From Babylon Beach 4 (33): More Pananthropy Art + Silent City Map (wip)
Dear Goldinars,
A pleasure to be back. Getting settled in the new house continues, figuring out new routines, dropping off children, and so forth. Fortunately, some work has also been ongoing.
I got feedback from the editor and some noble typohunters on Pananthropy, so that's closer to done. Soon as I have all the art inside, it's ready. Then: Biomantica.
The Alphas or 'Lephines or 'Fines are a tribute to the work of Beardsley
I've decided to play with a bit of a conceit, as mentioned, making visual tributes to some pieces of 20th century (or thereabouts) Human art that capture some of the essence of these far-lost branches of Humanity.
The faceless banality and surreality of the Betas seems well served by Magritte.
For the Gammas, I went with a piece that's a tribute to Rivera.
Some of the pieces were a bit more involved than I'd initially planned. I hope you will tolerate having slightly more involved and colorful art in the Pananthropy than was initially perhaps planned by yours truly.
You can download the latest PDF down below the fold.
The other thing that I did was ... almost finish the Silent City map. Haven't finished describing it yet, but this is kind of a bonus, since it's not strictly speaking a part of Our Golden Age, rather it is ... mmm ... an expansion or elaboration of a place described therein.
Being the Silent City, WIP version P.
Next week I have a call scheduled with Exalted Funeral (I missed the last one due to moving-days-exhaustion + my calendar notifications didn't work because I don't have any notifications enabled on my "phone") to nail down the production outline. Once I have that, I'll be able to let you know more clearly on when we'll have the printed proofs in hand, and from there, the books and boxes!
Now that the books are done (well, apart from the cover, which I need to finish-finish-final version coloring), I can start getting the other pieces print ready. In production the books, as a rule, have the longest lead time, so once that's locked, all the other stuff is - comparatively - easy.
Hope to have more details on that soon.
And if not: it'll just be more pictures, more layouts, and closer to 100% done on the dig-ital front.
Wishing everyone a pleasant and not-too-hot or wildfire-infested end of summer.
—Luka, The Best of All Possible Worlds*, Seoul
*La-la-la I keep my head in the sand and do not** see the news la-la-la
From Babylon Beach 3 (32): Cover Early Colors & Pananthropy Early Layout
Dear Golden Folk,
I feel like the last two weeks have been a blur, with the moving and all, and one might think I have nothing to share. But it is not so. Nooo ...
I've been coloring the OGA cover art. It's ... uh ... slow going. This is a reduced size image.
I've gotten a decent start on the cover. Maybe another week and it'll be all done. Then I add the legends and the character sheets to the end of the book and that's all folks. Both are done.
One evening I also set up the indesign file for the Pananthropy zine. I reworked the Magitecnica / ERK style to fit better with the VLG and OGA books. It uses the same body font, but I decided to use different header fonts for each of the zines, to make them stand out a bit more.
Pages 4 and 5 of the Pananthropy Zine. As you can see, I've gotten started on some of the art.
You can get the laid out zine's PDF, sans most art, in the backer-only section down below.
It's framed as a lecture given by the Clacker, the academic character in the first page, so I've decided to reference some hits of human art for the illustrations.
As I might have mentioned somewhere, I did some work on the OGA character sheets. A version is also in the backer section below.
Finally, as part of the work on the stratometaship, the next illustrated map will be the Silent City. You can see it on the big map:
There it is, the Silent City.
So ... it looks like the OGA is going to have expansions in the works!
It is, honestly, a relief to be writing again, not just doing layout and filling in spot art. That was a big project. Phew.
I hoped to have some more information about production today, but I borked my alarms last night and missed my call with Exalted Funeral, so I need to reschedule that. I'll probably have some news by the next update.
Now, take care if you're experiencing a heatwave, don your environment suit, and hydrate, hydrate, hydra.
Though it is summer and the monsoon is in full swing, I have nae forgotten you. While waiting for the editor on the zines, I've been tackling two things. Well, three things, but two related to the production of this tome.
One, the first:
Covers. All sorts of covers. I've finished finished the lineart on the OGA cover and it is glorious.
Glorious.
I'm working on the colors now. So ... that's coming along. Great. I'll share it once it's done.
