Concept to Now-Cept

I do have other hobbies, stuff I don't even try to write up here (or elsewhere) but suffice it say a lot of my geeking out time has been taken over by these.  Think golf, or fishing, it's hard to work in this great hobby we do with those types of activities.  Anyway, though sadly doesn't post artwork here anymore, Chris 'Biscuit' Miller was commissioned to do up a logo for me and he came through in flying color, as usual.  This logo has been used for shirt embroidery primarily and I gotta say, it looks pretty dang cool!  I wish I had my sketch/rough draft that I gave to him originally to illustrate just how far this came from the conceptual phase.  Enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 020 ~ Gun Runs & Dragons

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I'm previewing a character concept for a project I've been kicking around. I'm still hammering out the story ideas but this lil' lass should be one of the main characters. A rough and tumble elven tomboy with a big knack for getting herself into trouble and an bigger knack of pulling at your heart strings. Not to mention that she's a crack shot and will totally put one between your eyes!... cute right? I plan on going with the ginger leading the lineup below but I couldn't help but mess with the colors which resulted in the center drow and right vampire. Check it out.

Reload!

~ Enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 019 ~ Zombies & Me

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight's posting draws inspiration from a genre that I happen to love very much and has been quite plentiful as of late. The genre of which I speak is the Zompocalypse! the Zombiepocalypse? The Zombie Apocalypse. However you say/spell it, its great and its hot right now. Its not about sparkling and brooding vampires anymore. Wait! That was a thing?! Anyways. Reanimated corpses that decided that that awesomely magnificent white light just ain't for them. Thats what I'm here to talk about.

We've seen our fair share of Zombie themed games grace the table at Mik's. Some great venturings into "Zombie Cinema" and "Fear & Faith." The latter of which I still plan to run at some future undefined time... I know Mik, I know. However thats more about getting off my butt to paint some minis. In all fairness though, a good portion of that laziness is spent delving into more zombie based adventures. Be it Dead Rising (1 & 2), Black Ops (1 & 2), Read Dead Redemption (Undead Nightmare), Skyrim (Draugr are zombies, right?) You get the point. Zombies? Awesome. Video Games? Awesome. Zombie Video Games? Time well wasted? F yea!

Throw on that my weekly viewings of "The Walking Dead" while reading the original in comic form and constantly checking my IPod to get my fix for the Zombicide "Season 2" Kickstarter and I'm creaming cheese about these undead bastards. FYI there is a "Walking Dead" marathon all this week up until this next sunday, 3/31 Easter-freaking-Sunday, which happens to be the season finale for Season 3. Also there are, while I type this, 5 days left for the Kickstarter, its worth a look. 

A few years ago I even did a month's worth of postings over at Minions about the Zed nation, check it out. Anyways heres my doodle.

Braaaiiinnnsss!

~ Enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 018 ~ Star Basterds

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I bring you something from a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away... 

Hopefully the devout readers of Miks Minis remember a play report post of Savage Worlds ala Star Wars meets Inglorious Basterds back in September 2009. Holy cow thats a while ago, yet, I still remember that game like it was yesterday! If not you can check it out here. I can honestly say it is one of the best games to date that I've played with the Minions gaming group. It was so much fun in fact that Andy has agreed to run some more "Star Basterds" goodness later this year. I am so eager to play this great setting again that my gears have been spinning since it was first mentioned a couple of months ago. I took that inspiration and drew up a character concept I had for the first session but never got to explore. This character is so cool, at least to me (opposing opinions and comments welcome below), that it ended up becoming two characters in one. Now originally I had doodled this pair up during the game but have since misplaced the drawing. I'll be sure to post it here when I find it. 

The core half of the background behind the duo's concept is of a lone jawa left behind, barely clinging to life, after an attack by some sand troopers destroyed a convoy of Sand Crawlers believed to be housing rebel forces and conspirators. In the end there were no rebels within the massive Crawlers however all the jawa's loved ones had been massacred and left to be forgotten in the burning wreckage as the sands of Tatooine buried the horrific site from history. The jawa managed to survive the onslaught and harsh desert conditions driven only by its unspoken vow to do whatever it could to make the Empire pay for these heinous acts. A once passive creature turned into a blood hungry soldier in an ongoing war with a great evil.

