Pink clouds and stuff

ART: A Forest Sky

Here’s another watercolour painting I rushed through to relax my exhausted mind. Did it work? Not as much as I would like. But I did end up this painting at the end. I think I need a white gelly pen. Video There is no footage of me painting the piece, so here is instead a YouTube Short of my removing the masking tapes at the margins:  

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Blue skies and surf

ART: An Ocean View

I thought the last time I played with watercolours was more than 10 years ago before I moved to the north. But apparently I have dabbled with it once — perhaps five years ago — to teach Irfan to use them. Video For the first time ever, here is a process video of the painting.

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NCC-72227 USS Östergötland

STA: Three On One

Star Trek: Emergency Deep S01 E07 “Three On One” Stardate: 58550.35; 21st July 2381 1020 hrs Location: Trychnos, near Cor Caroli   Suddenly three Orion Lightning-class blockade runners appear in the blue skies of the ocean world Trychnos and destroyed the Type-9 shuttle Mälaren. Captain Greg Ellison orders red alert as the USS Östergötland confronts the Orion vessels. One Lightning nosedives towards them from an altitude of 10,000 metres while the other two peel off elsewhere. With a sensor scan,  Lieutenant Commander Tosk the Studious  easily determines the Orion ships’ shield frequency. On Ellison’s orders, Tactical Officer Lieutenant Libby dos Santos fires a phaser beam at the two other ships that peeled off. The sudden show of force causes one of the two to bank towards them on an intercept course. The dolphin Conn Officer Ensign Kremzeek increases the Östergötland‘s altitude to a position between the two ships bearing down […]

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Title card Star Trek Adventures Emergency Deep S01E02

STA: Taken

Star Trek: Emergency Deep S01 E02 “Taken” Previously on Star Trek Adventures: Emergency Deep. Here is the second session report from yesterday, once again in the form of a Captain’s Log written by Dan who plays the Captain Ellison. Captain’s Log, Supplemental. USS Östergötland (NCC-72227). Captain Greg Ellison in command. The biggest question is why was Sally abducted? Why wait till she boarded the USS Östergötland unless the abductor(s) were onboard. It makes sense as clearly the ship’s computer had been tampered with. As Cmdr. Drake was leading investigations in the aft torpedo, Initiated a search to search whether there were any missing crew members. Within seconds, the reassuring voice of the ship’s computer replied that all crew members were accounted for. Could it be that the abductor was still onboard? Investigation As if to answer my question, Cmdr. Drake reported that he along with Lt. dos Santos had found […]

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Star Spawns

A Forgotten Cthulhu Art Commission

Back in early 2014, I was commissioned by someone to create artwork for his Kickstarter project. It was a Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos role-playing game using the Fate system. Unfortunately, the guy who ran the Kickstarter campaign over a period of time shirked his responsibilities and left his backers hanging. Fortunately, he did pay me for the work I did before he vanished. I rarely think of this project these days, and recently I realised that I have never blogged about it. So, here is a gallery of the artwork I did for the guy in this ill-fated Kickstarter campaign. Don’t ask me for this guy’s name. You can probably search for him on the internet.

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Terry McAllister

A Vampire Librarian Named Terry

After the end of our mini Vampire the Requiem RPG campaign, in which our pregenerated characters won the civil war in Atlanta, we started making new characters for a new campaign. It is now 2032, 10 years after the Vampire revolution that overthrew the old blood… I now play Terry McAllister, a Mekhet librarian. He hails from Perthshire, Scotland but was turned while he was on a vacation to the United States. It sucks for him that he cannot return to his homeland… for now. But for the time being, he has a job with the library at Georgia State. Loads of students burning the midnight oil there, easily charmed for nourishment. He does not leave bodies as the victims are not killed. He sucks enough blood to survive, but leaves the students alive though dazed and charmed. Sometimes, he also helps them to study for their exams by pointing […]

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Love and Heroics in Space - bw artwork

Art: Love and Heroics in Space

Believe it or not, this is the first artwork I posted for 2021. I had been rejecting whatever meagre commission requests for a better part of the year. Because I am constantly swamped with work. Thankfully I love the job and my students are awesome, so the work is not unmanageable. The above artwork is a concept piece for Christopher Mennell’s Love and Heroics in Space game which is still under development. I used Krita to pencil and ink it, then GIMP to give it some effects. Sometimes I miss doing freelance artwork full time, even if I was not raking in the cash as I do now (Ha!). I think my mental health has taken a lot of beating this past 9 months. So  I need to do more drawings, read more books, sleep earlier to recover. I really wish this was caused only by the pandemic.

