Exclusive Amazon Interview with Sir Terry Pratchett from Neal Thompson on Vimeo.
dfb
Monday, 21 November 2011
Terry Pratchett Amazon.com Interview
I found this link to a Terry Pratchett interview and I am guessing that folks who look at this blog probably like Terry Pratchett and his fabulous world and characters. So watch away.......
Exclusive Amazon Interview with Sir Terry Pratchett from Neal Thompson on Vimeo.
dfb
Exclusive Amazon Interview with Sir Terry Pratchett from Neal Thompson on Vimeo.
dfb
Friday, 28 October 2011
Gary Chalk Interview
After much hunting on the internet I have managed to collate some artwork by one of the many fantasy artists that have inspired me a great deal over the years. There are of course many, many magnificent artists out there, too many to name or put in some kind of favourite order, many of whom have also inspired me in one way or another. But this particular artist's work was some of the first fantasy art I saw that immediately captured my imagination, the man I am talking about is Gary Chalk.
Gary is well known for his work on the Talisman board game produced by Games Workshop in 1983 and the extremely popular Lonewolf series of fantasy gamebooks written by Joe Dever. After his time at Games Workshop Gary and a colleague moved on to produce their own miniatures wargame to rival GW's Warhammer called Fantasy Warlord which ran for two years. Gary has recently been doing work for French miniature company Rackham and producing illustrations and concept art for their mini's and if you read the interview following the illustrations you will see what he's up to currently!
Some of Garys work....
Talisman First Edition box art.....
Fantasy Flight Games produce the newest version of Talisman - Revised 4th edition which is available from many game stockists. There are also a good deal of expansions available now as well including new ones not released for the old game. The Dungeon, The Highlands, The Sacred Pool, The Reaper, The Frost March, The Dragon. Its an excellent boardgame and a classic to boot. If you played it as a kid, you won't be disappointed with these new versions!...
The book series Gary is most famous for illustrating is Lone Wolf series. Lone Wolf introduced a progressive skill set throughout the adventure which was great and something not found in Fighting Fantasy at the time.
Some work for Rackham.....
And the rest of the artwork I have found. Of course this is only a small sampling, but enough to give you a good taste nonetheless. Enjoy.
It was a bit of a struggle to find high quality images created by Gary on the internet, but a big thanks to those who posted them up and especially big thanks to the Project Aon team and its volunteers who do so much to keep Lonewolf alive and available on the net. Most and nearly all of the original books are available to play freely online due to the genorisity of Gary and Joe Dever so head on over to Project Aon here.
Gary Chalk Mini Interview - The Unvarnished Truth
Gary, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions, and before we start I have been asked to pass on the thanks and gushing admiration towards yourself from many fellow gamers on the forums!
I have already expressed the fact that your art made the fantasy games I played come to life and fired up my imagination, creating a great love for fantasy art. But who and what were your inspirations when you began your artistic life and how did you begin your artistic career, was it in the field of fantasy art?
I actually started my working life in a graphic design studio, where I learnt all the things they had neglected to teach me at art school. This was practically everything. We produced all sorts of stuff, from leaflets to pizza boxes, but precious few orcs. While I was working there, I started looking for freelance illustration and eventually found enough to earn a precarious living.
How did you come to be involved with the Lonewolf gamebook series and the Talisman boardgame?
I was working for Games Workshop with the important title of Games Developement Manager. I had a drawing board and a staff of one - me. I had joined the company while they were developing Talisman and they had a rough board for play testing which was rather like a an aerial view of a landscape. It wasn’t very exciting, so I came up with the idea of turning the landscapes on their side, running them together and drawing them in detail. People liked it.
Lonewolf came about because Livingstone and Jackson were looking for people to ghostwrite their fighting Fantasy books for a pitiful royalty. They approached myself and Joe Dever, who was working away in the bowels of their warehouse. I thought,that if we were good enough to write their books, we were good enough to write our own. That’s how we came up with the idea of Lone Wolf which was loosely based on the world that Joe had used for his D&D games.
What were the reasons for you leaving Games Workshop and what do you think of the modern face of the company?
