I got some revised sketches back from the artist. Check out one of the massive new devices of destriction detailed in the massive Campaign Overlay: Fantasy Firearms book due out soon…

New Sketchbook Stock Art coming soon!

My new Artist went and got his wife pregnant, so he has been off the radar scope for a few weeks.  Still waiting on the final piece of art for the S.L.A.M. Soldier from him and that will be ready to go up.  I also have a few other PDF’s on deck.

On the Traveller front I was going over some things and laid out the various ideas I have for products in a master list.  Then I weeded those down to the ones I think will do the best as print releases.  I have a large list, but have chosen six projects that will be the first released.  I am very excited about them.  One of them I already have the artwork done thanks to Anthony Cournoyer.  Check out the cover he did for me:

I laid out a template for the various entries for another book last night.  Damn, I wish I could just work on this stuff full-time instead of slogging to work every day and doing my publishing business on nights and weekends.  Some day.  Some day soon.

First off, I put Apex Strike File: Low Level Rescuers up this morning on OBS and Piazo.

Yes, I said OBS and Paizo.  I just signed up at Piazo so I would get early access to the Pathfinder books.  (Plus, it never hurts to have more sales outlets!)  I only have a couple products up there right now, so look for more in the coming weeks.

Work is progressing on several fronts.  I got a batch of artwork back from Anthony for a Traveller release in the works.  Check one out…

Oh, and I saw the new Kindle from Amazon yesterday also.  I have been toying with the idea of getting one, but have held off.  Now I am glad I did, I would much prefer to have the larger sized one with native PDf support.

This one will definitely be on my birthday gift list!

Lots more in the works, stay tuned.

The Voidsparrow is coming soon.

Another FREE PDF from Otherverse games.  Go check it out.

In other news I had a nice long conversation with my new Artist last night.  Yes, you heard that right, a new artist.  I sent some projects over to Anthony and he replied that he was swamped with work and possibly moving on to other types of art.  Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way upset about that; I started him off in RPG art and sent plenty of work his way.  Other publishers used his services as well, and I am glad he has all the work he can handle.  I will say that his professionalism and work ethic have served him well, and he deserves all the success he recieves.  Which leaves me with several projects and no artist.

Rather than hit “the street” looking for a new one, I hit my cell phone and called one of my long-time friends to put him to work.  I’ve showcased a few of his images on this blog before, and he’s ready to step up and start producing some work.  Next weekend we are getting together for our Star Wars RPG campaign and I’ll be handing off my CS3 suite for him to use (mostly Photoshop) while I “make do” with CS4.  The upgrade vs. new version was only about a hundred bucks difference, so I sprung for the full version so I would have the extra copy to use anyway.  He’s happy to get a current copy of Photoshop, and I’m happy to put him to work illustrating.  Win-win.

I’ve already sent him three small projects (Two D7ACU’s and an Adventurer Essential script) plus we talked about the upcoming Traveller project.  I have another short one as well, but I am expecting a few more from the same “line” in the next few days so I’ll send those over once I’ve collected a few.

I also hit the gun show today a few miles South of here with my daughter, and it was PACKED.  (Barry O must have stock in Smith & Wesson cuz he is really driving sales up in the gun industry.)   I picked up three magazines for one of my pistols, but that was about it.  I was mostly just “window shopping”.  We hit Cheesburger in Paradise for lunch and had pretty good burgers but a fantastic desert!  The we hit Best Buy on the way home where I used my gift card from Christmas to suppliment the purchase cost of Dawn of War II.

Now I am cooking/burning dinner and will get back to work on some RPG stuff, maybe fleshing out the Traveller project.

I spent some time today going through several products and fixing the Flash flip-books that weren’t working for some reason.  (I suspect it had something to do with the DriveThru and RPGNow servers merging since I also found most of them were missing the author and artist names when I edited the product.)  I got several of them fixed, and will continue to tweak the sales listings for maximum effectiveness and exposure of our products.

I also “discovered” the Footer feature in the OBS control panel; which will make it easier to highlight products.  I will be working tonight on my Footer HTML code and overall layout before implementing it.