Two, the second.
I realized I didn't include a proper OGA-themed character sheet in the OGA book! A dastardly oversight that I am correcting.
This is a test ... still need to suitably age and distress it if I can figure out a proper way to do so.
In the context of that OGA character sheet, I also want to prepare a proper manor / estate character sheet. So, that's a thing to do.
Three, and this is unrelated to the previous: we're moving. Well, my family and I are moving, in the offline world, in realspace. A place of our own and all that jazz. This is also taking up some energy, not going to lie.
The next update will be longer and from a new apartment. I may even include a photo of the new studioffice.
Oh, and with Gen Con coming up, Exalted Funeral is running a UVG game. I've whipped up some pre-gens for that, so if you're there, drop by and say hi.
Behold the Piddlypond Racing Company.
This will go well, won't it?
From Babylon Beach 1 (30): Back to Climbing the Tower
Good Goldenagers,
I took a week off to do some summer things with the family and a bit of time to do some creative work again: drawing a map for a future project. A dozen sites with descriptions that fit into different parts of the Vastlands.
This one was the stratometaship, a self-contained mobile residence-plex in the void. Conveniently also something that will let me illustrate the chapter on the void that got cut from the OGA to save space with an actual location.
The full-size map along with the accompanying text is in the backers-only section down-down beyond the footer.
It's the stratometaship ... a strange vessel in the void.
It was good to do some purely creative work again. Now I feel like I have the mojo to finish the last steps, which are almost all layout:
some final feedback from close readers to implement in the books
the two zines are with the editor. After they finish, I'll lay them out.
meanwhile: legends for the Big Map and layout
layout Mirror man
layout Referee Screen
layout Reference Cards
layout Notebook
layout Golden Box
finalize Limited Edition foil art for covers and box
Am I missing anything? I might be missing something small there in between ... well, I'm sure I'll be reminded in due course. I'm aiming to finish the above in the next weeks. Let's see how that goes!
There's only one thing left to do on the books: a legend for the maps in Our Golden Age. Otherwise, the Endpapers are done, and with that we're in the field of cosmetix.
<<TL;DR?: Skip to the end for the latest PDFs!>>
Doing the Endpapers was, frankly, really hard. I struggled to wrangle the tables into shape, to motivate myself to go through with a fine tooth comb, to pixel-push till the pixels screamed and my eyes turned square and cloudstruck like dying cathode tubes.
But, they do now summarize most of the Vastlands Guidebook and also serve as a visual table of contents / table index.
Behold, front endpapers:
pages I and II
and the rear endpapers:
pages CLXXII and CLXXIII
You may also notice some tweaked tables
look how nicely the table on the right lines up with the page on the left now ...
Not just spot art, I also redid some of the chapter art in the OGA. I'll probably redo 3 more pieces (Yellow Land, Purple Land, Circle Sea section art) to make them more striking.
Green Land megamorph browsing in the Understoreys of the Emerald City's Apartarbres.
I added some really addled spot art ...
Look at all the cute souvenirs!
Some of it is also in color. And I also ended up coloring some pieces while procrastinating from doing the endpapers, which was ... oh, god, I struggled to motivate myself to push those pixels.
Look at that pretty little Ere Bunker settlement at bottom left!
All told, if you go through the most recent PDFs (backer-only content section), you'll find about 20 new pieces of spot art or newly colored line art. Yeah, I really struggled to get to work on the endpapers some days.
The proofreaders, typohunters and knights grammarian over on the discord have also been active, catching all manner of strange beasties, from a rare the-the to several exotic missingas.
Can't believe I got an update out on Thursday (Korean Time). Such speed.
Onwards, to the glorious and eternal future that is here and now!
The weeks churned by so fast, this is three updates in one.
The indices are done.
The final map is done and integrated in the book.
I've added navigation overlays (tabs) to the books.
I've added more spot art.
I've uploaded the latest versions of the book PDFs and the map to the dropbox and added the links in the backer-only section below.
What's left for the books:
Proofreading! We're at the end. Those keen to participate, we've got a channel for the knights grammarian (the grammarchy) on the stratometaship discord server.