I left Workshop to work the Lone Wolf books, which was extremely easy as GW had never actually given me a contract! I must admit, the world was perhaps more interesting in the days when there was more gaming diversity about. I find the modern Warhammer worlds mind-numbing dull, but since they have been specifically designed to appeal to twelve year old boys, rather than sad old gits like me, that’s not really very suprising. As for White Dwarf, it isn’t really a magazine, it’s a monthly product catalogue and a very well designed one at that.
I don’t think that Workshop products have been made to appeal to adult gamers for years. Adults are no longer their target market. If adults want to buy their products, no doubt they are pleased, but their buyers are adolescent boys who buy boxes of orcs for about two years until they discover girls.
My only problem with this is that the omnipresent GW shops have helped kill off a lot of small games and model shops. However, you can find anything on the internet these days, from independent figure makers to saucy young women who have forgotten to put any clothes on. If you want a different fantasy game, invent a world, draw a quick map and download a free set of rules. That should take about two evenings. You can find figures in any scale or material and you can paint them any colour you like. That’s why it’s called « fantasy » gaming. By the way, nowhere is it written that orcs are green…
When you left Games Workshop you created your own wargame "Fantasy Warlord", do you have any regrets about this game not continuing, is there anything you would have done differently with hindsight?
Fantasy Warlord was a ghastly mistake. It cost me a lot of money and the stress turned my hair white. That, by the way, is absolutely true. I had utterly misjudged the market. The gamers actually wanted what Workshop was producing for them and not a game that used pseudo-military tactics to determine the outcome of fantasy battles. The gamers really wanted an infinite number of badges and lots of spikey bits. The world had changed, but I hadn’t changed with it.
In addition to all this,the launch coincided with that of Grenadier’s Warlord game and a major economic crisis that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer told us was going to a little « blip ». Never trust a man in a suit.
With hindsight, I would have left the gamers to play Warhammer and run screaming over the horizon.
Given the nature of fantasy art and the clients imagination versus your own some frustration must occur on occassion with differing visions. So, when you are working, do you find the ideas for a piece come easily to you? Or do the confines of a brief often limit your imagination or what you'd do given total freedom?
The ideas come easily, but trying to work out what an editor wants is more difficult. Fantasy clients are relatively easy to please. They know what they want,and they let you fill in the details. Brilliant!
The children’s book market is a different kettle of fish, however. The editors are largely middle class young women with no training in design and even less idea of what children actually enjoy, especially boys. They think that twelve year old boys are still playing with wooden trains, rather than enjoying the dubious delights of Grand Theft Auto. In order to work out what they actually want you to draw, you may have to employ a ouija board. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoy fitting drawings into odd shapes etc.
Do you have a favourite piece of art created by yourself?
No, not really…
Are there any projects you would have liked to have done but never got the opportunity to be involved with?
Only about five and a half million. Classic stories like Treasure Island and The Last of the Mohicans appeal greatly to me and I seem to be getting very interested in the Steampunk genre. I’ll draw whatever anyone asks for, though, that’s part of the fun of the job.
Do you play any games yourself or have time to paint miniatures (photos!!?) ?
I play historical wargames with miniatures. The English Civil War, Darkest Africa and I have two new armies, Bolshevik and Chinese for the 1920s along with a complete Wild West town with and all its inhabitants. I also play games with a huge Norman army and a pirate fleet - « Aha Jim Lad« . Sorry, I don’t know what came over me there for a moment…
My main problem is a lack of opponents. I live in rural Normandy and there’s not much in the neighbourhood except cows. The nearest three live an hour away in deepest Brittany and the designated driver has been suffering from a bad knee. I’ll have to wait a bit before he can press the pedal to the metal and speed up the autoroute from Rennes, with a boot full of little men.
What have you been doing over the last year and can you tell us about any new up and coming projects you have been working on?
In addition to a couple of drawings for the french version of the Lone Wolf RPG,
I am currently working on the Lone Wolf boardgame with Jamie Wallis of Greywood Publishing. At the time of writing, we are about 90% of the way through the artwork and graphics.
We are hoping to produce it book form, yes, book form, and as a number of downloads. If we produce it as a book, it will make it easily available online and it should be a bit cheaper for the gamer as there is no VAT involved. Take out the staples, cut out the playing pieces and it’s ready to go. We want to make all the components available as downloads, so that players can expand the game at will with extra boards and playing pieces in whatever way they like. So, if you want to fight with the armies of the Dark Lords in the Streets of Holmgard, you can add two village maps together to make part of a city. If you want to double up the size of your giak army, you can simply download a second set of playing pieces at a reasonable price.