The other half of the background is that of a B-1 Battle Droid discovered amongst the ruins of a  dilapidated Trade Federation bunker. As the aforementioned Jawa wandered the desert ,barely maintaining it's sanity, it stumbled upon the ruins and took shelter within during a terrible sand storm and found his future companion. The droid was physically just a fraction of its former self. Its lower half blasted away during an exchange of fire as a Tusken attack breached the inner command stations. Unable to resist its nature to scavenge, the Jawa went to work looking around for whatever it could find of value. Imagine its surprise when the droid it was pulling from some rubble startled to life. The droid was a sentient model and its mental capacity had deteriorated substantially as it had been on its own for quite some time. The resulting personalty was that of a quirky individual to say the least. It had a penchant to speak and act before thinking in addition to having a knack of not understanding the seriousness of tense situations. 

Originally the jawa had intended to sell off the droid as that model had become a rare find in recent history. However the droid proved quite useful in its knowledge of tactics and what it could remember of the locations of Federation holdings on Tatooine. A mutual respect developed and in time the jawa had befriended the droid and even managed to tinker with and fine tune its inner wirings making it a better shot, a long standing problem of battle droids and storm troopers alike. Together they become a formidable force to be reckoned with. A jawa who rarely speaks and a droid that does more than enough talking for the both of them. Not long after they joined a group in the business of doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Storm Troopers.

Aldo & Raine!

Enjoy!

Some More Art Leftovers: Eastern Flavors

Well obviously it's not Tuesday, so these art leftovers will have to share a spot with today's Thor's Day Hero, lest I intrude upon Rucht's Friday slot!  Since he's still hitting the gamer books hardcore, I'll leave him to his own.

Eastern flavors abound this issue, coincidentally I might add.  Way back in the day...we were playing a lot of Legends of the Five Rings.  Man, what a great game; excellent system, amazing genre, great history, all kinds of good stuff.  Black magic was prevalent, and something you did not want to mess with.  The above pic is of two of us meddling PCs, obviously messing with the very thing they shoudn't.  To quote Primus, "...and in doing so, each gave just a little bit of their souls away."

The next one, as the joke goes, was inspired by my lovely wife.  Yes, this limbless, grotesque, demon-hag of an Oni was all because of the woman I married and chose to spend the rest of my life with.  See, she had a weird dream once, and woke up and hastily drew a very weird image of the "thing" from her dream.  This was the best translation I could come up with.  How'd you think she inspired me?

Next up is a pair of seafood flavored nun-chuks.  To those that are offended by those who can't spell these martial art beat sticks, I apologize.  Anyway, they belonged to a monk from a Forgotten Realms campaign, he worshiped one of the sea gods, whose name completely escapes me. 

And finally we have a Naga from Five Rings, or just about any eastern fantasy setting.  I wanted my Naga a little less snake-man and a little more man-snake.  Hence this guy.  All said and done I was really happy with the way his short sword / dagger turned out.

All right, that's your art fix for the week.  Sorry it's a few days late, but better late than never!  How have you been?  Things are good here.  We got a Pathfinder game under our belts, so I'll be showing off some new Lego figs of that.  We've also got a Dark Heresy campaign about to kick off this Saturday that I'm really looking forward to, so until then, enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 017 ~ Minifigure Musings

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I've got some minifigures, this time based on some Mik classics. One figure comes to you from this "Tuesday Art Leftovers" post and the other from this "Lego Omniverse" page.

BAMF!

~ Enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 016 ~ Minifigure Musings

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I've got some more minifigure artwork to show off. Since I've got quite a collection of trolls from Lego's Castle: Fantasy Era theme I thought I'd expand on it a bit more with a Troll Jailiff (complete with reverse sleeping-on-the-job face and turkey leg) and a dual axe-weilding Trollzerker.

BAMF!

~ Enjoy!

Tuesday Art Leftovers: 'Bots and Scots

My opening piece for today's art leftovers is a fave of mine, not because so much of what it is but where it was.  Back before Christian's Destination Unknown, really before blogging in general, and way before his Loviatar 'zine he wrote Scrollworks Press.  Well this robot graced one of the covers of that indie gaming magazine a long, long time ago.  It was really cool to get it in the mail, see my art on the cover, and know that a lot of other people were seeing my art as well.  There's another Scrollworks piece floating around in the archives, I just don't know when it'll pop up.

I think I plug those ill-fated and little known LEGO wargaming rules of mine a little too much to be honest, but this next piece was a test from that.  We didn't know if we were going to use stat cards or what, but the idea here was to have a closeup, profile shot of the character on the card.  This was a "warpainted" Islander head atop some scale-mail. 


