OK Ice Age ... bring it!"

The REAL reason the dinosaurs died out (despite what Gary Larson says) was that they couldn't knit caps and scarves fast enough.

"Geez ... it LOOKS like we're here for the SUPPER Bowl!"

You'd think I'd need to wait until AFTER today's Super Bowl party to do a doodle like this. But I've been talking to a bunch of the people who will be there, and I am already blown away by the amount of food that is being prepared ... and NONE of that is by the people who are HOSTING the event, whom I know will put out a very nice spread on their own.

I'm kind of afraid that the food table might end up being more impressive than the actual game. But either way, the company promises to be EXCELLENT!

"Blarg!"

These two sketches aren't really interacting with each other ... it's just proximity on the sketchbook page, and the fact that both were done while trying to sort out some rough ideas for comics. But each is from a different idea for a different comic.

The bucket was part of a very weird thought process that led to the new Bolt & Quiver strip I just finished (destined to run in Kobold Quarterly #13, if all goes well). The bucket fell out of the idea somewhere along the way ... so making it on Doodle-A-Day is really its only chance at fame. Mighty bucket!

The baby goblin was part of a general attempt to draw cute or unusual fantasy creatures in hopes that they would spark ideas for 10'x10' Toons. Not a lot of luck with that yet ... but this guy is kinda cute ... and there may be some meat on the idea of baby D&D monsters ... maybe. Also, he looks a little like Bat Boy.

"This looks like a job for Longneck Joe!"

It was only after I finished this doodle that I realized it is the polar opposite of No Neck Joe.

Another sketch I did recently while thinking about Operation: Kaiju. The characters in the setting will likely be a mix of pilots, warriors, and scientists, but everyone's going to have to be prepared for ADVENTURE ... even this nervous, skinny guy.

"That's the body of Kassin, the founder of our town."
"And he's wearing magical armor! I bet he'd want us to have it..."
"The FOUNDER of our TOWN!"

Another scene from a recent session of our Pathfinder campaign. In fact, it happened just after the end of the fight that inspired yesterday's doodle.

After winning the battle, our heroes were finally able to pay their respects at the grave of their town's founder (a pilgrimage to his tomb was what kicked off the action). The founder was buried in his armor and holding his favorite weapon, so the spellcasters cast detect magic and realized, not surprisingly, that both were indeed magical. That's where the fun began.

Several party members began debating who in the group would get the best use out of these items ... while others were SHOCKED at the notion that they wanted to loot the grave of the town's founder. Sure, you do that to conquered foes and marauding monsters ... but this guy is a figure of legend that we all grew up idolizing. Was it REALLY proper to talk about taking his stuff just because it's better than the gear we currently had?

It was a weird roleplaying moment because we ALL knew that the reason you put treasure like that in a published adventure is specifically SO the PCs will take it ... that's just how the meta-world of the game works. But it made absolutely NO in-world sense for our characters to do so. They revere this guy and traveled several days just to pay their respects to him ... there's no way they'd do that by robbing his grave.

In the end, the PCs got to talk to the founder's ghost (something I don't think was in the published adventure) ... and it turned out that we really couldn't use the specific gear he had. We did, however, walk away from the monetary boon that SELLING that gear could have gotten us ... and I'm proud of us for making that decision.

"Okay ... I charged and I'm raging but I used Power Attack so..."
"Don't forget that your bard is singing!"

I did this particular doodle during a recent session of our current Pathfinder campaign, but even as I was scribbling it I realized that I'd done practically identical drawings pertaining to D&D (2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions).

This basically made me realize that complaints about any particular version of the game being "too complex" is really just a matter of preference. They are ALL complex and require attention to ever-changing details and corner-case rules ... it's just that whichever set of complexities you're most familiar with seems "easier" or "less work" than the others.

"I am not the doodle you're looking for."

I'm not even sure what that little guy is supposed to BE. A gumdrop? A pencil eraser? A game piece from Sorry? Doesn't really matter, though. He's not the doodle I was looking for, apparently.

In case this little scribble isn't enough for you, I'm posting more drawings throughout the day as part of Hourly Comic Day. You can follow my progress here.

A couple of weeks ago, as a project just for fun and distraction, I participated in an illustration challenge at the Art Order blog run by Jon Schindehette (D&D Art Director and all around good egg). I talked a little bit about it on my main blog.