People who enjoyed Cry Havoc, should enjoy this game too. Although the rule mechanisms are different, it has the same feel with highly detailed individual warriors and attractive, colourful maps.
I’m also working on the background for a series of online gamesbooks, but I can’t tell you to much about these as I am waiting for the contract to arrive for signature. There will be three to start with and they will be in a totally new setting. Swords and sorcery with just a whiff of gunpowder.
And finally, errrrr.....can you sign my complete collection of Lonewolf gamebooks?
I’ll sign anything except a cheque….
Gary, I just want to thank you for taking time to answer these questions, you have made a fan very happy indeed and I am sure fellow gamers will be very interested to see what new work you have in the pipeline.Thank you!
You can visit Gary's website here and follow him on twitter "@garychalkpics".
Until next time!
Footnote: Gary offered to supply some pictures of the Lonewolf game pieces and I also asked if he had any of his gaming table/painted miniatures. At time of posting I am awaiting a response but will post it up when I get them!
dfb
Gary is well known for his work on the Talisman board game produced by Games Workshop in 1983 and the extremely popular Lonewolf series of fantasy gamebooks written by Joe Dever. After his time at Games Workshop Gary and a colleague moved on to produce their own miniatures wargame to rival GW's Warhammer called Fantasy Warlord which ran for two years. Gary has recently been doing work for French miniature company Rackham and producing illustrations and concept art for their mini's and if you read the interview following the illustrations you will see what he's up to currently!
Some of Garys work....
Talisman First Edition box art.....
Fantasy Flight Games produce the newest version of Talisman - Revised 4th edition which is available from many game stockists. There are also a good deal of expansions available now as well including new ones not released for the old game. The Dungeon, The Highlands, The Sacred Pool, The Reaper, The Frost March, The Dragon. Its an excellent boardgame and a classic to boot. If you played it as a kid, you won't be disappointed with these new versions!...
The book series Gary is most famous for illustrating is Lone Wolf series. Lone Wolf introduced a progressive skill set throughout the adventure which was great and something not found in Fighting Fantasy at the time.
You can read more about Fantasy Warlord here.
Some work for Rackham.....
And the rest of the artwork I have found. Of course this is only a small sampling, but enough to give you a good taste nonetheless. Enjoy.
It was a bit of a struggle to find high quality images created by Gary on the internet, but a big thanks to those who posted them up and especially big thanks to the Project Aon team and its volunteers who do so much to keep Lonewolf alive and available on the net. Most and nearly all of the original books are available to play freely online due to the genorisity of Gary and Joe Dever so head on over to Project Aon here.
Gary Chalk Mini Interview - The Unvarnished Truth
Gary, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions, and before we start I have been asked to pass on the thanks and gushing admiration towards yourself from many fellow gamers on the forums!
I have already expressed the fact that your art made the fantasy games I played come to life and fired up my imagination, creating a great love for fantasy art. But who and what were your inspirations when you began your artistic life and how did you begin your artistic career, was it in the field of fantasy art?
I actually started my working life in a graphic design studio, where I learnt all the things they had neglected to teach me at art school. This was practically everything. We produced all sorts of stuff, from leaflets to pizza boxes, but precious few orcs. While I was working there, I started looking for freelance illustration and eventually found enough to earn a precarious living.
How did you come to be involved with the Lonewolf gamebook series and the Talisman boardgame?
I was working for Games Workshop with the important title of Games Developement Manager. I had a drawing board and a staff of one - me. I had joined the company while they were developing Talisman and they had a rough board for play testing which was rather like a an aerial view of a landscape. It wasn’t very exciting, so I came up with the idea of turning the landscapes on their side, running them together and drawing them in detail. People liked it.
Lonewolf came about because Livingstone and Jackson were looking for people to ghostwrite their fighting Fantasy books for a pitiful royalty. They approached myself and Joe Dever, who was working away in the bowels of their warehouse. I thought,that if we were good enough to write their books, we were good enough to write our own. That’s how we came up with the idea of Lone Wolf which was loosely based on the world that Joe had used for his D&D games.
What were the reasons for you leaving Games Workshop and what do you think of the modern face of the company?
