Since this is not a real blog post, you aren’t actually reading these words. You can, however, look at a picture. This is May’s To Do list.

Now, if you’re still reading, you might have noticed this was originally put up password-protected. I wanted to see whether I could put up something for an individual without it going “live” for everyone. Well, with the password I guess I can but you still can tell there’s something there.

So I’ll have to figure out something else.

Oh, and no, I don’t expect to get everything on this To Do list done by May 31st. It was an experiment in visualization so I could get a grip on what I had to do, and what some of the steps are.

I expect to go to the post office today. That yellow blob in the lower middle says “Mail these out.” At least, it should be true for those parts that are finished!

GALLERY UPDATES
I spent much of today putting images into the art galleries again. When Oakheart moved to a new server, all the old art went MIA. Rather than try to chase it all down, I am taking the opportunity to put together work I think is more representative of what I do, and to share things that I’m particularly proud of.

That said, there ain’t a whole helluva lot there right now. This is a time-consuming job. I’ll be adding new material as quickly as I can, but at least there are a few things for you to check out as I plug away.

For now, writing this post to let you know there’s art to check out (some you probably have never seen before) gives me an opportunity to post a picture of a half-naked wizard; always a plus in my book.

It’s probably a bad idea to tell a necromancer “Sorry, I’m just not that into you.” He’s gonna bone ya one way or the other.

IMPORTANT!
If you dropped me a line in the last week or two, to the email address that was on my Contact Me page (liz|at|lizdanforth|dot|com), I probably didn’t get it. You might have gotten a bounce-back, or you might not have. As we’ve made server changes and such, that address is (at least for now) in limbo. I can send mail from it — I’m still recognized as a sender — but not receive mail sent to it. I’m putting it to one side until I get things figured out, and not using it to send or receive.

For now, please use the newly updated address that I have on the Contact Me page.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Gaz’s hard work has put into my hands something I’ve wanted on this site for ages — a way for you to opt into getting my posts as an email in your Inbox. You’ll find the form off to the right where it says “Subscribe via email.”

The RSS feed moved, but is still available — look down toward of the bottom of the navigation column, under “Meta.”

You’ll see the main art gallery is … actually, you can’t see it. I’m looking into other ways to show my work. I was never happy with what was there before, and always meant to “get around to” updating and fixing it. The other changes in progress here give me the perfect opportunity. It will probably take a little time, though.

My “Newer Works” images are still intact, though. I added a couple of the fun Château Bison pictures I’ve just finished, so have a look. (That’s Buffalo Castle, French edition.) And check out Patrice’s website for updates on its release!

Those of you who commissioned portrait pieces for the book — I’ll be in touch shortly. Promise.

Bear with me as I make my way through the fog of confusion. We’ll get things adjusted, tweaked, and fixed up around here as soon as possible. This site has needed an overhaul for awhile, and while I am mainly focusing on a private commission right now, I’ll also be putting in time here. Fun times! Sign up above and you’ll hear all about it.

(And yeah, this is another Château Bison picture. I had a ball doing these!)

As you know I’ve been doing illustrations for a new edition of Buffalo Castle, the first of the solitaire adventures written for Tunnels & Trolls. When I offered people the chance to be included in the book, pictured as some of the non-player characters your adventurers would encounter, husband and wife Knick and Tina Moschella opted to appear as the leather-clad bandit and the big strong fighter.

Today is Tina’s birthday, and this post is her birthday present from Knick.

I have not gotten the pictures inked yet, in case you couldn’t tell. It been a little hectic around these parts lately, or….

Ooops! I think I should have said “I’m just saving the best for last.” Right. That.

Happy birthday, Tina!

IN OTHER NEWS
While I have your attention on the subject of the new French edition of T&T and its associated game books, let me direct you to Patrice’s new website. You can get all the latest news about his upcoming releases with links to where to buy the books (and of course I hope you will!) — at least as long as you can read French.

In any case, this where you’ll get to see the finished inkwork of Knick and Tina in Buffalo Castle … which will be finished very very soon. Really. I’m headed to the art table right now…

(Happy birthday again!)

What I call myself, though, is not artist (although I am) or illustrator (I am that too). I call myself “a Maker” because that’s really what I do: I make things. All kinds of things.

