Hi everyone,
After some playtesting, revisions, and a new simple art piece, I've made solid progress. I'm happy to say the layout is finished!
Now, between doing layout rev...
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JayEmBosch
about 2 months ago
June Update
Hi all,
With Devil's Due off to the layout artist, I've been able to dig back into my own layout work and art for Fear of a Daily Planet.
Since most spreads are styled as s...
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JayEmBosch
3 months ago
May Update
Well, unfortunately, after getting a bit of layout work done, I have another quick update about a setback. We were juuust clipped by the tornado that moved through St. Louis ...
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JayEmBosch
4 months ago
April Update
Hello everyone,
Not a whole lot to update you on for this month as, expectedly, I've been working heavily on the beast of a book that is Devil's Due, and unexpectedly, I've ...
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JayEmBosch
5 months ago
March Update: Maps, Textures, and Layout
Hi everyone,
I'll try to maintain monthly project updates so you can keep tabs on Fear of a Daily Planet until you receive your copy.
I've finally got some art for the map ...
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JayEmBosch
6 months ago
Finished at 500% Funded Thanks to You All!
With the close of the campaign, I just wanted to send another heartfelt thank you to everyone for supporting Fear of a Daily Planet. Reaching 500% of my funding goal was far ...
After some playtesting, revisions, and a new simple art piece, I've made solid progress. I'm happy to say the layout is finished!
Now, between doing layout reviews on Devil's Due chapters, I'll start the tedious work: hyperlinking the page and statblock references in the PDF for easier use, flattening out the complicated backgrounds to reduce digital file size, print file prep, last-minute proofreads, and finally ordering some test print books and the patches.
I'll be starting the "smoke test" for the backer surveys shortly, which will go out to about 5% of you. Then, if there aren't any problems, you'll all get your backer surveys soon thereafter. I'll then eventually close the preorder store.
If everything stays on schedule, I'll hopefully be locking orders and shipping addresses sometime around mid August, but I'll send out an additional warning before doing so.
As yet another teaser, I've put a couple of layout samples in the backers-only section below, to avoid accidental spoilers.
I know I'm repeating myself a lot, but thanks everybody for your support!
With Devil's Due off to the layout artist, I've been able to dig back into my own layout work and art for Fear of a Daily Planet.
Since most spreads are styled as several layers of paper, I'm finding that only having black and white to work with while trying to both vary the paper backgrounds and keep the text easily legible is certainly a challenge. I also have the privilege of seeing the work in progress of the Straight Arrows module, by Ryan at RAC Computing, which deploys a similar material-driven, layered collage approach with, honestly, a lot more finesse and control. It's a bit intimidating! But Ryan is using actual collages he makes himself and then photographs to become the page backgrounds, whereas my setup requires me to work solely digitally with licensable and public domain files.
But I'll manage! I've been able to finish all of the art, which feels like a big milestone, although there are a couple pieces I might redo to see if I can improve on them.
Around 70% of the spreads have their layouts finished, and when it's done, I'll have to review the print proofs very closely to judge the readability of each section and make adjustments. Making the hyperlinks for the digital PDF will also take some time.
But here are a few samples to hold you over: art of a Ward cultist, a redacted version of the d100 I Read the Print spread, and slightly updated cover art.
Depiction of a Ward cultist. Their filler text and the parallel and perpendicular nature of their ritualistic glyphs are believed to protect them from Dolorem Ipsum.
This roll table is a mix of mission hooks, useful items, worldbuilding, thematic nods, and awful puns, and it will obviously be uncensored in the actual book.
Updated cover, with a cut-out, printed planet.
I appreciate the support my backers and others in the community showed with my weather-related setback. Hoping there won't be any more bumps like that lying in wait for this project, but given the general state of things right now, I can only look so far ahead.
Well, unfortunately, after getting a bit of layout work done, I have another quick update about a setback. We were juuust clipped by the tornado that moved through St. Louis a bit over a week ago. An already troubled city is going to have a rough, costly road ahead. We are very lucky to be in a neighborhood that only took a little damage, but a significant amount of that damage was a few large trees coming down from our neighbor's yard, knocking down a utility pole, transformer, and lines in our lot, and smashing the back of our car.
It took days to get our car out, thanks to the help of a generous co-tenant and his chainsaw, and it took a week to get power back, thanks to the dedicated work of the numerous power company contractors. We're still without internet service. I was able to keep from falling too far behind on client editing work with the help of slow library internet on days we could get out, but I didn't have my desktop computer to do any more layout work with. And of course, this hit right before the weekend I was gonna use to wrap up Devil's Due editing.
However, the power was recently restored, and we've been loaned some wi-fi by a neighbor. So, I'm slowly starting to get up and running again while we wait on the insurance assessor to tell us if our car is totaled or not. I'm hopeful things will be back on track soon!
