Brandon's Wargaming Blog......and other stuff

consimworld:

Sneak peek of Golan ‘73 playtest map, a new Fast Action Battle Series game design by Michael Gustavsson

  

     I have really been blessed this last year or so with an abundance of design work for several wargame publishing companies.  I have really gained a lot of experience and have enjoyed every minute of it.  That isn’t to say I haven’t struggled with a few things.  I am constantly finding myself confronted with new challenges, especially with game maps.  Right now I am working on a project that calls for two different types of jungle terrain.  One regular, one ‘rough’ jungle.  Rough meaning rocky, but still jungle.  I have tried about half a dozen different approaches and I have finally settled on one I think looks pretty good, but it remains to be seen if they art director thinks the same.  

     I think at last count I have done some form of artwork for 13 different games since I have started working for publishers.  Eight of those 13 have been published so far.  There also doesn’t seem to be any sign of the jobs slowing down, which is great, but at the same time since doing game art isn’t my day job, it takes up most of my free time.   Free time which I would have to update this blog more ;)  I hope to start posting updates more often, so stay tuned.  

I know it has been forever between posts, but I have to say I have been pretty busy with different artwork assignments for a few games that will be published soon.  One of the projects I am working on is the new expansion for the game B-29 Superfortress from Legion Wargames called Hell Over Korea: 1950.  It will cover the B-29 bombing campaigns from the Korean war.  For those of  you that do not know, B-29 Superfortress is a solitaire game that puts you in charge of the crew of a B-29 during WWII.  You have to make decisions about how to fly your bombing campaign and try to defend your aircraft from enemy flak and fighters.

The original game was produced by Khyber Pass games which is no longer a company and Legion Wargames has taken over the series.  When I was first asked to do the map for this game I was a bit unsure of what approach I wanted to take with the map.  The original map used top down photograph of a B-29 model for the plane image and then that was superimposed over an aerial photograph.  This same idea was discussed for this project but early on I wanted to use this opportunity to try a few things I have never done before.  These few things were drawing a WWII aircraft from scratch using only Illustrator and Photoshop and also creating a very stylized background image that blended well with the aircraft image I was going to create.

Up to this point in my graphic design experience I have never tackled anything quite this detailed and complicated.  Drawing soldiers, horses and such is a much easier thing for me as they are organic figures and can be fudged a bit when drawing them.  With an aircraft or any other type of military machinery, it has to be nearly perfect or it will be dismissed by a majority of the wargaming community that takes great pride in their historical knowledge of not only warfare but also the machinery that was used to fight.  Therefore I knew I had to get it right from the get go and I can’t rely on “close enough” to pass the test.  I hunted around for a few days and came across a reasonably high resolution blueprint of a B-29 and set to work fleshing out the structure in Illustrator.  I then moved everything into Photoshop and set in on the detail work.  The most difficult part is getting the shading and highlights to look believable.  There are many, many layers of shadows, gradients and highlights at work here and I think overall it has turned out nicely.  According to the designers I am working with on the game this is an appropriate paint scheme for the plane in 1950 and all of the details look correct.  I will note that it isn’t perfect yet, there are some details here and there that I haven’t nailed down yet, but I think it is a good start.

This had led me to another project which is creating a catalog of aircraft images from WWII I can use in future projects.  I hopefully will start doing the same for armored vehicles from WWII as well to use in future game designs.  When ever I have some spare time I will try to use that time to create artwork for this catalog. Wish me luck……

Below is a preview of a MiG-15 from the Korean War that I made last night while watch some baseball.  This will go in the catalog :)

I have to say, I am not sure I have ever done a physical double take on the Internet, but today I sure did.  I was reading the GMT forum at Consimworld and was kind of in a hurry so I scanned over one of the many great banners that Rodger MacGowan creates to promote GMT.  I didn’t really read it the first time but something about it caught my eye.  I thought I saw my name, so I quickly hit the back button on my browser and sure enough Rodger had taken a quote form one of my blog entries and made it into a banner featuring Paths of Glory and Manoeuvre.

Very cool :)

Thanks Rodger

I have spent the last couple of weeks really hitting the Blood & Sand components pretty hard.  I am pretty pleased with everything so far and the guys at Worthington seem pleased as well.  This is still pretty early on for the map and counters and a lot might change, but I thought I would throw up what I have so far.  I hope it can generate some more buzz for the game as it has changed publishers from GMT to Worthington and it is looking like it will be published before the summer, at least I can hope :)

For those of you that do not know, Blood & Sand is a game from Richard Berg that uses a similar rules set to his previous games Medwar Sicily and Desert War: Egypt 1940, both of which were published by Worthington Games.  I have played Desert War and it was a fun and engaging game that played out fairly quickly and was very easy to pick up.  I suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.

This is just sexy.  If I were single, and had some money, this is what my gaming space would look like, except I would have a couple of floor to ceiling windows next to the table there ;)

consimworld:

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I never thought I’d come across a game room design worthy of placement in a home architecture or remodeling magazine, until now. Nice digs, Nikolas Sakaloglou (Greece)!

consimworld:

Cover art for Victoria Cross II, available for preorder from Worthington Games. Preorder Price: $36 (save $14).

I am really excited about this game.  Not only because I am doing the counter artwork for the game, but I really like the original Victoria Cross and this is only going to make the game better.  The battle of Isandlwana is also included in the game and will have a solitaire system as well.   This one is getting fast tracked so get your pre-order in soon.  I will post some preview artwork once the bossmen give the ok.

I received some GHQ Micro Armor this Christmas from my wargaming buddy and I thought I would take a crack at painting them this weekend.  It is definitely a different experience than painting Flames of War as it is about 1/4 of the size or smaller.  They do paint quickly though and look pretty decent I think.  Being able to paint 15 tanks in under 2 hours is a big plus!  We plan on using these with the regular FoW rules, just going from inches down to centimeters.