Update on the RPG:

I changed the name to Rabbit Raiders. Mainly because the "alliteration & alliteration" nomenclature has been done to death (though personally I still love it).

And I still have alliteration.

So, the system is pretty basic. I changed it up a million times but playtesting on the current version seems good.

Core mechanic: roll 1d6 + some numbers vs. 1d6 + some numbers. High roll wins.

1s and 6s explode, so 1/3 of the time you will get to roll your die more than once.

There's a nice little narrative element too. You can spend Luck to "Yarn", which means sort of adding world and story details that are normally reserved for the game master's control. I like messing around with narrative tools like that. And since this is an option for players it won't force any non-narrative players to assume game stances they don't like.

So yeah, coming along nicely. The core rules are written and now I'm working on setting and support materials for the book. The art comes next.

What I really need to know is how the hell to promote the game and reach people. I SUCK at that.

Hey, what's the best site to go to for pen-and-paper RPG discussion? I know about RPG.net, which is great. I just wondered if there was a place where fans of funny animals gathered more readily.

Rabbits & Rangers continues to be the one thing that dominates my creative time. I don't know when the game will be ready but it is really shaping up into something special, I believe.

Still working on various projects:

Rabbits & Rangers - An RPG. Got tons of work done on it, just needs some hardcore playtesting. And I'll probably change the name. It is basically the Zyn Dweomer RPG.

Raiders & Rangers - My fantasy comic book project that evolved from Dungeon Minds. I've got about 12 good pages, not sure about timing for the comic book.

Un-named Anthro Comic - The world in which Hoofnar gets around...lots of ideas about this one. Not sure what will come of it. Could be a spin-off of Zyn Dweomer.

And other such nonsense. Keeping busy, just not cranking out stuff I want to post at this point. Much.

Yeah. So the past 8 months have been a wild ride for me, creatively. I spent most of them feverishly working on RPG designs, mostly for an anthropomorphic fantasy game. I was gonna call it Rabbits & Rangers but I decided for now it would just be the Zyn Dweomer RPG. It's still on the table, but I'm not currently working on it that much. Got a metric ton of it finished but at this stage it needs playtesting.

So I shifted gears two months ago back to doing comics and art. Not much that I've posted here, obviously. I finished up the Zyn Dweomer #1 print comic, which I posted about earlier. Then I started working on the new comic project: Raiders & Rangers (technically that name came before Rabbits & Rangers).

So after some work on that I decided that this is Dungeon Minds rated R, and formatted to a full comic book. So hopefully in a couple of months I can offer up a R&R print comic featuring all your favorite Dungeon Minds characters! Woo hoo!

I have 11 pages finished so far. A couple of them are actually DM strips I re-formatted to the larger medium. I like doing that. It's a lot like remixing songs. The rest of it is new material, though I might have posted some sketches before. I haven't decided whether or not to post these as a webcomic in addition to making them in print. I probably will, but I'd like to set up a site for it first. Or put it on my current site. Don't know. I ain't getting paid for this so I can do what the fuck I want.

Yeah, the cussing will remain. And some nudity. Lots of cleavage. Lots of fantasy humor. But no xxx stuff. I'll probably still do that stuff, just not for the book.

You can't take the x out of the perv.

I've been working a lot on Dungeon Minds for the past few days. At some point in the past I felt it necessary to break it out into another userpage but honestly I think that move has hurt my productivity. So fuck that.

I'm collecting all 116 strips into 3-per-page installments which I'll be posting here shortly. Then I'll start posting the new strips as I finish them just like I used to do. The collected sheets are basically to make it easier for people to catch up on the comic. I'll try to include links from one to the other so you can click through and read in order. If you're into that.

Boobs, beers, and juvenile humor. Just like I promised.

The RPG writing is still going strong. Actually, I'm more than a little obsessed with it. Of course this is a good thing. And finishing an RPG is something I can actually do. I've written two RPGs in the past so I know I can muscle through and finish this one, though it is actually quite a bit beefier than the last two.

Still not ready to share lots of detail but I can say that it is a fantasy RPG, it is a funny animal RPG, and it is going to rock my world even if nobody else gives a flip about it.