I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve been asked to work on many different projects. In addition to art (illustration, graphics, and concept work), I’ve been paid as freelancer for writing (fiction, non-fiction, blogs, and articles) and for game design, as a game developer, an editor, a cartographer, and as a pie-in-the-sky world-builder.

In every one of those areas, there are extraordinary individuals who surpass me in skill and renown. There aren’t a whole lot of people, though, who do all of those things at least reasonably well — well enough to keep getting work year after year.

FREELANCING
I bring this up because, if you only know about my efforts from one facet of my life’s works, you might think I don’t do much. Not all my eggs are in one basket, but I have a lot of baskets to look in. Okay, maybe you’ve heard I do art but time and again throughout my life, people tell me “I just heard you did X thing; I didn’t you know did any X’ing!” Usually I can laugh, and then point out I have been X’ing and Y’ing any time I wasn’t zzzzzz’ing.

If you need a look at what I’ve done, my bibliography on this site gives you an idea. That page needs a lot of work — I’ve been too busy this last year to put time into it — but it has details or at least notes for a lot of different projects I’ve contributed to. In addition to what’s there, I did around 187 paintings for collectible card games like Magic: the Gathering and Middle Earth. The card list has a separate page.

JACK OF ALL TRADES
When I was about 10 years old, I told my family one night, assembled at the dinner table, that I wanted to grow up to be a Renaissance man. I’d been learning about Leonardo da Vinci, and decided that becoming a polymath and exemplifying the Renaissance humanist ideal was precisely the career I wanted.

My dad, bless him, didn’t jump on the gender mismatch embedded in my stout declaration, but he did admonish me that being jack of all trades in the modern world would make me master of none. There was too much to learn, too much to know, and it would be bad for me to try. I didn’t like it but I believed him. (He was my dad. Of course I believed him!)

There IS too much for any one person to learn and to know these days, and I’m no Leonardo, but in the end, my dad was wrong about it being a bad thing for me to aim for. Being a jack of all trades has — mostly — served me well.

ECLECTIC
My family encouraged experimentation with every kind of creative thing, and exemplified the principles of lifetime learning, which enables me even now to acquire new skills and knowledge that my bachelor’s degree (Anthropology) and master’s (Library and Information Science) did not supply.

For example, around 1997 or 98, after years of 2-D art, I started playing with 3-D work: ceramics, stone carving, mosaics, paper-making and sculpture. My ex growled “But you’re not a sculptor; what do you think you’re doing?” and then was blown away to see the results. I was learning, stretching, and realizing that I was a Maker, and not easily classified.

One of the reasons I have worked happily in libraries for so many years is that if someone comes to me with a reference question, I can probably field the question. If I don’t know the particulars, I at least know the context of where to look or who to ask.

For example, recently a young man came to the library wanting information on learning Thalassian, Rhefugi, and Drow. I knew what he was talking about, at least! I had to turn to the social web for help with the answers, but my friends are awesomesauce — and mostly they’re as eclectic in their interests as I am. The young man went away with some good answers, impressed and delighted.

PROFESSIONAL ECLECTIC
That’s what’s on my business card these days: professional eclectic. Outside of libraries, I use all the different skills and areas of knowledge in the freelance work that comes my way. Wearing different hats truly makes me happy. My Anthro studies help me build believable cultures for games and stories alike, and for evocative elements in paintings and drawings.

The love of language I’ve talked about? That gives me English and foreign language skills as writer and editor, and different perspectives of how to think about situations and circumstances (because words control not only what you think, but also what you can think.) I dig the fractal qualities of coastlines and watersheds, what rainshadows are, and I consider principles of tectonics and evolutionary biology when I’m making shit up.

I’m not unique in this. There are lots of folks using such skills and many others to make their living creating games and fiction, and there are people doing less peculiar jobs who are nevertheless building memorable gaming experiences for their personal circle of friends. It’s all creative and it’s all pretty damned awesome.

EXCITING TIMES
For my part, putting together an immersive, memorable world for games or stories is one of the most challenging, exciting, and fun things I can do, and that’s the reason for the title of this post.

I’ve spoken of Storybricks in these pages before now, having done a little concept art and talked world-building ideas with Brian “Psychochild” Green, Stéphane Bura and others on the team. They’re underway with the first alpha release, and they’re still keeping me around, but it’s a very long way before the kind of things I do best will be needed again. Right now, evidently I serve best by standing and waiting, as the old saying goes.

