Lore and Lego

I don't think it takes much to suggest that last year's plans failed hard and this year start isn't promising. Depressing as that is, I have committed myself that if I don't see major progress here by the end of the year I will start looking for promotions at work which will reduce the time I can put in here. So I need to make the most of the rest of the year as I can. That said, this year hasn't been completely wasted so far. I have quite a bit of plastic miniatures in the closet that needs to be assembled, painted or both. On most days this year I have made some progress assembling models. Not as fast as I would have like but progress all the same.

Let me go over the 3 projects that were based on lore and why I failed to make any progress on them last year. Two of the projects were based on pen and paper rpg settings that I combine with a different game setting and added my own twist. The plan was to come up with content that explains and expands on what my settings were. The problem was that coming up with stories that were important, interesting and didn't spoil games I haven't started yet was a lot harder than I though. I still want to do this but I don't have very many ideas for what to do differently. One type of story I thought about doing was one where important characters were talking in secret and their identities are hidden for extra drama affect. But then I realize it would be hard to make it clear for the reader to know who was saying what. A solution to this would be to make it into a comic book using miniatures. That should make it easy to see who is doing the talking and still keep the identities hidden. One change I want to do that may have a knock on effect on my lore projects is how I approach ideas for tabletop games to run. Normally when I get an idea for a game to run, I see if any of my friends are interested in playing. If I have enough people say yes I then start prepping for the game. Sadly for one reason or another the game falls apart before the first session can be schedule, sometimes even before characters are even created. What I'm going to do different is to immediately start prepping for a game when I get an idea I feel strongly about. That way, when I ask if anyone is interested, if people say yes the game can be schedule immediately, giving it far less time to fall apart. If people say no then I can consider the prep work as practice. Plus having a game ready that I can run might come up in the future. That doesn't mean every idea will be connected to one of my 3 lore projects. Sometimes I have an idea I think is fun that I want to get off my chest and it doesn't fit or is game IP that I don't want apart of my projects. However I still think something valuable to be had for my projects exploring these ideas.

The third project based on lore was me making a type of web-comic. I ran into two problems plus had a hard deadline unlike the others. First problem was that I was not skill enough to do watercolor painting for the backgrounds at a high enough quality that I would be happy with. I overestimated my ability while being unable to put in the time to practice. The second problem was money. I was dumb in that I came up with a story, characters and setting without considering what I already own. So after getting a working idea of kind of miniatures and background work I wanted to have, it was nearly all stuff I did not own and had to go purchase or make. If I was wise, I would look at my already large collections of miniatures, some already assembled and painted, others still unassembled in boxes and come up with a story using mostly of what I already own. It would still be a lot of work of coverting, assembling and painting but at least it would be better than having to purchase everything. I still don't have models for my main characters yet. I did buy some models for one scene of the comic but because I still needed so much more, the first problem issue and that hard deadline coming up soon, I realize I wasn't going to make it and just gave up. While I'm still want to do the comic, it feels unlikely I will have chapter 1 ready by October 1st this year. So my new goals for my 3rd project is to work on it with hopes of it coming out this year but with the reality of it most likely coming out next year. To improve as a watercolor painter I'm going to commit to doing at least 2 month long challenges, and perhaps more later in the year. In March I'm going to fill a blank sketch book with watercolor paintings. In May I'm going to do the Mer-May Challenge with watercolors. Mer-May is an art challenge where artists make art of mermaids during the month of May. Attempting both these challenges will encourage me to get in the habit of painting more, including months outside of March and May. I'm fully aware that even after months of practice I will still most likely not be skilled enough to make the watercolor backgrounds that I want. I do have a backup option for the backgrounds but money is still an issue. In fact it is even more of an issue. Not only does my comic plans still require quite a few more miniatures to buy and my backup options for backgrounds will also be expensive money wise for me but I've also decided that its been too long since I've actively played war games and I'm working toward getting back into it (this will be getting its own post). The war gaming hobby, especially games by Games Workshop, are well known for being very draining on bank funds. All the more reason the comic is probably not coming out this year.

I did put in alot of work on the comic last year. I came up with a name that I'm happy with, Castle Halloween, and I've develop the lore around the setting. A long term goal of mine is to eventually write novels that are in the same setting as the comic. The world I created for Castle Halloween is beginning to be too massive to explore all of in one comic that I will only publish in October. The novels will explore elements of the universe that the comic will barely touch. And yet I believe there is still more stories I can tell and more ways I can tell them. Above I talked about wanting to run more pen and paper rpgs. The Castle Halloween setting is the only one of the 3 projects that is fantasy and therefore the only one where Dungeons & Dragons would fit. Also included in the pen and paper rpgs that I want to run is the part rpg, part boardgame that is HeroQuest. HeroQuest was built for making custom adventures so players can explore their Game Master's world. If the right things line up, then the most likely first taste of the Castle Halloween comic on the blog will be either a narrative version of an adventure I ran in the setting or material relating to that adventure.

The last thing I want to talk about relating to the 3 lore projects was the backup option to reduce the need or to replace the watercolor painting backgrounds. And that backup option was me getting into Legos. It might seem strange that a wargamer like me was getting into Legos but after seriously looking at Legos recently, I now think Legos and war gaming is a natural match. Lego mini figures don't hit me the same way as painted miniatures on a battlefield does, I can see terrain building and vehicles easily being done with Legos and fitting in aesthetically. For the comic at first I thought I could swap to doing all the backgrounds with Legos. But after starting and building upon my collection and playing around with Legos for the first time, I realize that wasn't realistic. For one, it takes skill and practice to be good at designing Lego builds and I'm just a beginner. In addition, while I have quite a large collection of Lego pieces for someone just starting, to do all the comic enviroments using only Legos would require a lot of money and space that I don't have. So instead I planning on doing a hybrid of Legos, painted miniatures & dioramas and watercolor painting to make my comic. I hope between the 3 and my skills as a photographer I can produce images for the comic I will be happy with. Beside the comic, I'm excited to see how I can use Legos with tabletop roleplaying games and war games. My initial focus will be on the comic but anytime I'm working on a game, how I can include Legos will already in the back of my mind.

And that is my summary of why a lot of what I tried to do last year failed and why I hope I can do better this year. I will end this here as this piece is already more than 2 months overdue. Next article I will talk about my first serious steps into getting back into war gaming in years.