I left Workshop to work the Lone Wolf books, which was extremely easy as GW had never actually given me a contract! I must admit, the world was perhaps more interesting in the days when there was more gaming diversity about. I find the modern Warhammer worlds mind-numbing dull, but since they have been specifically designed to appeal to twelve year old boys, rather than sad old gits like me, that’s not really very suprising. As for White Dwarf, it isn’t really a magazine, it’s a monthly product catalogue and a very well designed one at that.
I don’t think that Workshop products have been made to appeal to adult gamers for years. Adults are no longer their target market. If adults want to buy their products, no doubt they are pleased, but their buyers are adolescent boys who buy boxes of orcs for about two years until they discover girls.
My only problem with this is that the omnipresent GW shops have helped kill off a lot of small games and model shops. However, you can find anything on the internet these days, from independent figure makers to saucy young women who have forgotten to put any clothes on. If you want a different fantasy game, invent a world, draw a quick map and download a free set of rules. That should take about two evenings. You can find figures in any scale or material and you can paint them any colour you like. That’s why it’s called « fantasy » gaming. By the way, nowhere is it written that orcs are green…
When you left Games Workshop you created your own wargame "Fantasy Warlord", do you have any regrets about this game not continuing, is there anything you would have done differently with hindsight?
Fantasy Warlord was a ghastly mistake. It cost me a lot of money and the stress turned my hair white. That, by the way, is absolutely true. I had utterly misjudged the market. The gamers actually wanted what Workshop was producing for them and not a game that used pseudo-military tactics to determine the outcome of fantasy battles. The gamers really wanted an infinite number of badges and lots of spikey bits. The world had changed, but I hadn’t changed with it.
In addition to all this,the launch coincided with that of Grenadier’s Warlord game and a major economic crisis that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer told us was going to a little « blip ». Never trust a man in a suit.
With hindsight, I would have left the gamers to play Warhammer and run screaming over the horizon.
Given the nature of fantasy art and the clients imagination versus your own some frustration must occur on occassion with differing visions. So, when you are working, do you find the ideas for a piece come easily to you? Or do the confines of a brief often limit your imagination or what you'd do given total freedom?
The ideas come easily, but trying to work out what an editor wants is more difficult. Fantasy clients are relatively easy to please. They know what they want,and they let you fill in the details. Brilliant!
The children’s book market is a different kettle of fish, however. The editors are largely middle class young women with no training in design and even less idea of what children actually enjoy, especially boys. They think that twelve year old boys are still playing with wooden trains, rather than enjoying the dubious delights of Grand Theft Auto. In order to work out what they actually want you to draw, you may have to employ a ouija board. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoy fitting drawings into odd shapes etc.
Do you have a favourite piece of art created by yourself?
No, not really…
Are there any projects you would have liked to have done but never got the opportunity to be involved with?
Only about five and a half million. Classic stories like Treasure Island and The Last of the Mohicans appeal greatly to me and I seem to be getting very interested in the Steampunk genre. I’ll draw whatever anyone asks for, though, that’s part of the fun of the job.
Do you play any games yourself or have time to paint miniatures (photos!!?) ?
I play historical wargames with miniatures. The English Civil War, Darkest Africa and I have two new armies, Bolshevik and Chinese for the 1920s along with a complete Wild West town with and all its inhabitants. I also play games with a huge Norman army and a pirate fleet - « Aha Jim Lad« . Sorry, I don’t know what came over me there for a moment…
My main problem is a lack of opponents. I live in rural Normandy and there’s not much in the neighbourhood except cows. The nearest three live an hour away in deepest Brittany and the designated driver has been suffering from a bad knee. I’ll have to wait a bit before he can press the pedal to the metal and speed up the autoroute from Rennes, with a boot full of little men.
What have you been doing over the last year and can you tell us about any new up and coming projects you have been working on?
In addition to a couple of drawings for the french version of the Lone Wolf RPG,
I am currently working on the Lone Wolf boardgame with Jamie Wallis of Greywood Publishing. At the time of writing, we are about 90% of the way through the artwork and graphics.