So I experienced an enormous swell of excitement on March 5th, when Brian Fargo wrote me asking Not sure if you have been paying attention to all the wasteland news but would you like to work with us on a sequel?

I had to work out some things, including checking that the Storybricks team was okay with this. Thankfully, they were. They knew I’d worked on the original Wasteland computer game, released back in 1988, and were supportive of the whole idea.

With my issues addressed, I was very pleased to tell Brian Yes Yes Yes and Yes.

WASTELAND
I wasn’t a big part of the original project, but Highpool was one of the areas I wrote that appears early in the game. People still make sour faces when I grin evilly and say I was responsible for the tragedy with the kid and the rabid dog. I did other bits elsewhere in the game too, but that’s the piece I hear the most feedback about.

Still, the remarks aren’t always kind! I recall a forum comment I read just a year or two ago, saying something like “What kind of sick mind thinks up a situation where you have to kill a kid’s dog? And the kid too?”

*ahem* Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic world set in our near future. An animal infected with full-blown rabies can’t be saved in our world, today. With limited medical supplies and a trashed infrastructure, how in hell do you imagine you could possibly do anything but put a rabid dog out of its misery?

You never had to kill the kid, either. He’d throw himself at you, yes, but you’re playing a squad of big strong mega-weaponed Rangers! Grownups! Walk away. It’s not like you were chickenshit for backing down from some evil-hearted final boss bent on scourging the world and all you loved within it. It was a little boy.

True, if you passed through the area again, the kid would scream and yell and accuse you of terrible things — forever. But why would the boy forget the bad strangers who killed his beloved dog? He’d only asked you to help him.

You were never allowed to forget either.

EMOTIONAL CONTENT
That isn’t something that happened in video games of the time. I didn’t know that — the scenario I created was the kind of thing I’d've written for a bit of fiction, or a tabletop game. I play with emotions, and I still delight in knowing a little story I wrote can make strong men and women cry. The rabid dog’s tale was simply cause and effect, a touch of the unexpected (for the time), and the power of unforeseen consequences.

I remember that I had to argue to keep that event the way I wrote it. I think it was Alan Pavlish who said “But you have to give them a way to save the dog!” I explained the medical reasons why I felt that was unacceptable, how effective it would be to keep it this way, and he finally said okie-dokie. And that’s how the story was eventually programmed.

That was just little tiny bit of storyline in a larger game that had many memorable moments. The whole team’s joint efforts resulted in something amazing, with impact that still resonates. And even if it did get me called “a sick mind” decades later, people tell me they still remember the dog, decades later.

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING
If you’re new to this blog, it’s probably because you know that Brian Fargo has launched a new Wasteland project via Kickstarter, and somewhere you found my name mentioned as one of the original team that he brought in again. The game is already funded and over-funded with more than three weeks yet to go. This game is definitely going to happen.

A lot of powerful, creative, intelligent minds worked on the first Wasteland. Brian is assembling the core personalities who drove that game, including my old friends from Flying Buffalo and T&T days, Mike Stackpole and Ken St Andre. I met Alan Pavlish while working on Wasteland and worked with him many times thereafter, writing large chunks of subsequent Interplay projects like the two Star Trek titles (25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites) and other works. I was delighted to learn that another creative friend from that time, Steve Peterson, once of HERO Games and co-designer of Champions, is evidently also getting involved. [ETA: I may have misunderstood something Steve said, but it would be cool if it's true!]

Right now, it looks like I’ll be doing just a little in the new game, but at least one map. Expect a worthy successor to Highpool. Expect me to jack around with your emotions and expect your decisions to have consequences. I know more about games and game design than I did then, and I’d like to think I’m at least as creative today as I was then, if not more so.

That’s one advantage to being a Maker. Doing so many different things, I don’t get too set in my ways about any one thing I do, whether art or writing or game design. I may not be as well known as some who specialize — that’s the downside to being a jack of all trades — but I’ve worked steadily as a creative Maker for almost four decades. I still get as excited by challenging new projects as I did when I was twenty. And I’m really stoked about some of the ideas and evil plans growing in my notes for when I get the green light to start on my part of Wasteland 2.