The endpapers for the VLG - tables! Some to match the referee screen, some just for the book. Got a table you want to see? This is the time to share your table. Coffee table? Dining table? Card table? All sorts of tables. Even ttrpg tables.
And I'm going to cram in more spot art, but ... that's easy peasy. I'll do it as I get other stuff done.
Then it's just the other side bits. Soon the whole project will head over to the production team to get turned into paper and glue and ink and other bits of physical rawstuff! Exciting! Atlasting!
But now, pictures that may (or may not?) speak for themselves.
A pleasure to be back. Getting settled in the new house continues, figuring out new routines, dropping off children, and so forth. Fortunately, some work has also been ongoing.
I got feedback from the editor and some noble typohunters on Pananthropy, so that's closer to done. Soon as I have all the art inside, it's ready. Then: Biomantica.
The Alphas or 'Lephines or 'Fines are a tribute to the work of Beardsley
I've decided to play with a bit of a conceit, as mentioned, making visual tributes to some pieces of 20th century (or thereabouts) Human art that capture some of the essence of these far-lost branches of Humanity.
The faceless banality and surreality of the Betas seems well served by Magritte.
For the Gammas, I went with a piece that's a tribute to Rivera.
Some of the pieces were a bit more involved than I'd initially planned. I hope you will tolerate having slightly more involved and colorful art in the Pananthropy than was initially perhaps planned by yours truly.
You can download the latest PDF down below the fold.
The other thing that I did was ... almost finish the Silent City map. Haven't finished describing it yet, but this is kind of a bonus, since it's not strictly speaking a part of Our Golden Age, rather it is ... mmm ... an expansion or elaboration of a place described therein.
Being the Silent City, WIP version P.
Next week I have a call scheduled with Exalted Funeral (I missed the last one due to moving-days-exhaustion + my calendar notifications didn't work because I don't have any notifications enabled on my "phone") to nail down the production outline. Once I have that, I'll be able to let you know more clearly on when we'll have the printed proofs in hand, and from there, the books and boxes!
Now that the books are done (well, apart from the cover, which I need to finish-finish-final version coloring), I can start getting the other pieces print ready. In production the books, as a rule, have the longest lead time, so once that's locked, all the other stuff is - comparatively - easy.
Hope to have more details on that soon.
And if not: it'll just be more pictures, more layouts, and closer to 100% done on the dig-ital front.
Wishing everyone a pleasant and not-too-hot or wildfire-infested end of summer.
—Luka, The Best of All Possible Worlds*, Seoul
*La-la-la I keep my head in the sand and do not** see the news la-la-la
I feel like the last two weeks have been a blur, with the moving and all, and one might think I have nothing to share. But it is not so. Nooo ...
I've been coloring the OGA cover art. It's ... uh ... slow going. This is a reduced size image.
I've gotten a decent start on the cover. Maybe another week and it'll be all done. Then I add the legends and the character sheets to the end of the book and that's all folks. Both are done.
One evening I also set up the indesign file for the Pananthropy zine. I reworked the Magitecnica / ERK style to fit better with the VLG and OGA books. It uses the same body font, but I decided to use different header fonts for each of the zines, to make them stand out a bit more.
Pages 4 and 5 of the Pananthropy Zine. As you can see, I've gotten started on some of the art.
You can get the laid out zine's PDF, sans most art, in the backer-only section down below.
It's framed as a lecture given by the Clacker, the academic character in the first page, so I've decided to reference some hits of human art for the illustrations.
As I might have mentioned somewhere, I did some work on the OGA character sheets. A version is also in the backer section below.
Finally, as part of the work on the stratometaship, the next illustrated map will be the Silent City. You can see it on the big map:
There it is, the Silent City.
So ... it looks like the OGA is going to have expansions in the works!
It is, honestly, a relief to be writing again, not just doing layout and filling in spot art. That was a big project. Phew.
I hoped to have some more information about production today, but I borked my alarms last night and missed my call with Exalted Funeral, so I need to reschedule that. I'll probably have some news by the next update.
Now, take care if you're experiencing a heatwave, don your environment suit, and hydrate, hydrate, hydra.
