Saturday, December 12, 2009

From the Creative Director's desk at Outland Arts

We are adding artwork to the Hub Rules book almost daily now, filling all those stark white spaces with their accompanying illustrations. Many of the images are tiny in this book, used both to clarify what something, someone or a relic looks like, and at other times to make a sort of visual placeholder for game masters and players to easily find a table, section or passage of text.

Today I am adding more art from various sections of the book. It seems we are leaning toward plenty of ink work, especially for the small stuff as it holds up in test printings we have been conducting. In other books, including the Excavator Monthly Magazine, we are going with more gray scale graphite, digital, ink wash and some color interior art.


That reminds me, next blog entry we will have a new, full color cover image for the magazines in the works.

In the meantime, enjoy these ink offerings, let others know about this blog and the upcoming release of the Mutant Epoch Rpg, and share your thoughts here. Also, click on the mutant skull banner at the bottom of this entry and sign up for the mailing list.

Best regards,

Will McAusland
Creative Director Outland Arts.com















































Sunday, December 6, 2009

Art Preview: More Typical PA humans for the Mutant Epoch RPG


This week we have added some more art which has recently arrived for insertion into The Mutant Epoch RPG Hub Rules book. Many of these are for the Typical Humans section as were those submitted last week.

We are still hard at proofreading and play testing, doing layout and developing web content for the full website.

Enjoy!
Will







Wednesday, December 2, 2009

"The Perfect is the Enemy of the Done"





Between edits, play testing, layout and art production, we’ve been busier than ever here at Outland Arts. When it comes time to sit down and either add an entry to this blog or get another section of a book or magazine edited, we seem to go for the edits instead. This has certainly kept our updates here at a minimum.



Our plan for this blog has been to utilize it frequently once the initial RPG release is imminent and after the release to update readers on new products and showcase art and related media.




From now to the release of the Mutant Epoch Hub Rules book, we will be making more regular blog entries, presenting art as it pours in.


This week’s imagery, spread through this entry, covers a newly added section to the core book: Typical Humans of the New Era. In earlier drafts of the Hub Rules book these people appeared only under the typical humans table as well as in special encounter listings, but as they are so often met in various adventures, supplements and circumstances, we felt that a richer, more detailed description of each, as along with an illustration, was welcome.




The added section has certainly slowed the release of the book as about twenty new inks drawings and another visit to the book’s layout had to be accomplished, not to mention more work for our editor and proofreaders.


Yes, the now famous and very true saying “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Done” is constantly on our minds here, and as we revisit rules, art, and edits of the hub rules book, we are painfully aware of how long it is taking to get this game on the shelves.






We have a few other sections to be inserted in the book yet including Common Vehicles, Scrap Built Vehicles, Airships and a few smaller sections, all needing edits and artwork, so the struggle and progress continues.








Our goal to release the game in early 2010 is still in our sights, and given the intensity of our recent progress, feel confident about meeting that goal. Once the Hub Rules book has all its art, cover art and design and final edits done, and the first printed proof on my desk, we will give a fixed release date and begin pre-launch promotions in earnest.



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