Solidly Sketchy

This week was sort of a nice change of pace as I sorta got back to my old MICA Illustration roots (as well as my comic ones, I guess) and amidst some other projects still finished up the last of the PC portraits I’d been working on.

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But more on that later… first it was cool to see my YouTube channel has crested 250 subscribers, and my initial video is over 5500 views. Very cool.

However, I keep receiving subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints that I need to start putting more focus into my magickal work again, and so what should appear in my email inbox this week was a 25% off discount on Frater Xavier‘s brand new audio program Thoughtforms & Servitors, which is a topic that’s been on my mind quite a bit lately (particularly as it pertains to the gaming table), so naturally I snatched it right up and am excited to give it a listen soon.

While I am still quite proud of my so-called “streamlined” lectures to introduce people to Magickal thinking, I still consider Frater Xavier one of my mentors, and one of only a handful of ceremonial magicians I legitimately look up to, and so naturally refer people to his lectures once they’ve exhausted mine… as seriously mine are just about getting your feet wet, there’s so much more to understand beyond what I cover, and his Mind & Magick programs are an excellent way to go farther.

One of those other less-than-subtle hints was when The Friend popped by this week to bequeath upon us her beautiful set of huge brass candlesticks that she no longer had use for. Immediately I though they were likely additions to the altar I’m to construct for the Temple of the Western Gate which I know… I know… I’ve yet to build.

Immediately upon surrendering them to me The Friend had another of her strong impressions, and was “told twice” that I should name them. My immediate inclination was (naturally) to name them Boaz and Jachin which only makes sense to me… and probably to other magicians too…

So I guess now I need to do something like mark them with a B & J and/or swap out the left hand candle for a black one… something like that… we’ll see.

But it’s hard to believe it’s already been a month since the passing of our cat Grimmy. I still miss him and it felt good to honor and remember him during today’s Abundance ritual. There’s still some art yet to be created around that amazing cat, and I still can’t believe how much I miss him.

Though this month’s Abundance ritual may already be in effect, though with five planets in retrograde right now its feeling like its coming on in a very abrasive manner, including some potential changes at work which may manifest in a fairly positive manner if things work out… we’ll have to see there too.

On the podcast side, I still got work done this week and finished up the final edits on Episode 6 of Adventure Hook which we entitled “The Assassination Target”.

Adventure Hook Episode 6: The Assassination Target

While a lot goes into the whole editing process, I feel like I keep getting better and that this one (while it still has its rough patches) is a pretty decent sounding show. It’s going to be a slow build, but we’ve already gotten our second Patreon supporter which is great of course!

I was also contacted by a brand new podcast this week called Running the Table and they’re interested in setting up an interview to talk about Setting & Story for RPGs. As Blackspire is all about setting and Adventure Hook is all about story, it seems the ideal match. Not sure yet when we’ll even do the interview, let alone when it might actually air, but it’s a cool opportunity and in theory will only help me reach more potential listeners. The RPG podcasting world really seems to be like one big community and I’m eager for us to make a place for ourselves in it.

To this end it only made sense that I had to create a second Twitter handle the deals only with Blackspire stuff, so now @BlackspirePod is up and live now too, though I’m going to hold off until I have more B.R.U.W. Crew support before making another social media push.

And while Blackspire also plugs HeroLab at the start of each episode, Aaron and I are also using it to create the D&D 5E character sheets for the “Summon Monster” portion of the $5 Patreon tier, and I even mocked up the final PDF of the Glakus warlock villain from Episode 2.

However, thanks to WotC’s deal with DnD Beyond, the Lone Wolf guys don’t have the rights to publish the full D&D materials in HeroLab. Fortunately, the online community created a bunch of add-on packs to fill in all the blanks (and then some) that existed, and so now we’ve got the resources we need to stat most anything for either Pathfinder or D&D 5th Edition.

I’m tempted to get the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition expansion as well, in hopes we’ll be planning/running/collaborating with other followers of the Mythos one day, but for now I’ll just stick with the fantasy systems and be content…

Also, as currently if I keep Blackspire to a bi-weekly schedule release schedule I have enough raw gameplay recorded to take us to the end of December 2018 without us needed to record one more session. While everyone seems to want to play again, I don’t really want to rush recording or actually speed up the release schedule… as I still have to actually edit those shows still. So… I’ve actually been considering taking a cue from the Red Moon guys and releasing the raw recording of our sessions as a Patreon-only sort of thing. That way we’d never have to slow down if we didn’t want to halt our momentum, and I can still keep to the every other week release… at least until it becomes worthwhile to put in that much extra editing work. Now, it’ll still be extra work, but not bad by comparison, and who knows, might be a draw. I still have to think about it, but I’m leaning in that direction.

I’ve also been sitting on the neato Blackspire promo video I made in Lightworks, as I’m still waiting on a pull quote about the show that an author/magician friend (don’t want to say who yet) said he’d do for me, but he’s been traveling and giving lectures all over the world of late, but something told me I “needed it” so I’ve decided to be patient. What’s the rush, after all? I’m honestly still learning to tweet…

And, it was really touching to hear Jim on this week’s episode of Laughfinder give Blackspire an amazing plug, and he even got his co-hosted a little interested… who knows, maybe something more will come of it, but we’ve seen a slight spike in unique listens since then, so there’s a good chance there’s some cross-pollination going on.

Season 3 Episode 41 Hurt Guester

But, in truth I’m really just happy to have finished up the last of the Blackspire Player Character sketches I did. I’ve also finished scanning the drawing into the computer and cleaning up/assembling them into the “final” poses. At this point now, the next step is to start the coloring process, which may be something more akin to what you’d see in a comic, or ideally they’ll each end up as something more like a painting. And then, once that’s done I’ll be assembling them all together into one big “cast poster” which I’ll end up using for things like my Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon banners, and such. And of course I want them as resources for my players to use for their own social media promotions of… #Blackspire.

Not sure when I’ll actually get to the coloring part, but for now the b&w sketches still have their own charm.