked with completing all seven episodes of the podcasts. Here are some of the illustrations I drew for season two.

To listen to each episode, click on the link above to download them for free at Troll in the Corner, or obtain them from iTunes here.

Mouseover each artwork for the title of the episode it was created for.

The Goblins of the Red Eyes
 

Eclipse Phase: Venereal Problems

10 June 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

The GOKL Eclipse Phase RPG campaign "Fastball Express" has started up again, and the uplift neo-octopus Hokusai Tarnungshaut is back in action, except he no longer has eight tentacles. Three game sessions were held so far and I managed to participate in two.

So the story goes: some of the intrepid posthumans of the Fastball Express hypercorp was darkcasted to Parvati, an aerostat high above the surface of Venus. Hokusai had died some time earlier his octomorph blown up by a bomb, and the team retrieved his cortical stack and resleeved his ego in a worker pod morph. 

However, Hokusai remembered nothing else before waking up in an arachnoid sleeve at Parvati with Billy Cable Junior the neotenic, Danai and Dexter, their memories edited "for security reasons". (That doesn't sound suspicious at all, right? RIGHT?) Their Morningstar Corporation contact gave them a mission to discreetly investigate diseased biomorphs which had then disappeared along with their egos without a trace from the aerostat.

Venereal disease investigations!
 

However, as I wasn't able to attend the second session, I discovered that the company had experienced a TPK. After successfully completing the mission, a chunk of the Parvati outer skin came off and sucked the group outside. Everyone fell many, many leagues down into the inhospitable Venusian atmosphere.

 

Westward Scenes

03 June 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

Here are some scenes I drew as filler are in the Characters, Attributes and Skills section of the Westward RPG by Wicked North Games. These scenes, also drawn by Alexander Gustafson, Ryan Rhodes and Cory DeVore, gives players an idea of what your players can be doing on the steampunk planet of Westward and what the millieux feels like.

Because thumb wrestling wouldn't be manly enough...

You could arm-wrestle an Enclave - a steampunk cyborg - and win!

 

BareBones Covert Ops Map

14 May 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

Here's a thumbnail of a map I drew for DwD Studios' BareBones Covert Ops RPG.

Ultimately S.E.C.T.O.R. base locations will populate this chart. What is S.E.C.T.O.R., you ask? I have no idea yet. Look for the upcoming book which should be released later this year.

 

Balneum Blue: Gnatha Weapons

10 May 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

I drew some aquatic biotech ranged weapons for a project for Star Frontiersman created by an alien species called the Gnatha. These are living, breathing creatures that swim and cna also be used to throw deadly projectiles at your enemies; weapons created by genetically altering and splicing different species of octopus, jellyfish, molluscs and even corals.

Here they are without any names and commentaries.

Pistol
Pistol with bayonet
Rifle
Rifle with bayonet
 

Steve the Aboleth

02 May 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 
He throws psychokinetic tantrums a lot

This is Steve the Aboleth.

That is all.