Monday, May 6, 2019

Expansion Rules Ink Art and update from the Mutant Lord

Hello Epochians, I'm back with a huge array of newly finished inks for the upcoming TME Expansion Rules. I am posting this both here on the forums and my blog. These images, shown at the bottom of this post,  are also posted to the website now at the book's own art gallery here: http://www.outlandarts.com/TME-Expansion-Rules-ArtGallery1.htm

I've been in a deep, deep creative cave all winter, and supporting my family by producing a ton of art for Goodman Games and a select few other RPG publishers, but for the most part, working on the Expansion Rules and the Mutant Epoch novel series. yes, although I am using a pen name for the serial style, fast-paced TME Fiction series, it is me. After three years of all most full-time writing, The first draft is now written and I will be spending about three hours a day doing my initial author edits over the next year.

Why novels and not RPG content? Well, the game actually comes from a massive novel I wrote many years before and takes place in the Shallow Sea Region just north of the Crossroads Region. And many of you might not know this but I originally set out to be a novelist and not a game designer or illustrator. I learned to draw and paint so I could do the maps, interior inks and covers for my books, and sorta fell into illustration work by accident but have always been a tabletop gamer since I was very young.

Anyway, back to the Expansion Rules.
I get a lot of questions about the release date and I am honored by the interest and believe me it does encourage me, but the only fixed date I know it will be ready by is this coming September when I must have a stack of print copies at my booth at two local game conventions here in my home town (AttackX and Kamcon). But, to have print copies shipped here to Canada means the books will have to be available far sooner than that, so I am thinking August. Yet, unlike the hub rules, which I rushed to release perhaps a month or two before I was really ready, I will go with the 'no wine before it's time' mantra and only release it if it's as perfect as my team and I can make it. In the meantime, I will be posting almost daily art updates on the following social media sites:

https://www.instagram.com/mutantepoch/ (where I am probably most active whenever I can find my phone)

https://mewe.com/i-front/williammcausland (which replaces G+ and I like a lot)

https://www.facebook.com/TheMutantEpoch (I love-hate facebook and am so confused by the interface, changes and all the different notifications, and distrustful of the people who own and run the service... yet this is where so many TME fans hang out and it is a very lively feed. So, I love the Epochians but hate the site, in short.)

https://www.pinterest.ca/wmcausland/the-mutant-epoch-pinterest-gallery/ ( not really social media but I love it. Feel free to pin TME art to your boards; it helps it spread the word)

https://twitter.com/mutantlord (reliable workhorse, but not sure how many people use it anymore)

Feel free to post these images to your own feeds with mention of the Mutant Epoch RPG and website ( www.mutantepoch.com ) whenever possible. This game generally gets 5-star reviews, but what I learned from going to GenCon 2017 was that nobody has heard of it, and it is obscurity that all authors dread more than even potential bad reviews. More on that later, and how I can encourage reviews and the introduction of TME to the TTRPG world.
Stay tuned for more shorty as I am going to the inking table right now.

Finally, I apologize for my hermit-like departure from the forums for so many months but know that I work on this stuff every single day, sometimes 12 hours a day, and there is a storm of content in production.

Kindest regards from the southwestern of Canada,
William 'Mutant Lord' McAusland