Star Wars RPG: Rebellion Era

Another entry in the Star Wars RPG series releases this month, the third of 3 books I worked on in the past year. This one was just a couple of 1/4 page spots, nothing too exciting. I believe they can be found on pages 37 and 68, although they chose to blow up sections of each and use them on chapter start montages on pages 59 and 141.

Magic 2010 Core Set

Magic 2010 is the once bi-annual, now annual core set release. It's the one that newer players should start with, the one that is more "standard fantasy" themed than the yearly block of expansions, whose themes vary considerably year by year. This is the 11th edition of the main game, and starting this year, they've decided to co-opt the naming convention used successfully (I guess) by car manufacturers and video games like Madden NFL, who use the upcoming calendar year in the title. So this is Magic 2010, released summer '09. Next year will be Magic 2011. I'm not really a player of Magic these days, so I'll leave it to players to decide if this is a worthwhile or confusing thing. It certainly keeps the game from having ridiculous names like, "Magic, 28th edition" eventually.

The set features reprints of 3 of my cards, 2 of which I previously called "classics" in that they get reprinted a lot, and Mesa Enchantress (originally published in Planar Chaos [2007]), who makes her first reprint appearance here. Prints are currently available of Mesa and Soul Warden.

Tips & Techniques: The Glove

I spent my first years of airbrushing without a breathing mask, during which time I undoubtedly knocked a year or two off my life. That might not be a bad thing--after all, when people tell you that doing Unpleasant Habit X will add so many years to your life, they forget to remind you that you'll be adding those years to the end of your life. So you'll get to spend more time as an elderly person--probably sad, ill and alone. So, you know, I may have done myself a favor. But, there were still possibly going to be a few sad, lonely years left. So when I switched to oil painting full-time in '98, I decided to go without protecting myself for a good, oh, 11 years. Hopefully I didn't overdo it and shave off everything after, say, 40.

You see, oil paints are made of all sorts of nasty things. All that color you see, yeah a good lot of it is toxic when in its wet state. Once dried and varnished it's harmless. But in its wet state, toss in various petroleum distillates and other chemicals, and an artist has a long-term health issue at hand. I don't know how bad--lots of oil painters lived very long lives over the centuries, even those who used more toxic pigments than we use now, with less protection and worse medical care. Still, I know that by now I've probably eliminated most of my sad winter years and will probably die before then. So, time to protect.

Back in art school, I tried painting with gloves. That's the easiest way to minimize exposure (wide open windows also help, which I already do). Painting with latex gloves is, shall we say, unsatisfying. I could never get used to it, so I never took up using them. Barrier creams leave a film on your hands, which when you place your hand on your painting, gets on the surface.

However, a rather simple reinvention of the wheel later, and I am now able to protect most of my hands. Witness my hand (I've always loved that phrase in contracts):

Michael Jackson had nothing on this

The solution: cut off the thumb and two fingers with which I actually hold the brush. This way, the glove doesn't interfere with my touch, but the rest of my hand is protected. This is notable because quite often the pinky-side of my palm is resting on a painting that may be wet with painting mediums. The other finger isn't really needed as I paint, so is covered up too. I'm a pretty clean painter, generally, but inevitably I get a little dirty. I find this to be a good compromise, and I'm all about doing the 20% of the work that solves 80% of the problem. I still get some stuff on those three exposed fingers, sure, but overall my exposure has been very much limited. And, I look way cool, to boot!

I reuse the same glove until it inevitably tears, then abuse the earth by putting it in landfill. After I think 2 days, it might look like this:

Stuff which would've otherwise sat on and maybe seeped through my skin (many pigments won't penetrate) included: Chromium Oxide, Cadmium (safe via skin contact), Cobalt (ditto), Ferric Ferrocyanide, Gamsol, and Liquin Fine Detail. Besides reduced skin exposure, it makes for less junk to wash off my hands before eating, which is the other and more damaging way nasty stuff can get in your body over the years. After all, oil-bound pigments probably love to attach themselves to other oily things you might eat, like potato chips or whatever.

Heart of A Pirate: A Novel of Anne Bonny

The website for Stone Harbour Press is now live, and this book, by Pamela Johnson has released in Trade Paperback. I received my complimentary copies recently and so I know that orders are ready to be filled. Books are $15, and can be ordered from the publisher's website. If you like Historical Fiction, strong female lead characters, and the Pirate Age in general, check it out!

The artwork, including prints, can be found here.

Getting It, Still Trying

A couple years back, I started to catch up a bit about an area of technology I'd let myself fall behind on: social networking. I wasn't proud of that, as I try to keep up with the broad swaths of technology, at least to acquire a passing knowledge. At the time, I think MySpace was still the place where I knew lots of other illustrators hung out. So I made an account, begrudgingly, and...well, it hasn't been updated too much, nor have I used it much. I wanted to be convinced that MySpace rocked.

The thing with social networking is that in some respects it forces those who are otherwise savvy, to duplicate their work. I have a website where you can view images of my work, and I have a blog. Those are two big things you can do on a place like MySpace. The social networking part--the back and forth chatting with folks--is clunky as ever. Overall, yucky. What MySpace is great for, however, and for which I'm glad I got an account, is for discovering music. I haven't spent a ton of time doing it, but it's really easy to start by visiting a band you like, then by checking out their "top 10" or whatever friends, some of whom are other bands/musicians that they themselves love and probably know, you can eventually find some good stuff. My MySpace page is free for all to subscribe to, so feel free. The most I'll probably do there is update the images and maybe chat a little if posts require it. Verdict: despite starting to roll in improvements copied from Facebook, MySpace does not rock.

Facebook came much later for me. Again, after a curiosity to see what the hub-bub was. Facebook I like. It's much more smartly designed, overall, and doesn't have you running the risk of visiting a user's page that's been so heavily customized that it breaks your machine with all the animated backgrounds/automatically starting widgets and all that. As social networking goes, this is what I actually use on a day-to-day basis. However, because I actually value the networking and friendship part of it, I ignore a lot of requests to get added as friends by fans. I consider it a more personal space, so no offense intended. I find I get the most benefit by keeping my circle of friends more exclusive. If you know me personally and want to find me there, I'll be happy to add you.

Twitter I've been aware of for awhile, but again, I wasn't going to do the heavy-lifting of trying to divine what its usefulness would eventually be. I know it's far more than the "I ate udon for lunch!" thing people joke about it (I did eat that, btw). Still, I wasn't sure how useful it'd actually be. I've been following a few users without having an account for some time, and have slowly starting to see the networking and communication opportunities others have made use of it for. So I made an account there, but at the moment I haven't begun actually using it. I'm not sure how *I* might use it still, besides aggregating posts by other folks. But feel free to hit me up since, if I use it, it won't be for private communications.