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Sensor Bot

Art Video: Sensor Bot

Here is another character I drew for Chris Mennell’s sci-fi setting he’s developing. This sensor bot has multiple sensors installed all over his body. The video is at 10x normal speed, and edited in Flowblade. Now that I look at it I think the head might have been subconsciously inspired by L3-37 from Solo: A Star Wars Story. Music is Gravity Bass ( by FUGUE ) composed by Nordgroove, which I dropped into the video via InShot.

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Skull Spacer

Art Video: Skull Spacer

Here is a sped up video recording of my drawing a “Skull Spacer”, created for Chris Mennell. In actual fact, it took about 50 minutes to complete this. Additionally, I edited the video with both Flowblade on the desktop and InShot on mobile. The astronaut needs more skin lotion though. I will see about doing more art vids and posting them to YouTube in the future. What would such a character be in a sci-fi RPG campaign? The music is Gravelike composed by one Philip E Morris, found on InShot.

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Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks art spread

ART: Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks

Miriam Robern commissioned this spread for the beta version of Kallisti Press’ upcoming game: Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks. She ordered the art months ago, and only now was I able to deliver the final artwork. The pandemic has been hell on my spoons even though I don’t normally see anyone face-to-face these days. Not my colleagues nor my students. Is this an indication that my art production is slowing down catastrophically? We shall see.

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Robot on a dead world

Esoteric Underground Cover

Several months ago, Chris Mennell requested a cover are for his new RPG zine entitled Esoteric Underground. I tried to finish it as soon as I could, but it was still a slog to get through because of day job workload. Needless to say, I was late in submitting the piece. Recently, Chris unveiled Esoteric Underground #1 with layouts by Beau Sheldon. The zine is a “zine collecting information about upcoming and current tabletop roleplaying games in that are on the fringes. ” Here is my cover art. Click on the image to expand it. Where is this robot? What is it looking for? Why are there huge sarcophagi in the background? What are the blue crystals in the strange rock formations behind the stele? You may download Esoteric Underground #1 for free from itch dot io here.

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Keris Gangsa of 643 Scheherezade

Keris Gangsa: The Expanse RPG Patrol Boat

Here is my sketch of the Keris Gangsa. The Governor of 643 Scheherezade (also known as Zadi) comissioned her to keep its surrounding waters safe from pirate attacks. She also performs runs to nearby colonies and settlements for various official errands. Present crew: Furaha Ding – Captain and CO Sasithorn Fawzi – Operations Officer and XO Batbayar Gray – Flight Officer Greg Farnsworth – Security Officer Zoë Mufolosi – Engineering Officer In the next session of The Expanse RPG: Scheherezade Tales, Irfan’s player character Kazuo Khan will join the team as a Liaison Officer for Scheherezade. Additionally, he will also be a Gunnery Officer and working under the Security Officer. The Keris Gangsa, despite its name, is not based on any traditional South East Asian melee weapon. It is, however, the first badge Malaysian Cub Scouts in Primary School earn on their way to being a King’s Scout.

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Ashwood vs a Skyship

Art: Cosmic Cutthroats

Recently Imperfekt Gammes who published Invulnerable RPG, commission a pair of interior artwork for their new tabletop RPG Cosmic Cutthroats, a game about dimension-hopping adventuring, getting into trouble, partying, helping people, and overthrowing dictators across the multiverse! Above: The Spacefleet Cruiser Ashwood trades blows with an enemy skysailing galleon. Above: The adventurers’ hub is the city of Uru Ulan. Founded millennia ago by an immortal Sumerian sorcerer, Uru Ulan consists of a network of colonies on Saturn’s rings. Teleportation gates link the colonies together forming a large, continuous city. Also, some colonies have portals that link to other universes. Updated (4th June 2020): Cosmic Cutthroats by Joshua Kubli has been released at DriveThruRPG! Check it out here.

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Mother Chong

Art of Wuxia NPCs

Early this year, DwD Studios invited me to produce interior artwork for their new RPG rulebook Art of Wuxia. Unfortunately, I was unable to oblige their request because of work commitments. I did try, but I just could not produce artwork during that stretch of time. So, they had to commission another artist to do the bulk of their artwork. Last month, they offered a smaller number of art to be made for the book; three non-player characters (NPCs). It should not have taken me two weeks to complete all three, but it did. This work-from-home, quarantine situation is taking a lot more out of me than I thought was possible. Click on the pictures above to view larger images. Watch this space for the Art of Wuxia release from DwD Studios!

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