Postcard from Simon Forster

I'm a big fan of the maps that +Simon Forster posts regularly on Google+. This morning I got a very pleasant surprise in the form of a postcard from Simon with a very cool hand-drawn map. It would make a very nice little side trek in an adventure. The party make camp for the night in a ruined village, only to be awoken in the night by strange noise coming from the cliffs above...

Geomorph Using New Template

I've drawn one of the previous three Geomorphs again using the new template. It took about twice as long to draw, but I think it was worth the effort. The lines look a lot straighter, yet it still looks hand-drawn.

Here's a scan of the drawing:

And here it is cleaned up ready for printing.

Geomorph Template

Using arcane knowledge gleaned from the long lost Games Workshop Dungeon Mapping Sheets, I've created a handy geomorph template with a double line grid. I've left the entry/exit points as single lines so they are easy to spot. I'll draw my previous three geomorphs on these and see how they look.

Three Geomporphs

I've decided to redraw all my beermat and other old geomorphs in a uniform style and size. The three pictured below are drawn on 7mm grid paper (cut from one of my larger pads). I'm going to print a couple of alternative grid sizes and draw the same three tiles. I'll then scan them all and see how they print at different sizes.

I'd say there's about a 90% chance that I'll have another geomorph related Kickstarter before the end of the summer.

Geomorphic Beermat Poster

I didn't have time to make a big display for the Geomorphic Beermats at the UK Expo. Since then I've been scribbling a few geomorphs each evening. The end result is the poster below, which contains 48 geomorphs (24 full tiles and 24 edges/corners). I'll be taking this with to shows in future to promote the mats.

The Beermats are all now live again on the Squrehex site ready to order, so if you missed the Kickstarter now's your chance to grab some.

https://squarehex.myshopify.com/collections/square-hex-pads/beermats

Trying to Decode Kicktraq's Hot List

I was very pleased this morning to see my Cthulhu poster project had made it back to the #1 slot on Kicktraq's Art Hot List. The project has been somewhere on the list for most of its run, but it hasn't broken through to the main Hot List. Its jump to #1 on the Art list today seems to be purely down to the fact that the project hit 1000% of its original goal.

What's got me puzzled is that it hasn't shown up anywhere on the main Hot List. I've had previous projects on the main Hot List and some even got close to the top for brief periods. The current project is outperforming anything I've done before, but doesn't seem to be registering. I then realized that the arcane formula used to calculate the Hot List must have a weighting element for different categories. All my previous projects have been in the Games category, whereas the poster are in Art.

I don't have a problem with it either way, and remain a great fan of Kicktraq regardless. Anyone else noticed any quirks with Kicktraq's math?

UK Games Expo Report

We had a very busy three days in Birmingham last weekend. This year we had a 50% bigger stand than in 2014, but we gave up the corner location we had last year so the extra space only cost about 30% more. I'm delighted to report that it was a worthwhile upgrade as sales were up almost exactly 30% too.

Although about 50% of our takings were from sales of miniatures, we sold lots of OSR books and more paper pads, notebooks and mapping sheets than we have at any show to date. We also sold lots of Cthulhu posters from the test print-run for the Kickstarter.

The stand was so busy that it was the first year that I didn't get a chance to do a quick walk around the show. Lots of previous customers and kickstarter backers stopped by to say chat though, and they all seemed to be really enjoying the show.

Next year the Expo trade halls move to the NEC. I'm a bit wary about that as the gaming component of the show will remain in the hotel some 10 minutes walk away. However, it remains the most important gaming show in the UK so I'm sure we'll be back.