I've written most of the core rules, just gotta work out some of those nitty-gritty combat details that are so much fun. I've written 90% of the animal Form descriptions. That was a hard part. I had to be careful to include all the favorites like cats, dogs, mice, and wolves. But I also included some that I just like personally, such as the mongoose. Too easy to get a list that is just too damn long. Had to ruthlessly cut a few out. Sorry miniature pony fans! Maybe in the supplement.

The title of this game: Rabbits & Rangers.

Still in full-blown RPG mode. I’ve been working on two projects simultaneously. One is a sort of mini-RPG/card game/possible board game in which you take a team of biomagically engineered soldiers through missions to defend their planet. I’m calling it Dirty Dozen Death Squad. The other is a straight forward RPG with simple rules. Its still widely up in the air so I can’t say much about it, but it is almost certainly going to be associated with Dungeon Minds. Or Zyn Dweomer. Haven’t made those decisions yet, still fiddling with the system.

This all started when a friend started bouncing ideas off of me for his game. Then we played RPG Kids and it rocked. Then I read the Bean RPG, among others. Now ideas won't stop coming. I'm on the brink of ordering my own copy of TWERPS.

Currently loving The IT Crowd and wishing I was more in the mood to just draw lots of boobs.

Yeah, so my 'puter broke a week ago. Not entirely unexpected. I was going to let it limp along until the last gasp and that seems to have happened last Sunday morning as the church bells rang down the street.

But it's ok. I'm all growed up with a job. I ordered a new computer Sunday afternoon and got it today. I'm cooking with fire. Needed an update anyway.

And since I have an external HD with nightly back up of my documents I didn't lose a damn thing, woo!

...and it was awesome.

When I first head they were doing it I thought it was a bad move. Too soon for a total reboot. And if you're not going to tie it into the other Marvel movies like Avengers what's the fucking point?

But this was really damn good. I liked Toby Maguire's reserved Peter Parker but Andrew Garfield really knocks the role out of the park. He was spot-on and made the movie hold together more than anything else.

No spoilers here. Just wanted to say I give it two thumbs up. Web shooters rule.

Anybody have recommendations for good fantasy/sci-fi comics and webcomics for adults? Doesn’t have to be porn, just not intended for kids. You know what I like.

There’s Oglaf, which is the bomb. What else?

http://www.oglaf.com/

Wow. I’ve posted here for the longest time. Almost 4 years, which translates to about 18 internet years.

If you’ve followed my stuff all this time then you know for a fact I go through cycles and have a lot of up and down swings. I’m sure a shrink would have a field day with my head. I know I do. I’ve had work published professionally both in comics and illustration. I’ve contributed to dozens of underground rags over the years. I’ve published a ton of my own books and webcomics. At this stage I can safely say that I am a lifer in the underground. If I ever had a dream of “making it big” then I let that dream pass away many years ago.

Which is ok. This isn’t a melodramatic pining away for some lost, faded glory. I’m just exploring some thoughts out loud. Since I’ve frequently posted dirty-as-fuck comics here I figure a little internal monologue isn’t going to shock anyone.

So I gotta say that one thing I’ve learned over these years is that the pleasure of art is in doing it. Not having done it. But the goal, for me, is always to have it done. I want to hold that finished book in my hands. But it is the act of doing it that is where the blood really flows.

Before I slip into a stream-of-consciousness diatribe I’ll nip it in the bud.

It’s fucking 4:53 AM. What the hell am I doing up?

Stuff on the drawing board:

Hoofnar the Barbullian!

So back in November I said I would put something in print by the end of 2011. I didn’t do that because I was fucking obsessed with developing an idea, the fantasy realm of Yria. So my good friend Cyd basically told me to pony up and print something, motherfucker. In so many words.

I pondered the challenge. I humbly submitted and started working on something. What I decided to do was print a massive pin-up book. I mean, I have hundreds and hundreds of drawings of women in various states of dress and poses. It would be super sweet to have a sort of definitive collection. Thus I began compiling it.

And man…what a fucking challenge. I’m not halfway finished sorting the stuff out and I already have 124 pages of material for sure. I suspect I’ll hit 300 or more.