We are hoping to produce it book form, yes, book form, and as a number of downloads. If we produce it as a book, it will make it easily available online and it should be a bit cheaper for the gamer as there is no VAT involved. Take out the staples, cut out the playing pieces and it’s ready to go. We want to make all the components available as downloads, so that players can expand the game at will with extra boards and playing pieces in whatever way they like. So, if you want to fight with the armies of the Dark Lords in the Streets of Holmgard, you can add two village maps together to make part of a city. If you want to double up the size of your giak army, you can simply download a second set of playing pieces at a reasonable price.
People who enjoyed Cry Havoc, should enjoy this game too. Although the rule mechanisms are different, it has the same feel with highly detailed individual warriors and attractive, colourful maps.
I’m also working on the background for a series of online gamesbooks, but I can’t tell you to much about these as I am waiting for the contract to arrive for signature. There will be three to start with and they will be in a totally new setting. Swords and sorcery with just a whiff of gunpowder.
And finally, errrrr.....can you sign my complete collection of Lonewolf gamebooks?
I’ll sign anything except a cheque….
Gary, I just want to thank you for taking time to answer these questions, you have made a fan very happy indeed and I am sure fellow gamers will be very interested to see what new work you have in the pipeline.Thank you!
You can visit Gary's website here and follow him on twitter "@garychalkpics".
Until next time!
Footnote: Gary offered to supply some pictures of the Lonewolf game pieces and I also asked if he had any of his gaming table/painted miniatures. At time of posting I am awaiting a response but will post it up when I get them!
dfb
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Anthony Watkins Dragon
A sculptor whose work I absolutely love and whose speed for doing them is as equally impressive as his skill in creating them is Anthony Watkins. Here is one of his dragons that I'd thought I'd share with you given the recent enthusiasm for some very cool dragon releases from some of the mini companies - namely the Forgeworld one, Cang the Implacable from CMON and the Heresy dragon sculpted by Andy Foster. Who would win in a fight, I don't know, but enjoy this bit of eye candy anyway....
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Matt Levin Chess Set Complete!!
Okay, here are the final photos of Matt Levin's fantasy bust chess set and it's massive. Here are the shots of the black pieces and a complete set photo at the end. See a couple of posts down for the white pieces. Matt recommends a board size of 4" per square!! Thats one massive chessboard! But if you love cabinet making with a little bit of wood carving and art you could go to town on a wonderful elaborate design as these pieces will be cast which is great news. I think the board would be best designed as a whole table really but I would love to see what a skilled woodworker could come up with to complement this set - I'm imagining a lot of Narnian or Mid Summer Nights Dream type imagery. Utterly insane sculpting, here they are.......
dfb
dfb
A Test Post
Just a Test post from my phone and to see if the marvel of technology promised by this Android Blogger app is all its cracked up to be. I think some photo hosting intregration or lack thereof is the first issue I see. I believe the photo size often gets messed up when uploading direct from your pc. I have been forced to put everything on hosting. Hmmm......
Chess set photos from Matt Levin coming very shortly don't go away.
Dfb
Monday, 26 September 2011
Some Wonderful Paintjobs
No text required I think, enjoy....click to enlarge this full resolution shots will blow your socks off.
dfb
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Way Back When....
I was recently thinking about the first miniatures I ever owned and endeavoured to track down some pictures. It didn't take me long, not even minutes in fact!!! Big thanks go to all those people out there who go out their way to maintain websites on all the small things in life!!!! Here are some pictures of the first mini's I ever got my childlike paws on, I can't remember which of the two exactly came first, I'm thinking it was the wizards, but anyway - these two sets were my first and began my love affair with miniatures and models...
All these old models are cataloged over on www.dndlead.com where you will find plenty of information about them all. It's a shame I have no photographs of any of them that I painted myself, oh hang on - no it isn't lol.
Check back soon, I am working on doing the next proper blog entry. Might even be updating the workbench soon to with new progress photographs.
dfb
All these old models are cataloged over on www.dndlead.com where you will find plenty of information about them all. It's a shame I have no photographs of any of them that I painted myself, oh hang on - no it isn't lol.
Check back soon, I am working on doing the next proper blog entry. Might even be updating the workbench soon to with new progress photographs.
dfb
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Awesome Chess Set
Some wonderful new sculpts found, by artist Matthew Levin. I don't think there are many chess sets in existance that are more impressive than this......
My own workbench page has now been updated, click the link over on the right to see some painting, sculpt photos soon.
dfb
My own workbench page has now been updated, click the link over on the right to see some painting, sculpt photos soon.
dfb