beware the grinder!

More pics of the refinery, Beware the grinder!

~Ripley

LIghts! Camera! Action! (photoshoot for Zhaan)

Regardless of the heat, your humble editor set up all the bright hot lights and got to shooting. All the Pics, illos and movies for this issue of Zhaan are shot and are now being edited for the issue.
And here's you first sneak peak of the set piece for the issue, the bowels of the great Refinery!
Hope you enjoy it all!
New issue soon!

~Ripley

Sorceress of Zhaan! Cover done!

And the cover is done! Officially ready to cram it all in issue 6! Going in photography and video tomorrow!
This has been a long time coming but issue 6 of LoSS is coming soon!

~Ripley

Sorceress of Zhaan, art train still rolling!

Sorceress of Zhaan, art train still rolling!

Long time between updates, but that just means I'm busy working on the issue 6: The Sorceress of Zhaan.

22 of the 27 interior illustrations are finished! 

Still lots more to do, are few more illustrations, cover, maps, finish up the soundtrack as well as the big set piece and miniatures for the grand finale of the Lair.

Issue 6 of  LoSS magazine is nearing is nearing the finish line!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

~Ripley

New Art for the Sorceress issue!

Limrust

New Art for the Sorceress issue!

I know it's been real quiet on the Hub here for the last month or so. After all the big announcements it would seem that I disappeared.

But no! I've been penciling all the illustrations for the next issue, and it's going to be a great one.

After my round up of art programs Manga Studio won by far. All the other ones had great tools but being able to organize all the illustrations into one "issue" file was a huge time saver. 

This fellow is more of a general adventuring type, perhaps a rogue, maybe a sorcerer, up to no good or perhaps on a mission for justice. Not sure at all what range he is from, again he popped up in the pile of wretched lead, most of which was inherited from varied people unloading miniatures.

Another mini for the Sorceress issue

Still working on some more minis for the sorceress of Zhaan issue photoshoot.

Since Iron is so rare in the Winterlands a full suit of plate like this would be made of Bronze. So I'm trying to find some good ways to bring that across in the painting.

For the sword this warrior may have been able to afford steel, or been able to steal it, but more likely it would be a bronze sword plated in silver for a more impressive look and to terrify his enemies into thinking it is steel.

Enjoy.

~Ripley

Here's another Winterlander warrior mini painted for the Sorceress of Zhaan. Still working on blending and color choices.

On most of the minis for this set I've chosen a bright Ivory/Yellow as the brightest highlight color, and blend up to that color highlight for almost all the areas of the mini to pull all the colors together and make all the minis appear to be in a the same gloomy dimly torch lit room.

Enjoy!

~Ripley

Painting minis for LoSS

Finally have a few things I can show to all my Blood Reavers!

The refinery build is moving right along, but I need some heroes and enemies to populate it.

So into the bucket of wretched lead to find a few fellows that would be suitable for the Sorceress of Zhaan Lair.

The first one to finish is this fine gent! A popular mini in it's time I inherited him in a pile of other minis, can't remember who though. He had a red cloak when he started and after a repaint he still does.

And because it's just not old school unless it has a thick unbreakable coat of glossy varnish, he's got that too!

More will appear as I finish them up.

Enjoy my Blood Reavers!

~Ripley

Undead in LoSS

Skeletons, Zombies, Undead and Necromancy

Hail my mighty heroes and Demonlords!

A few of you have gotten your hands on the Sorcery issue (if not get you butts over to the store and get your copies now. 

There are pay what you want pdfs available there as well if you still aren't convinced that Lair is for you. I certainly don't mind people downloading the pdf's for free so go ahead and get something cool for free.

Now back to the topic for the day: Undead!

Friday updates!

With the release of issue 4 we are finally nearing the end. All the rules for Lair are now in your hands. Go forth be free, make up some silly monsters, make up some evil wizards. Me I've got a lot of Villains in mind to populate the Winterlands.
Time to fill in all those little labels and cities on the map, figure just what exactly does lurk in this hole or that one.
The real fun of the game.
And also some personalities, the people of the Witnerlands, the great names on everyones tongue, the names in all the stories and songs. Time to find all those heroes and Villains.