The book will be manga-sized, probably printed through Ka-Blam and available as a print-on-demand item. Probably will be priced around $25 a copy. And it will be slam packed with unapologetic cheesecake.

Too soon to say for sure but following the pin-up book, tentatively called “Blood Red”, I do have a comic project in the works. Related to the Yria project already mentioned, but also related to some other projects I’ve posted about before. More on that later.

When I get the pin up book closer to being finished I’ll post more about it.

Rock on.

Well fuck. I learned something else in 2011. I cannot be trusted when it comes to my art. If I damn well don’t want to do something I damn well won’t do it. And since I’m not doing this professionally I have the luxury of being an ass about it.

I worked up 2 different books for print for my year-end print book project. But then in early Dec I got totally obsessed with building a fantasy realm I call “Yria”. Worked for weeks on a huge map of it. Completely forgot/neglected to get anything printed at all.

No one beat down my door for anything so I won’t be hauled before a Senate Committee.

Right now I’m doing random bits here and there, flitting between one project and another. In the flutter zone. I’ll settle into something eventually.

Looking back at the past few years I see a pattern. I keep promising I'll put something in print, but I never do. So this year I made a vow to actually do it.

The lucky book is going to be a collection of Dungeon Minds strips tentatively titled "Baby I Love Your Death Rays". Because of the nature of print-on-demand services and because of my own preferences for the collection it will exclude any deliberately pornographic strips. Some of the episodes that are only partially hardcore I'll edit a bit, make a few alterations, and include them in the collection.

Right now it's looking like a 44 page comic book with 2 strips per page. I'm actually working on the cover right now.

I'm eager to do this because I want to have something cool in print after all these years and because it will pave the way for the future of that comic. And it seems that out of all the projects I've started and never finished Dungeon Minds is the one I keep coming back to, the one that has never seemed to lose its luster. I've fallen in love with the cast of characters so that they write themselves.

I hope there's a lot more to come.

Yeah, so I'm a little on the fence most of the time about a great many things. Curse of my life. So I'm going to ask you, dear readers, to help me with an important decision.

Should I maintain  dungeonmind and post all DM related stuff over there, or should I abandon that and just post the shit here like I always did?

This will be a straight up voting process. If I get 2 votes for one and 1 vote for the other then the 2 votes win. If I get 1 vote for each idea I'll flip a coin.

I'll wait some arbitrary length of time...uh...34-36 hours or so. Should be able to get at least 3 votes in that time.

Go!

I have a terrible condition. It does not have a name.

I am obsessed with drawing busty, barely-dressed chicks with weapons fighting monsters in strange worlds.

It is a terminal condition. I will have this until my last neuron fires.

But for some reason these past few months I’ve had a terrible time just embracing this disease and running with it. Strange.

Why drawer man no want draw titties for?

Hold up, Grunt. I WANT draw titties. I gonna draw titties. Can’t not draw titties.

The soft naked titflesh juxtaposed against a hard, mean world seems to be the theme of my work. I am that kind of cartoonist.

Perhaps I can yet embrace this true self and focus my energy on finishing comics instead of NOT finishing comics.

The new user page is fully functional now. So, if you like the saucy antics of the Dungeon Minds crew, please pop over and watch  DungeonMind.

I was thinking about this quite a bit today. One thing I've always wanted to do but never really gave it much consideration was a sort of reboot of the comic. Not by starting at #1 and doing them over, but by going back and updating some of the strips, fixing some quality issues, adding content here and there.

That being said, I've decided that not only will Dungeon Minds have its own page here but I'm going to improve many of the existing strips, probably even adding new ones into the mix in places where I wish I had done more (or less).

This new venture, in the spirit of the RPGs that inspired me, will be Dungeon Minds 2nd Edition!

So go and watch. Much antics will follow...

I think Dungeon Minds deserves its own user page. I've decided to break it away from this one and start a new FA page for it.

Part of the reason is that I'm working on my mainstream image a bit (the stuff I'd share with Mom), and DM is not a fit for it. The other part is that Dungeon Minds is kick ass and I don't want to fuck it up.

Ergo, it should go its own way.

