September, October, November Recap
DURF, megadungeons, and drawings
This one is long overdue, so it is going to cover things I did since I wrote my recap of August.
DURF
Since wrapping up TEA issue 02 I’ve been spending most of my time tinkering with the Expanded version of DURF.
Over the past months I’ve finished writing the bestiary (now containing 100 monsters), wrote a few new advice sections for both players and GMs, overhauled a bunch of small rules and procedures, and finally started making art to replace the placeholders that have been in the draft for a while now. You can find the latest 100+ page draft of DURF Expanded on my Patreon, if you want to check it out and support me while I work on it :)
I also spent some time creating a custom font for it. It is available for free here, and was inspired by the No Continue font I used for the original version of DURF, but with a slightly wider feel and better legibility.
DURF Jam 2024
I released the new DURF Font right before the fourth annual DURF Jam started, and it was really fun to see the people use it in their projects right away.
Due to Covid, I wasn’t able to complete my own entry in time for the jam this year, so I pivoted to making art for other people’s entries. Which was really fun to do :) The pieces I made are now also available for free under the Creative Commons CC-BY license, so feel free to use them in your own projects! They can be found in my free illustration library :)
The entries for the DURF Jam were once again really fun and creative this year. It had a good amount of variety, ranging from adventures and settings, to combat supplements and complete hacks of the whole system. If you have a moment, I highly recommend browsing the Submissions section on the jam page!
The Electrum Archive
For The Electrum Archive, I have been working with a lot of different artists to put together the NPC art pack that was one of the unlocked stretch goals of the issue 02 Kickstarter. This has been really fun since it provides an opportunity to work with a bunch of cool artists and experiment a bit more with styles I normally wouldn’t consider for the zines. I’ll post more about this later in an actual Kickstarter update, but here are two previews I’ve shared in the CULT OF THE LIZARD KING Discord before.
Megadungeon
I’ve been playtesting DURF Expanded for a good while now and have been preparing a megadungeon for my main playgroup. We played a megadungeon when we played the original version of DURF back in 2021, so this has felt weirdly nostalgic for me. It gives me an opportunity to improve on the things I think I did wrong back then, but most of all, I’ve been really embracing the fun of putting this weird dungeon together. It’s of course way too big to finish in one go, so I only have a “finished” version of the first level of the dungeon, with the other levels being nothing more than some faction notes and rough sketches.
I can’t emphasize enough how fun it has been to put this thing together. My desk has a stack of loose paper sheets filled with miniscule pencil notes and map sketches that look like the work of a mad conspiracy theorist. I wish I could show these here, but I know that some of my players follow this newsletter, so sadly it has to wait until they have at least made their way beyond the first level.
Dragonmeet
After missing Dragonmeet last year, I was determined to return to the London-based event this year. Last weekend, I had a great time reconnecting with folks I hadn’t seen since Dragonmeet 2022, meeting new folks, chatting about RPGs and picking up books that aren’t as readily available here in the Netherlands. I’ll definitely try to be there again next year.
Art
Over the past months, I noticed a disconnect between my eyes and my hands. I have spent the better part of my time of the last year doing art direction for The Electrum Archive. For the second issue I focussed more on the writing and game design and was fortunate enough to work with multiple artists that helped me illustrate the zine. This resulted in my doing a lot less art for it than I initially hoped. So starting with DURF Expanded I planned on doing all the art for it myself and really get back into it. That’s when I noticed the disconnect: my hands had not kept up with my eyes. I had spent most of my time over the last year directing the work of other artists and training my eyes to be able to formulate what I needed them to change, while my hands didn’t get any training. So now there is an imbalance, my drawing skills are lagging behind my ability to discern what’s wrong with an illustration. To get those back on a similar level, I have been doing a lot of daily exercises. Filling page after page with gesture drawing of a few minutes per sketch and some simple perspective shapes. Not too much thinking, just drawing and letting my muscles develop. I’m not sure how long it will take to fix this imbalance, but it has been wonderful to finally draw more again and to just draw, instead of worrying about it being good. Here are some snaps of my exercise sketchbook:
I really hate the look of all of these, but I thought it might be good to share these, considering I normally only share my finished drawings.
Anyway, thank you for reading and stay safe!
- Emiel
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