LAST WORD
The Oakheart website is soon to be undergoing some server moves and other changes, long planned and finally to be executed. (Thanks to the ever-so-awesome Gazimoff!) It should remain live through the proceedings, but I may be unable to post or comment for a week or so. Trust me, I’ll be back as soon as I can!

I did a piece I wound up calling “Aftermath.” It suggests a story without actually telling one, leaving plenty of room for the viewer’s imagination. A bone shows evidence of a cut that must have been powerful enough to slice through the flesh that once covered it, a sword abandoned, and someone left a chain bearing what appears to be a religious or otherwise meaningful icon, perhaps as a memorial to the event that transpired.

Small. Simple. Plain linework. Unremarkable to my eye, really. A simple fillo.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Some weeks ago, I got email from the fellow who bought that little fillo “Aftermath.” Unassumingly, he said “I hope you enjoy my fanart. Near the end of this project I may have strayed over the line into obsession.”

This is what he sent me (used here with his permission).

It isn’t often that I am speechless. Seeing this piece of art the first time left me breathless, speechless, and awed. That feeling returns every time I clap eyes on it.

Quoghmyre, as he is known and who calls himself “the Southern Most Troll” hailing from New Zealand, took a little bit of visual fluff and made it reality. The shadow of the chain on the bone; the gleaming green light and its many reflections, the old dark bloodstains on the leather, the tiny skull on the hilt contrasting to the enormity of the thighbone…

Quoghmyre’s email said “I’m sure you can see lots of places where my guess at your intent went astray, please forgive.” No, Quog, what I see is your imagination rising higher than mine! To me, the skull on the sword was merely a sculpted bit of business put there by the blacksmith. You saw the potential story captured by using a leprechaun’s skull to contrast with an ogre’s thigh! (Those are his words about the piece, not mine.)

I AM SO FORTUNATE
Over the years, I have been incredibly lucky to receive gifts like this, some real and some virtual, and some have been words that moved me to tears. Such things always surprise me. Fan art? From my work? I cannot look long at the “But why? Why me?” question; I just can’t. That way lies rump of skunk and madness.

Fan art, like fan fiction, has its own issues. I am one who believes in the value of today’s participatory culture; that ethical experimentation with media literacy and artistic expression is a positive thing and are absolutely necessary skills in the 21st Century. No, I don’t want people taking my creative efforts wholesale, and making bank for themselves without so much as a by-your-leave because I live by my wits and what people can pay me for what I do.

But Quog’s work is magnificently transcendant of that, and everything he has done has been done with the utmost respect, personally and professionally. In turn, let me point you to his T&T fansite (newly revised, I hear) at Southern Realms. It seems, literally, the least I can offer in return.

GRATITUDE
Most of all, I have to say “Thank you” to all those who have shared their gifts and their stories. Thank you to Quoghmyre, who spent a great many of his life’s hours working his way through the pinhole I peeped through, and took an exquisite photo of the reality I barely glimpsed in that otherwhere. Thank you to the people who gave me raw turquoise and topaz because my drawn costumes inspired them in their jewelry-making — and to the woman who asked about the back of an outfit seen only from the front in an illustration, as she asked permission to make the dress for cosplay. To the composer who asked permission to use my art as backdrops in the Tolkien-based symphony performance he’d written for his master’s degree in music.

Thank you to Sasha, who opened his mind to words and writing and literature because he wanted to know what my pictures were about in those game books at the store. Thank you to artists whose talent and ability far surpasses mine, for telling me I inspired them at some point in their lives, and to younger ones saying they hope to put their skillset to work as I have.

And many others. Thank you all. You’re all crazy as bats, but in an awesome, amazing way.

In turn, I am inspired to do my best with every piece I turn out. I can never know what image I make will inspire someone else to create something, learn something, change something. Anything that inspires creativity in others, that increases beauty in the world at large is …

Damn. The whole thing is leaving me speechless again.

Inspiration. The very word’s etymology is about breath, spirit, breathing. And being touched by something divine. You all inspire me, and you humble me. Thank you.

Unfortunately, I don’t know jack about php and the backend of WordPress, and probably shouldn’t be allowed wandering the web while shrouded in this much ignorance. The White Knight riding to my rescue was Gazimoff of Mana Obscura, bless his socks. He got the site scrubbed down, cleaned up, and presentable once more.