There's not much to say on this one.  It's supposed to be a Scottish Terrier.  Get it?  Scottish.  Terrier.  Ahem, moving on...

Last but not least is basically a doodle taken directly from a note page.  Also it's apparent that I can't seem to divide four into nine hundred without writing it down.  So basically you've got a fantasy version of Star Wars mixed even more so with the wild west.  The Texas Rangers/Jedi of the setting were monastic knights who had these "magic" swords made of a rare crystal.  Maybe it's a crystalline entity.  I don't know, the idea never got past the "crystal sworded knights" idea.  Looking at the pic I may have been thinking "ruby" not crystal.  I really don't know, you know how it is; you think of an idea, you jot it down, file it away. 

Until next time!

Monday Night Miller 015 ~ SDE Mini Bosses Colored

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I'm bringing back the Hydra!  All colored up and looking' proper.

Continue!

~ Enjoy!

Monday Night Miller 014 ~ Revisits Colored

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! Tonight I have a simple offering, a glimpse into how I work. The first image presented shows some color tests (of Doug from last week's post). I'll usually use this process if I'm having difficulty figuring out skin tones and each character's color wheel. When I originally concieved Doug as a character I pictured him more goblinesque with a green pallette as shown by one of the samples. However seeing as he is an imp from Hell I figured I should use warmer tones. In the end I chose a gradient of yellow-to-red (the larger sample) as this one in particular really warmed up to me; pun intended.

This second image is also of Doug showing a transition of the different stages in which I work. I start with a sketch, the clean line drawing, then I'll add the shadows and highlights, and finally I simply block out the colors. Bob's your uncle.

 

Finished!

~ Enjoy

Monday night Miller 013 ~ Revisits

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller returns! Big Thanks! to Mik with his "Tuesday Art Leftovers" postings to fill the gap for the past couple of months. What can I say? Work got busy. Whatcha gonna do? Anyways for today's posting I thought I'd revisit an idea I had way back in my early college days. The idea came about during a course project in which we had to develop some characters and the world they exist in. 
 

My idea was probably the goofier of the bunch but I still think it has some promise. Every now and then I'll pull out some of the old sketch books and add some more work into the mix. The main cast consists of three focal characters. An ambitious trouble-making imp (Doug), his best bud - a hellfire sprite (Flick), and a wannabe grim reaper (T[Hana]toss). The premise behind this world is about the main character, Doug, who aspires to someday be a full fledged demon. He enlists his pal Flick in a venture to help them get noticed with the upper level demons. Unfortunately Doug doesn't get much respect, I mean who is gonna take a name like "Doug the Demon" seriously?, and he is given a "very important" job watching over a secure hell gate disguised as a taco stand. Assuming it to be a simple task to give without giving any actual responsibility, the upper level demons are surprised to find Doug and Flick have somehow managed to crack the seal and let a bunch of spirits, demons, and creatures loose. The duo are then tasked with returning the released monsters back to the seal or else they can never return to Hell. A task to surely get them killed... 

Meanwhile an up-and-coming grim reaper named Thanatoss is looking to get his scythe and robes, however, he is thrown a curve ball when Death gives him one last assignment. In order to become an honorary reaper and a true master of death he must keep a certain duo alive until they fulfill their goal of becoming demons. No easy task indeed. Thanatoss's personal brand of seriousness doesn't blend well with Doug and Flick's complete lack thereof. They change his name to Hana and comedic banter ensues. The now team-of-three run the taco stand during the day and track down the gate escapees at night. Fun right? That's the idea in a nutshell!

Here's my  protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist of "Taco on the Street" (Its also the name of the taco stand - it literally looks like a giant taco sitting on a street corner! ~ patent pending)

Revisit!

~ Enjoy!

Tuesday Art Leftovers: Psykers, Spaceport Chicks, and Supers

Welcome to another Art Leftovers!  Today's trio could almost be thrown into the same genre together, almost.  I'm sure I've plugged the LEGO skirmish battle rules a buddy and I came up with a very long time ago.  If not, here you go!  The rules were written around '97, so the above image (which went with the rules) is about as old.  It's a psyker from the game; sci-fi mega-mind powers trooper.  Ride the lightning!

Up next is a spaceport chick.  Nothing much else to say, she's the kind of local you'd find hanging out at a spaceport.  She's tough, she's alien, she's hot (in an alien sort of way), and she can more than take care of herself, hence the blaster.  I don't know if she's wearing a head wrap or a bandage.