Though it is summer and the monsoon is in full swing, I have nae forgotten you. While waiting for the editor on the zines, I've been tackling two things. Well, three things, but two related to the production of this tome.
One, the first:
Covers. All sorts of covers. I've finished finished the lineart on the OGA cover and it is glorious.
Glorious.
I'm working on the colors now. So ... that's coming along. Great. I'll share it once it's done.
Two, the second.
I realized I didn't include a proper OGA-themed character sheet in the OGA book! A dastardly oversight that I am correcting.
This is a test ... still need to suitably age and distress it if I can figure out a proper way to do so.
In the context of that OGA character sheet, I also want to prepare a proper manor / estate character sheet. So, that's a thing to do.
Three, and this is unrelated to the previous: we're moving. Well, my family and I are moving, in the offline world, in realspace. A place of our own and all that jazz. This is also taking up some energy, not going to lie.
The next update will be longer and from a new apartment. I may even include a photo of the new studioffice.
Oh, and with Gen Con coming up, Exalted Funeral is running a UVG game. I've whipped up some pre-gens for that, so if you're there, drop by and say hi.
Behold the Piddlypond Racing Company.
This will go well, won't it?
I took a week off to do some summer things with the family and a bit of time to do some creative work again: drawing a map for a future project. A dozen sites with descriptions that fit into different parts of the Vastlands.
This one was the stratometaship, a self-contained mobile residence-plex in the void. Conveniently also something that will let me illustrate the chapter on the void that got cut from the OGA to save space with an actual location.
The full-size map along with the accompanying text is in the backers-only section down-down beyond the footer.
It's the stratometaship ... a strange vessel in the void.
It was good to do some purely creative work again. Now I feel like I have the mojo to finish the last steps, which are almost all layout:
some final feedback from close readers to implement in the books
the two zines are with the editor. After they finish, I'll lay them out.
meanwhile: legends for the Big Map and layout
layout Mirror man
layout Referee Screen
layout Reference Cards
layout Notebook
layout Golden Box
finalize Limited Edition foil art for covers and box
Am I missing anything? I might be missing something small there in between ... well, I'm sure I'll be reminded in due course. I'm aiming to finish the above in the next weeks. Let's see how that goes!
There's only one thing left to do on the books: a legend for the maps in Our Golden Age. Otherwise, the Endpapers are done, and with that we're in the field of cosmetix.
<<TL;DR?: Skip to the end for the latest PDFs!>>
Doing the Endpapers was, frankly, really hard. I struggled to wrangle the tables into shape, to motivate myself to go through with a fine tooth comb, to pixel-push till the pixels screamed and my eyes turned square and cloudstruck like dying cathode tubes.
But, they do now summarize most of the Vastlands Guidebook and also serve as a visual table of contents / table index.
Behold, front endpapers:
pages I and II
and the rear endpapers:
pages CLXXII and CLXXIII
You may also notice some tweaked tables
look how nicely the table on the right lines up with the page on the left now ...
Not just spot art, I also redid some of the chapter art in the OGA. I'll probably redo 3 more pieces (Yellow Land, Purple Land, Circle Sea section art) to make them more striking.
Green Land megamorph browsing in the Understoreys of the Emerald City's Apartarbres.
I added some really addled spot art ...
Look at all the cute souvenirs!
Some of it is also in color. And I also ended up coloring some pieces while procrastinating from doing the endpapers, which was ... oh, god, I struggled to motivate myself to push those pixels.
Look at that pretty little Ere Bunker settlement at bottom left!
All told, if you go through the most recent PDFs (backer-only content section), you'll find about 20 new pieces of spot art or newly colored line art. Yeah, I really struggled to get to work on the endpapers some days.
The proofreaders, typohunters and knights grammarian over on the discord have also been active, catching all manner of strange beasties, from a rare the-the to several exotic missingas.
Can't believe I got an update out on Thursday (Korean Time). Such speed.
Onwards, to the glorious and eternal future that is here and now!
![Our Golden Age (OGA): An Ultraviolet Grasslands RPG []equel](https://images.backerkit.com/active_storage/backerkit_production/blob/w3x8sovt158sexgb2brviuof2eia?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&auto=compress%2Cformat&cs=srgb&ar=16%3A9&fit=crop)