I have no words adequate to express the depth of my appreciation for him stepping into the breach like this. If you click that link with his name — and I do hope you go have a read — you’ll see that he has exquisite taste in WordPress themes (although appearances can be deceiving, I understand…). He also writes pretty damn well and thoughtfully.

Other problems with the website have kept me from posting for a couple of weeks here, and I aim to rectify that as soon as I can. Well… that and the fact that I’ve been working my fingers to nubbins trying to finish the new Buffalo Castle art on schedule. But I’m eager to share a rockin’ piece of “fan art” with you, something a wee bit of fantasy filler art inspired but which outshines my little original like a supernova outshines a firefly. Stay tuned!

Until then, go make sure your virus-catchers and backups are up to date.

(ETA 3/3/2012: Nothing like suggesting readers go check out Gaz’s website, and giving you a bad link. Fixed!)

Alas, blogging is only a piece of what I do, and I believe in writing posts that have a bit of meat to them. I could throw you a bone every few days but since I seem constitutionally incapable of writing a “short” post, even a brief effort will eat up most of my workday. Today I’ll serve up a smorgasbord of news to nibble on.

(And yes, you correctly guessed that I haven’t had breakfast yet!)

BUFFALO CASTLE
Ken St Andre commented on the previous update, telling me I ought to tell you all how the auction turned out. All in due time!

The four slots I offered were taken, and in fact I will be doing six portraits in all. I’m already underway and having a blast with it.

TRAVELLER
I get asked for a lot of fantasy art, but most of January’s work was science fictional. For several months now, I’ve been working on Marc Miller’s new edition of Traveller and I did a dozen new pieces for him last month. They ranged from small spot illos of various robotic brains to a full page, full-color plate that Steve Crompton and I collaborated on. The picture below is the centerpiece of a poster advertising an insert-a-chip-in-your-brain full-immersion “experience” where, like Cinderella, you wrap up the night’s festivities with a head-spinning final dance with the Prince himself. Roll-check your SAN!

The inkwork is mine, and then Steve and I spent a few days knocking emails back and forth to develop color schemes and how to light the scene. Steve did the color work based on our discussions, and he came up with the lush textures of the woman’s dress, which were then echoed in other elements of the picture.

Steve said this may be one of the best colorizing jobs he’s ever done, and I am entirely pleased and proud to have his signature beside mine on this piece. Both of us are hoping more of our clients will be interested in this kind of collaborative work from us. It just blows me away to see what he can do with my simple line art. The man is an amazing talent.

ROBOTS
James Maliszewski also had me doing a bit of Traveller-related artwork, scheduled to appear as the chapter-opener in a book called Thousand Suns: Technology. The chapter is all about robots and playing them as characters. James says the book will probably come out in April or May.

I was really happy with how the picture came out, and James posted a few words about the picture in his Grognardia blog because he was pleased with it too.

The comments to his post left me bemused, though. George Takei? Droopy breasts? I succumbed to responding there (which, really, I ought to know better, but sometimes it’s hard to fight the black hole gravity well of OMG someone is wrong on the Internet). What I didn’t say there but will say here is “Oh? Do you really think all Asians look the same?”

More charitably, you could argue that Hollywood still offers us a very white landscape of faces in science fiction, so any Asian in a space setting is going to evoke a mental jump to George, but still…really, guys? Really?”

James’ art direction for the piece was clear: “a single human being, preferably a woman, shaking hands with an anthropomorphic robot… I don’t want him/her to look like a supermodel or an action hero … I also like the people in any art to be of varied and/or indeterminate ethnicities.”

And just to be perfectly clear, the other inset picture is the actual reference photo I used, from Thinkstock. Posing two figures shaking hands is more problematic than it seems at first blush, if you want them both to be fully depicted. Funny how the women are Asian but don’t look a thing like George Takei. Must be the sunglasses.

MORE NEW WORK
When I finish this post, I will load up an extended assortment of my recent work into the Newer Artworks page, and move some of the earlier pieces into the regular gallery.

And while the majority of my time is going into my assignments right now, I also have a sketch started that may grow into a painting I’ve been noodling about with for rather a long time. I rarely get to do work “just for myself” but I’m trying to give it my Google 20% time, which doesn’t get nearly 20% of my attention these days. I haven’t been writing much fiction since my laptop died — a conceptual problem that irritates the hell out of me, because that work shouldn’t be dependent on what machine I’m working on — but I am still trying to use the time (when I get it) for other things that sharpen the saw, that restore my creative spark, that ensure I never get bored doing what I do.

