Handcrafted Dungeons:: A slight departure from the Epoch

Hi All,

Yes, it's been awhile.
After the mighty Crossroads Region book was released last December, I was exhausted and needed to spend at least part of my work days on something  else, something I could do away form the computer, and standing up. Something that didn't involve me hunched over the inking table for countless hours, drawing tiny maps and settlement illustrations with .05 micron pens.

Alas, Handcrafted Dungeons finally came into being.

 I have been playing a home brewed fantasy Miniatures game with my kids for many years, inadvertently play-testing it. One of the things we play on are dungeon floor plans using a 1 inch grid, creating sheets and tiles that join together to construct maze-like catacombs and cave complexes below the earth.

 We plan to eventually publish these minis rules, but a lot more play-testing and fine tuning is needed first. In the meantime, we need tiles, especially while out camping this summer. I figured, why not spend the evenings sculpting and painting a few basic dungeon sets and release them? How long could it take? What could go wrong?

 Six months later, we finally released Handcrafted Dungeons sets 1 and 2 and they are selling well. They are, however, hugely involved and took three times as long to pull off than I imagined during the dark winter months. Each set contains a full color PDF, an inkjet friendlier set and a grayscale set, as well as a huge zipped file full of 300dpi jpegs for those using VTT or what the cool kids are calling Virtual Tabletop.

 I am going to attach some images at the bottom of this post for your viewing pleasure, but I hope you'll check the sample PDFs out and let fellow gamers know of their availability. We are working on the print on demand sets through Drivethrucards, so you can soon get the 8x8" cards... the thing my kids and I are really looking forward to for our own games.

 Oh, there is one  more tile set in the works called 'Caverns' thus far. It is going to be a project I pick at as a leisure time task, since I find hand sculpting these tiles such a meditative, relaxing chore, one that gets me up and away from the tight computer or pencil rendering work I have before me as part of Mutant Bestiary One's completion and release.

In other news, look for several new Free Creatures of the Apocalypse including the Quasi by Clockpunk and the Spikers by Danny Seedhouse. Also, Our own Brandon Goeringer has been working hard on a double feature set of One Day Digs. He is waiting patiently for me to get the art, maps and layout done on these 'Pay What You Want' PDF short intro adventures. Stay tuned for a great summer of Mutant Epoch Mania!

Best regards from the hinterlands of British Columbia
 Will

Links to things discussed in this post:
Handcrafted Dungeons webpage
 Handcrafted Dungeons sample PDF for set 1 here and set 2 over here
Mutant Bestiary One's future homepage ( bookmark it now folks!)
FREE Creatures of the Apocalypse found at RPGnow.com:
 Sicklefoot
Red Harvester
Spikeback
Bog-Billy
Junk Mobster
Scraplurker
Back Hatcher