Today's doodle was the first sketch I did based on my rough remembrance of the art description. At first I thought this was ALL I'd do in response to the challenge ... but I liked the basic ideas I was fiddling with enough to go back, read the description more closely, and produce a finished piece.

"arf"

Just a goofy little doodle of some cartoony adventurers. I did this after I found out that I would be doing cartoons for the D&D Player's Strategy Guide but before I actually got any of the art descriptions. I figured I'd just start working up some more fairly generic D&D characters.

These weren't really evocative enough that I wanted to use them in the final pieces ... but they sure do make a nice doodle. And they've got such a CUTE little dragonling ... or maybe that's what they're about to fight ... maybe a PACK of them, all arfing and biting and belching little gouts of flame.

Yeeeeah ... that's the ticket!

"Yeah, I'm a mud elemental ... so?"

As I was doodling this mud elemental (don't ask me why ... I have NO IDEA why), I found myself figuring that it might not be clear to anyone but me what this blobby thing was supposed to be. Maybe it would be a good idea, I thought, to put some text in that will clarify the situation. The next thing I knew, I had a confrontationally defensive creature on my hands.

I suppose when MOST of the other elementals are of such PURE materials, a mud elemental is going to have a few self-esteem issues. But just think how bad it's got to be if you're a smog elemental!

I continue to ruminate and make notes for Operation: Kaiju, the Savage Worlds setting/campaign I'm going to write for Super Genius Games just as soon as I can find an opening in my schedule. That rumination often leads to doodles of giant monsters, cityscapes, and mecha ... y'know, kinda like this one.

I'm pretty sure I want the giant robots to have a "super sentai" look, rather than a modern sci-fi manga look ... but I'm not sure. I might also just want to give them a Shogun Warriors, robotic samurai look ... and that's the idea I was playing around with here (well, that and making a Godzilla knock-off that doesn't look exactly like Godzilla ... failure on that end).

It wasn't until a couple of days after doodling this that I realized I'd drawn the shuriken on the robot's chest as six-pointed Stars of David ... that, in my head, I imagined colored yellow. That immediately threw my mind into a Holocaust frame of mind ... and that's just NOT where I want this setting to go in any way, shape, or form.

So, while I still MIGHT end up having samurai-style giant robots in Operation: Kaiju ... they'd DEFINITELY end up with some other kind of torso decoration.

"I'm wounded! Use that wand on me..."
"But..."
"USE IT NOW!"
"It's a wand of magic missile."

It's Wednesday, and that means another Game Night doodle. This one is word-for-word what was said around the table recently ... but not exactly what happened IN the game. (Table talk often leads to better doodles than literal adaptations of game play.) Still, it SEEMS like the kind of thing that COULD happen in the heat of battle ... I mean, what does a barbarian know about recognizing different types of wands? Magic is magic, right?

It's Game Night again tonight, which means we'll miss President Obama's State of the Union Address in favor of tracking down who- or whatever burned our characters' village to the ground and made off with all of its children. (The speech will be available online by the time we wrap for the night, though.)

As usual, I'll be posting frequent updates to Facebook as well as (hopefully) making more doodles.

As I've talked about previously, despite the fact that cartooning is the thing I love doing MOST, I try to keep inclusion of my drawings in Super Genius Games products to a bare minimum because my cartoony style is not always appropriate for a given topic. In fact, sometimes it can be a turn-off for a significant portion of the audience. That doesn't stop me, though, from doodling out various ideas I have for products we're working on.

Case in point: the Death Mage (a Pathfinder-compatible base class Super Genius Games released last week).

This is a product that grew out of a brainstorming session we had in one of our weekly Genius Conference Calls, and while we were talking about it I began doodling some ideas for how a character devoted to that class might look. While ONE of those eventually DID end up in the final product (mainly, I think, because I made a comparison to a Bond villain) ... I thought I'd share here one of the looks that never got further than a sketchy half-thought.

"Meow"

I started this doodle with just the big arc that makes up the pig's back ... and I really had no idea what I was going to draw. Somehow, the pig quickly grew over the next few unfocused pen strokes ... but when I was done, it was clear that the pig was saying SOMETHING. But I had no idea what that might be, so I just left it blank and went on doodling. A few minutes later I stopped in the middle of another doodle and put in the word balloon ... again, without ever thinking why.

And so we have a meowing razorback hog ... courtesy solely of my subconscious mind.