If the sketch grows into more than a glint in my eye and some chicken scratches on paper, I’ll tell you more about it!

Le Grog, an influential and amazingly extensive French-language “Roleplayer’s Guide to the Galaxy,” also repeated my offer in their news and announcements for the 24th of January, after Patrice alerted them about it. Since the art is going into a French edition of the game, it seemed only fitting!

(Seriously, if you can read French at all, the site is absolutely amazing. Aside from those pages offered with English translations — read their Mission statement — you can always use Google Translate to get the gist of things.)

SIGNING UP
If you recall, I offered to draw individuals into one of four specific illustrations, out of the twenty new Buffalo Castle pictures.
 

The original illustrations were nothing to write home about — that’s why I’m re-doing them, after all. A surprised statue in the medusa’s room, a sly leather-clad highwayman-bandit, a quavering coward, or big strong fighter are all options on the table. Make a choice — or let me choose! — and for $20 minimum bid, you can be immortalized in this edition. If you bid at least $45, you get the original art itself. I just need to hear from you by midnight, February 5th. Other stipulations are in the previous post.

Right off the bat, let me say “Thank You” to those who have already asked for one of the pictures.

All three of you.

*ahem*

I really do appreciate all the folks who said what a cool idea this was, but I honestly thought there would be a few more people asking for a spot.

Was my minimum asking price too high? Are the pictures too small? Does Buffalo Castle just not excite you? Do you think you’d not be able to compete against the dozens of other bidders? Well, if it’s the latter, let me say there is at least one position to be had for minimal cost!

Since there is still time before the Feb 5th deadline, consider making me an offer. Yes, I am trying to raise some extra funds right now, and this seemed like a winning proposition for everyone interested. All you have to do is drop me an email: liz -at- lizdanforth -dot- com.

UPDATING THE INFO
I checked with both Rick Loomis (author of Buffalo Castle) and Patrice Geille (translator and publisher), and both are perfectly willing to adjust the wording in the solitaire to reflect the possibility of having a female character in the pictures that presently show (and speak of) a male character.

Moreover, Valentine’s Day is coming. Might this not qualify as one of the geekiest presents evah for your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse?

Several of us involved in the project are rather hoping to see the revised book brought out in English as well. That will be up to Flying Buffalo, though, but I’d really hope to see the new version made widely available (and from a legitimate publisher! Beware of knockoffs!).

I heard a rumor that there may even be some new or revised encounters in the solo. But you didn’t hear that from me.

SWEETENING THE POT
Something that showed up on Ken St Andre’s blog yesterday gave me another idea. He came across an old, old piece of mine, done back in 1977 when I was a precocious wee infant barely able to wield pen and pencil. He probably bought it at a convention art show back in the dawn of time. The piece is called the Peacock Fan, and it certainly counts as one of my earlier pieces of art out there.

It is inkwork with colored pencil. That’s something I’ve done since, now and again, but am out of the habit of. Photoshop colorizing is faster, easier (for those skilled in the practice) and perfectly print-friendly but there is no colored original art, just a printout. For many, that’s plenty. For some, that’s not “an original” but just another kind of print and definitely not one of a kind.

I’m going to expand on my offer here: if you bid at least $65, I will hand-color the original drawing for you OR, if you prefer a bigger or more polished image, I will color one of the previously printed sheets of the Sky Lord or Sky Noble images I did for Namaste/Storybricks. (I am exceptionally proud of those two pieces.) Even on a print, the hand-coloring makes each picture one of a kind.

Of course, if you simply want to order a Sky Lord or Sky Noble colored print all by itself, I’ll color you a print for $25 plus postage. I did one of these as a raffled give-away during GenCon — that’s the picture below, shot with my phone under less than optimal conditions, but it will give you can idea of what you can expect. I’ll include a copy of the Sky Lord below (in his B&W version) for you to consider as well.

 
It’s interesting to see the manifest similarities — and differences — between the art of 1977 and its echoes in the piece I did hardly a year ago.
 

Does the idea appeal more now? Let me know what you think.
 