And what then?

Oh so much more The Autumnlands are calling! The steamy Hunzar jungles, and the ragged coasts of the Summerlands, the throne of the Black Emperor, the time of magic and the fall of the Wizards. The great device and the lure of Platinum. All this and more to explore.

I hope you'll all come along with me on that adventure.

Me? I'll be spending the rest of the night with comic books and a spiral notebook, watching monster movies under a blanket. There may be beer, but other than that life doesn't change much when you grow up.

On to adventure my Blood Reavers!

~Ripley

Maybe a little too much?

LoSS summoning section preview.
I've been so deep in Retro lately that this is starting to look normal.
Hope you enjoy!

~Ripley

More Previews...

Click for Biggy

New Update for LoSS

Sorry for the quite times on the site and G+ lately. Been knee deep in design.

This little beuty above is a 2 page spread for the issue.

If LoSS were a metal album this would be the lyric sheet inside.

Let me know how you're liking the whole look of the new issue,

~Ripley

LoSS page Preview

Not quite metal enough but getting there...

Sorcery Cover Arrives

Click for large view

Sorcery Cover!

The long awaited Sorcery issue is officially in Layout! Here is the cover with the great new LoSS logo for the game.

Also you can see the magazine is switching to a letter size format. The comic format served LoSS well for the past year but a letter size format is far more suitable for the game as it exists today.

The letter size format is easier to print for those that download the pdf and is easier for me to print and ship as well as I can fit more content per page.

I hope you all enjoy it and keep your eyes out for more content as the it goes through layout.

~Ripley

Sorcery Cover Sneak Peak

click for a biggie version

Sneak Peak at the Sorcery Cover

Yeah! Sorcery cover is coming along a lot quicker than the Veteran cover did!

A bad-ass sorcerer plundering some ancient temple along with his demon posse!

Not quite ready for inks but I wanted to put something fun up this weekend.

Hope this get's your wizard mojos running!

~Ripley

Sword and Sorcery Animation

Click for a biggy view!

More art for the Lair animation. Here we see the Valley of Fangs spread before us at night.

This one is pretty big, 12x14 which is alot bigger than I usually get to work with. Since this is for the animation I've got a super sharp background and mid, with a blurry background, just hope it reads well with the animated clouds that are going to be moving in front of the background.

I've been trying to get that background effect for a while now and finally got it with some rough drybrushes covered with airbrush and then the good old dodge and burn. You're going to see alot of that in the backgrounds for awhile, sorry, they're just too fun.

Enjoy this little view of the winterlands!

Ripley

More Sorcery issue fan art!

Here some more fan art from +kreg Mosier, and the first non-wizard.

The knight seems to be sporting the long helmet flanges of the Winterland Crown but with a full helm. I would say this fellow has travelled outside of the winterlands where he commissioned this armour but kept the aspects of the crown to show pride for his homeland. He's also sporting an Imperial blade (double edged sword is the quick giveaway).so he's definately looking for trouble if he's in the winterlands unless employed by the empire. (sorry for hijacking the story of this guy +kreg Mosier )

~Ripley

Kartharka from Space! Sword and Sorcery Cartoons under way!

Behold the world of Kartharka!

Seen from space, with the view centered on the Winterlands. Not for navigational use!

This is the first matte for the Lair video.

You should be seeing some sweet sword and sorcery animations coming soon. Well relatively soon. Like most things in Lair, soon is relative.

Weekend update/ announcing Lair Chapbooks

Sorcery monograph cover in progress

Weekend Update.

Mini Lairs

I should have another quickie Lair made up before the end of the weekend "The Warlord", which sees the heroes being captured and enslaved by one of those upstart princelings trying to carve out a petty kingdom.

Hopefully these are quenching your thirst for Kartharkan content for the time being till the next big issue. The Veteran issue was such a monster that I have to step back from these massive issues for awhile. But luckily that means more free content for all the Demonlords out there.