Once I get it set up and start migrating some pages I'll post about it and beg my legion of 3 dedicated readers to go and watch!

(I'm working on new stuff too...boobs and dungeon jokes forthcoming!)

Working on www.jwarts.com as I get time. But work has been KILLING me lately. Very busy. So I haven’t been very active. Now we’re out of town this weekend, so I’ll be dead to the world by Sunday and then back to the grind on Monday.

Oh mighty Cthulhu, who has the power to eat the world, please devour the stress of next week and leave behind happy nekkid thoughts for me!

Or just drive me insane with the overwhelming reality of your existence in the universe.

But I’ll settle for a glass of wine that doesn’t suck.

Commission auctions: http://www.furbuy.com/seller/DungeonMind.html

So the thing is, I'm like a bottle of pop shaken up without a lid. I spew. I've managed to create several different website in recent years, none of which seem to persist or grow very fast.

What I want to do (and I've been thinking of this a long, long time) is centralize my ass online. My biggest hurdle has been content. Without filters, I'll draw fucking anything I want. And that's cool. But when faced with the possibility of having that stuff in the face of, oh, a mother or grandmother or co-worker I suddenly lose my metal edge and become a little boy. Weird, but that's the fact of it.

So what I want to do is essentially work on my up-front face to the point that I'm ok sharing it with anyone. Then if you care to look further you'll find more stuff that isn't shown up front. Most people who I think would be shocked or embarrassed by some of this stuff won't go any deeper than the surface anyway. So its a classic veneer of security.

I will probably keep my FA page unchanged. Its working nice, I like the community, and I enjoy posting unfiltered art. But my main site off FA will most likely be a smidgen more toward PG-13 to R.

Very soon my websites will disappear. This includes Zyn Dweomer, Blood Red, and Dungeon Minds. All that stuff will end up on my new site, which is jwarts.com (currently got a quickie GoDaddy page up, have to work on the real site).

Got three of 'em up right now. Two end this weekend, the other is new.

http://www.furbuy.com/seller/DungeonMind.html

My appreciation for your bid will be undying, never ending, and melodramatic as fuck.

I have one commission posted right now:

http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1024903.html

I do plan to add a couple more this week.

Hopefully someone will have mercy on my godless soul and buy some digital art!

I wonder if should put up a FurBuy auction for digital commissions? I was thinking of offering commissions for the 4x6 character portraits I love to do.

I have zero experience with FurBuy. Is it worth the effort? I used to sell commissions on eBay quite a bit, but I haven't really put forth any effort to sell commissions among the FA community.

Listening to random crap from the hd. Band called Mannhai is doing bad things to Motley Crue’s “Live Wire”. Hard to digest at 4:04 AM.

So the idea that keeps dancing in my head probably comes from a recent discussion about Smurfs. I refuse to watch the pandering, profiteering piece of crap movie (yes, I’m pre-judging it). Except I have two small kids therefore it is as certain as Godwin’s Law that I will eventually have to see the movie. That’s my cross to bear.

But see when I was a kid I loved Smurfs. I watched it every Saturday morning. My mom bought me some Smurfs comics. Those little blue bastards left a dent in my psyche. So the idea of a diminutive, whimsical race of creatures in a big, scary world still haunts me.

What I’m thinking of is a story about a group of funny animal characters drawn like Felix or something. Simple characters, on the surface. Wolfy the Wolf or Alligator Man, or maybe Miss Zebra. I don’t know. But basically these guys lose their home or something and have to deal with a big and brutal world. A sort of sci-fantasy realm with robots and demons and shit.

Eh, its just one of many ideas that have cropped up on me lately. I’m in a flux zone here. I’ve written several partial scripts for several partial comics. All are cool, I think, but I don’t have a clue what will rise to the surface. Luckily most of them fit nicely into the Death Mamma theme so hopefully that comic book will become a reality.

Done rambling now.

It has been a strange and stressful week. We buried two loved ones and nursed two more. It reminded me once again how precarious life is.

I guess that’s why I’ve been pouring through my folders and showing some love to older stuff. Also why I haven’t been cranking out new stuff that much.

Enjoy life, you only get one. Have fun with it. I am!