Thursday Doodle

Map Monday

A pair of cool locales for a blisteringly hot Monday.

Thursday Doodle

More OwlBear! Yeah!

Map Monday

Rough sketch of the village of Nenlast.

Map Monday

Experimental doodles: What's Beneath the Crypt? and the Lucky Gnome.

Thursday Doodle

Several people at Gencon thought the OwlBear would make a good cartoon character so I thought I'd try it out. Results were mixed.

Map Monday

This'll be it for Dwarftown for awhile. I may try and rework it with a white border since all this black is hell on printers, but I wanna get back aboveground for a few maps.

Thursday Doodle

Huge thank-yous to everyone who visited the OwlBear booth at GenCon! As much fun as it was to sell t-shirts and drawings, the best thing was meeting everyone! Gamer people really are the nicest, coolest, and creative-est people! Special thanks to Kurt, Dave, John, and Mrs. Doodle without whom this con couldn't have happened.

Map Monday

From time to time I do little sketches like this for work. This one didn't get used, so maybe some of you can do something with it.

Suit Up!

D&D Doodle is selling stuff! Come visit our new site -- The OwlBear -- to check out our latest offerings (t-shirts for starters) and stop by The OwlBear Store to pick up a gaming shirt or two, just in time for GenCon!

Map Monday

Back to basics. Here's a generic small town you should be able to plug in anywhere. I tried to make it printer friendly with a nice wide border for keying purposes.

Update: I got rid of that annoying border and, above, a version with little red lines for your keying convenience.

Map Monday

A quick and dirty hex map of all the non-hidden places along the Road to Fallcrest, as per Oliver's suggestion.

Whuppin' out this map has got me thinking about the role of the map. It occurs to me there are three map types in D&D: the DM's map -- the one with the goodies only the DM will see -- the players' map -- the one they're putatively drawing while trudging along -- and the prop -- an actual map on actual paper handed to actual people in order to spice up the game.

Having had that thought, I had another map-related thought; none of these blog maps are useful as D&D maps. I mean, clearly they ain't player maps so rule that out. Neither are they props; a prop, imho, is something more archaic, like a pirate's treasure map. Inky. Frayed at the edges. X-marks-the-spot kind of thing. Can any of them be considered DM maps? Mmmmaybe. I mean, quite a few of them have 'eyes only' info, but that's not sufficient for a DM map, really. A DM map needs also to be on a grid/hex in order to convey information to the players in a measurable, standardized way in addition to reavealing all the hidden goodies.

If anything, these maps are akin to development art for movies or video games. Art used for insipiration, but not meant to be actually used in the telling of the story. Which is fine, but I'd also like to make some useful stuff. Maybe blueprint-like DM maps presented along with the corresponding papyrus scroll or message tied to an arrow, that sort of thing. If you, dear reader, have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Thursday Doodle

My reworked Maurice Nobel rip-off for an Art Order challenge. Feast of Souls!

Map Monday

Just out of the Vale, the rivergoer meets Rushbottle, a hobbit village built entirely around fording the Rushbottle Rapids.

For this map, the goal was trying to incorporate the hex grid, painting, and a sense of topography. It's tough! Camp Ozbrog is supposed to be up on a hilltop, but without sky to frame things, its all comes down to the rendering.

Map Monday

So here's the full-size version; it's a biggun, so Blogger may not like this...

BTW, ©2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Keep on the Chaos Scar

So this dropped...
"...on the narrow edge between civilization and the hungry dark..."

It's The Keep on the Chaos Scar by Craig Spearing, the latest adventure in Dungeon #176! Head on over to the WotC D&D site to check out the whole shebang. Thanks to Jon Schindehette for what was a totally mellow and fun assignment.

The Road to Fallcrest II

DM's version. No peeking!

The Road to Fallcrest

DM's version.
Player's version.

The little sign on the right says "Thunderspire". End to end, this section of the King's Road would be about a day's walk.

How Big is the Nentir?

Redlock Sets Out

As a Public Service