 Last up is a superhero based off a radio handle based off real life.  Once upon a time I was a delivery driver.  Our driver cohort numbered four and we had color-themed handles to use with the dispatcher.  Not happy with just colors we went a bit further so in the end there was Soylent Green (above), Blue Phantom (me), Agent Orange, and Red Menace.  Dispatcher was Echo Base.  It was a fun gig to have in your twenties, and the pay was decent enough.  Above is my buddy Oz who has made several cameos here over the years in his Soylent Green guise.

That's all the leftover art we have this week, thanks and enjoy!

Tuesday Art Leftovers: Grown-Up Goonies, Aliens, and Landscapes

First post of 2013, and it's more art leftovers.  This time going way back with this first drawing scanned out of a sketchbook from my senior year of high school.  Ahem, high school twenty plus years ago!  So my idea was to take a character from the something like the movie Goonies, grow them up a little, and put them on the path of paranormal investigations and supernatural conflict resolution.  Looking back my idea was pretty much X-Files meets Supernatural.  And yeah, I guess I could've been mega-rich right now if I had pursued it!  As it stands I have this one sketch, haha.

This one is easy to date because "1997" is right in the corner!  So the thought here is to have a couple of "cosmic level" superheroes.  On the left is an amorphous, sentient potato-in-a-jar.  He has a wide array of mechanical and robot bodies he can control once plugged in, including a starship.  His buddy is another alien who was average for his race until the super-space jewel-symbiote thing attached itself to his chest giving him the power of a hundred black holes or what-not.  To paraphrase that 'superhero plot' generator from a couple of years ago:

"One is a sentient potato with an army of mecha at his disposal.  The other is a noble defender with the power of a hundred black holes at his command.  Together they...fight interstellar crime!"

Closing we have an alien suburban townscape.  That's it, a cozy little street, a few plants by the walkway, and a sprawling metropolis in the distance.  This was one of those "just because" drawings, no plans or backstory.  That's it for now, as always enjoy!

Tuesday Art Leftovers: Loincloths and Greyscales

It's a bit worrisome that I'm posting a "backup" art post two weeks in a row!  Well, on with it!  First up is an idea I had for a superhero campaign, given the age it was probably Champions 2nd edition.  It was a take on the "toy master" villain, but instead of having a horde of evil toys he had one, kind of like a powerful sidekick.  This pint-sized grim reaper-type is the result.  Flames added for hot rod coolness.

This next one really is a leftover and it's only for posterity that I include it here.  I figure if I'm going to to include them, I'll include them all since I bothered to scan this one a dozen years or so ago anyway.  So, he's a swordsman, no big deal.  I was trying something new and he was done mostly in just focused ink washes.

Finally we have one of those pieces you draw because of inspiration directly from a gaming session.  In our very longstanding Forgotten Realms campaign we came upon a portal we had to navigate but it was at the bottom of the ocean.  We acquired a bunch of water-breathing potions, poured 'em into tankards, had a toast, and were off.  In the back you've got three different Elves (Sun, Wood, and Moon in that order) and up front was a barbarian Halfling and a Gold Dwarf (sans loincloth).

Tuesday Art Leftovers: Aliens and Holidays

Necessity being the mother of invention I give you an impromptu new feature, the Tuesday Art Leftovers.  As you may have surmised already, the awesome Monday Night Miller feature isn't exactly every Monday night.  To make up for this I have delved deep into the archives to bring you some art "leftovers".

Unlike Squire Miller I do not have formal schooling in the graphic arts, I hope his weekly feature returns with regularity...and soon!  Without him you're stuck with me.  

Way back when, late nineties, I posted a bunch of stuff online at the Elfwood art galleries.  Great fun and gave me that posting/blogging itch way before such a thing was fully in my domain.  All the stuff you'll see here is saved material from that.  Old stuff, twelve years plus, unpolished, but still fun.  Enjoy!

Our first one, up top here, is an alien gun fighter chica I made up to act as part of a tramp freighter crew composed of various species.  More Firefly in nature than, say, Star Wars.  I like a lot of things about her, the green lips and eyes, her belt buckle, the cartoon style.  She was your typical 'bad attitude' shoot first-ask questions later member of the crew.  Plus she's a hot armadillo/reptile sort of gal.