Our latest release dropped off the front page, so it’s time to get another one up.  I have two “Free20″ projects and several others in the pipeline so there are plenty of options.  I also got a few more images from my artist-friend.  I am excited about his work and can’t wait to start marketing his talent. Here are several of his not-quite-finished:

I got an email from my buddy this morning.  He’s been drawing some stuff and is also very excited about the Pandora Project material I have shared with him.  Here is a sketch he did recently:

I hope to have some stock art from him for sale soon.

Lots going on over here at Skortched Urf’ Studios! I just put up Free20: Forbiddance over at OBS.  Forbiddance is our first free PDF ever released.  (But not our last!) Chris Field put it together for his Otherverse Games imprint.

On the PDF front I am currently working on The North Side Spiders and Fantasy Firearms II in addition to a couple projects for Otherverse.  I hope to get one of them out in a day or two with the other a few days later.

Fantasy Firearms II Cover image.

North Side Spiders Cover.

Still waiting to hear word on the new, improved, kinder, gentler GSL.  What an epic fail this whole 4E thing has been.  I honestly WANT to support it.  I would love to.  But not under the current terms.  I’ll go the Kenzer/Goodman/Adamant rout and release under regular copyright if the new GSL isn’t seriously improved.  I would love to convert some of our lines too.  WOTC has really dropped the ball on this one.  (Unless they are actively trying to discourage thrid party support of 4E; if that’s the case they are succeding, just making a public relations hash of the matter.)

I am pretty stoked about my friend wanting to pick up his pencil and start illustrating again.  I have talked to him before about doing stuf for me, and there have been a couple of ‘false starts’ but he seemed very excited about the stuff I sent him. I am going to hook him up with an old copy of Photoshop to use.  (I have CS around here somewhere, since I upgraded to CS3 I can spare it.)

I noticed Adamant has put some stock art to very good use.  Check out Venture 4th: The Linotaur and you will see the race seems based around an illustration from this offering from Anthony.  Very cool concept!  What got my attention was the cut-and-paste on page three where they used two of my stock art images (also done by Anthony) to make a second illustration.  (Here and here.) Very well done, streatching the artwork.  A little creative Photoshopping can go a long way for savvy publishers. Two thumbs up!

Sorry for the lack of posts; been a busy week!  Saturday was my birthday.  I spent the morning at the gun show.  Due to the pending house payment on Aug. 1st I was unable to go hog wild and get myself a bunch of new toys.  I picked up a few knick-knacks that were a good deal.  Later that afternoon we saw the new Batman movie with some friends.

Great flick, but I guess I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that as it has been all over the news for the last week.  Heath did a bang-up job; with due credit to the writers for giving him great material to work with.  Loved the Jokers ‘magic trick’ and his bit in the hospital dressed as a nurse!  As good as it was I am also stoked for the next installments; as we have yet to see the Riddler, Penguin, Cat Woman or Robin.  (And the Bat Cave has yet to make a full-fledged appearance either!) It seems Marvel, DC and others are starting to figure out the whole Comic Book Movie paradigm.

I just got some art back from Anthony and he continues to blow me away with his l33t i113ztr4t0r sk1llz! Worth. Every. Penny.

Played the second installment of Keep on the Shadowfell last week also.  We ran into a bit of a rule issue where on of the bad guys used a power that granted his allies temporary hit points. Several of the players thought that this would not apply to minions as they can be killed with one hit and have not real “hit point” total.  A quick search of the web indicated that they do indeed benefit from the temp hit points.  (Which is how I was leaning.)  We have one player who, for the second session in a row, has utterly failed to connect with his coolest daily power! Dude needs to buy some new dice or something.

I noticed an up-tick in sales thanks to the Christmas in July sale OBS ran.  The extra funds will go to paying Anthony for artwork.

My wife took the Basic Rider Course this weekend and is newly licensed to ride motorcycles! We went for a ride yesterday afternoon.  She needs a few more miles under her belt, so we will ride around the neighborhood and surrounding area for a bit before venturing forth onto the highways and byways on our fair state.