 

Quite a while back, Patrice Geille commissioned me to do some fresh illustrations for his new French translation of T&T, and I’ve shown a few samples here on the blog. Steve Crompton is presently laying it out and what I’ve seen so far looks downright awesome. I can read French, a bit, but even if I couldn’t I would want a copy of this edition — I think it is just that cool.

In an email to me, Pat observed, perceptively, that the players will want adventures to play, so he’s worked on new translations there too. He started with Buffalo Castle, which has always been the “starter solo” for T&T. However, he gently suggested that not all the art was quite the quality people expect today. (He did this in the most polite terms imaginable).

And he is absolutely right. I did the original illustrations for Buffalo Castle back in 1979. The glowering orc, in my previous post, is one of the pictures from that solo. That fellow doesn’t look too bad, but some? *Shudder*. Was I really drawing with ballpoint pens? Some are cheesy, some are lame. Some are just… well, some seriously suck.
 

NEW COMMISSION
Both Pat and I want to bring all the pieces up to the quality of the better illos already there. He has commissioned me to redo about twenty illustrations to put into the new translation. (Whether the English-language edition gets revised hasn’t been discussed.)

Two of the illos below are among those on the chopping block. The guy fighting the octopus has been deemed “good enough” (barely).

BACK TO THAT HALF-NAKED BODIES QUESTION
As I went through the art in the solo, I was amused to see that the Buffalo Castle illustrations feature more half-naked men than half-naked women. That Medusa is the only female example in this book. While I can’t really defend the sexism of the flimsy clothing of the Medusa, at least the solo offers you the chance to “wake her up and talk to her” and not “sneak over and molest her.” (Is that what you were thinking? Whatever gave you that idea?)

I won’t even get into the whole “sex = death” morality either, a trope that is endlessly popular in Hollywood horror and many adventure movies. You only wanted to talk to her, right?

THIS IS THE GOOD PART
I know a lot of old-school T&T fans read this blog so…

…how would you like to appear in the new artwork for Buffalo Castle??

I have four pictures among those twenty that I’m willing to draw someone into. Some may appeal more than others. And I’m going to ask you to bid for the privilege because, really, it’s easier to just draw whatever is in my head but mainly because “freelancer” is a synonym for “mercenary”, and that’s what we do. It is also a consequence of the changing reality of today’s Internet world, where simply making and selling one’s work is no longer sufficient to make a comfortable living. We have to come up with interesting ways to offer different services, and I honestly hope you’ll think it’s cool, too!

The last time I did such a thing, for a Magic the Gathering card called “Freyalise Supplicant, the piece was bid up to $1500. That was back in Magic’s heyday, it was for a children’s hospital charity, and it was a full-blown painting — not just a small ink illustration. I intend to tell the story of that painting one of these days in a Pictures Have Stories entry. It is a rich tale with its share of drama, a grand little convention, and the passing of a dear friend. But that’s for another time.

HERE’S THE DEAL
Bid by emailing me directly: “liz–at–lizdanforth–dot–com”. If you simply want me to work your picture into one of the illustrations described below, bid at least $20. If you want the original ink drawing when I’m finished, say so — and bid at least $45.

I will take the highest bid for any given image that I receive before midnight (MST) on February 5th 2012, if it meets my criteria. One of those is that the picture is of you, or if it is not of you that the person in the picture affirms to me their consent to being depicted in this illustration and for this use. All pictures must be of adults over the legal age of consent in their country of residence. I reserve the right to decline to accept a bid or picture. The publisher has final say on the inclusion of any illustration. If you purchase the original artwork, you are getting only the physical item with no transfer or licence of copyright, and no publication rights.

If you get outbid before the deadline for a particular image, I will email you to say so, in case you want to increase your bid — bidding early will be helpful. If you win, you will need to send me one or more photographs to work from. If I don’t get your photos or scans by Monday, February 13th, you’re outta luck and I go to the next lowest bidder who will have to respond immediately. I have a March 1st deadline for all the art, including these, so I need time to work on them.

Bear in mind that you’re not getting a lot of picture here. These will be small pictures, maybe 20 square inches or so (4″ x 5″, depending on the piece). You do NOT have to pose like the original sketches. I’ll modify my sketch to give you the best showing I can while still illustrating the scene.

THESE ARE THE PICTURES TO CHOOSE FROM

Do you like this idea? Would you like me to do more of this kind of thing? Let me know in the comments, and happy bidding.