Next up is an image I did for our family's holiday cards one year.  Of course my 'family' back then was just my wife and I, but we mailed out a ton of cards during the holidays, I think our mailing list was pushing a hundred folks.  It was fun and I made up the art for the mailings.  Here we have a mechanic elf in his garage.  Things I like about this one are all the bits of junk laying around, his blonde mullet, and the effect on the tree itself.  Kind of apropos given the date of this post I thought!

Rounding out this trio of art leftovers is one of my favorites.  It kind of needs no explanation, it's aliens...with guns.  Nice and simple.  We have your heavy weapons guy, a sort of beefy dino-reptile guy, you've got a terrapin-type alien, I'm thinking science/tech guy, and finally is the commando/leader type, umm, a multi-limbed walrus/dog.  I like a lot of the colors in here too.

That's it, the first (and hopefully not too frequent) installment of the Tuesday Art Leftovers; a backup plan to any missed Monday Night Millers.  Until next time!

Monday Night Miller 012 ~ SDE Mini Bosses

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! I've gotten a little bit behind in the art department recently but I figured I'd at least drop something by for the week. This week I offer the sketch I'll be working off of for the summonable creature I asked you, the Miksminis readers, to help me create in my last entry. I decided to meld multiple suggestions (from Jmezz, Spacejacker, & Eli) as they had a similar theme, a multi-headed swarm of snakes. The Hydra will be a summonable mini boss once the cultist has sapped enough blood from the heroes. Once I get the final image rendered I'll also reveal the other nasty surprises the Cultist and its pet Hydra have to offer. Oh and don't worry if I didn't pick your suggestion for this particular creature. I may be using them in future Super Dungeon Explore postings.

Continue!

~ Enjoy!

YOU Can Save the Snake Cult!

Yes, that's right, you! I'm calling out to my friends of the blog here, all 312 of you. You guys know my friend and gaming buddy, Chris "Biscuit" Miller, from a lot of his artwork here on the blog.  Recently, and after much persuasion on my part, he opted to do a weekly feature here; Monday Night Miller.

Well we've been somewhat taken with the game Super Dungeon Explore, and his last few posts have been around new hero and villain designs for said game.  Last week he debuted the concept of the Snake Cultists.  These cultists were his own creation dating back more than a year ago over at the Minions of the Monster Master blog.  But he also put out the call:

"the big plan is to let the Miksminis readers decide what that creature will be. It can be any power level from minion/denizen to big boss. I'll consider* any and all suggestions for character concept and abilities. Let the contest begin!"

So there you have it.  Mik's Minis readers, that's us!  Let's pitch in some cool ideas to really make this Snake Cult slither!  Here's the original post to leave comments and ideas at.  Rock on!

Monday Night Miller 011 ~ SDE Minions

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! This week I've got the first minion of another group of Super Dungeon Explore creatures. This time around I'll be showin' off the Serpentfolk. I definitely used the featured Cultist Snakeman from this post over at MotMM for the concept behind these guys. Now you may be asking yourself "Where is the got-danged artwork?!" Don't worry! This post was intended to be sans-card art because I'm taking this thing interactive! I'm gonna let the readers pick my next SDE Minion posting!!!

This Serpentfolk Cultist will be capable of summoning  another creature into the fray. Kinda like a mini-consul. I will hammer out the details about how I intend this to work but the big plan is to let the Miksminis readers decide what that creature will be. It can be any power level from minion/denizen to big boss. I'll consider* any and all suggestions for character concept and abilities. Let the contest begin!

Continue!

~ Enjoy!

 *Bonus consideration for reasoning and explanations

Monday Night Miller 010 ~ SDE Heroes

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! This week I whipped up a Hero to battle all of the Boarmen I've been cranking out lately. I took one of Mik's suggesstions from a recent post for a character concept... the Clockwork Knight. Currently I have just been using a card template I got from the forums over at Boargamegeek but unfortunately it is only good for the monsters. Since I dont have a template for a good guy at the moment I'll just be posting the character art. Maybe we can use the comments section of this posting for possible abilities and ideas? Anyways check him/her/it out!

Continue!

~ Enjoy!



Monday Night Miller 009 ~ SDE Bosses

Hey Everybody! Monday Night Miller time! This week I offer up the boss of my Boarmen, my "Boarboss" if you will. Hes a whole lot of ham to tackle. He also packs a good punch and a helluva charge ability. I intended for this guy to easily get around the board with some nasty hit and run attacks. Let me know how he handles.

Continue!

~ Enjoy!