Just a quick one to let y'all know I started the Draw 100 Heads challenge today (with a fantasy theme, of course) over on my Twitter account.

If you'd like to check it out, I started a thread, so you should be able to come back to this link as time passes and find all of them...

https://twitter.com/mrlich/status/1542564568274190336?s=21&t=6tuEhcRXrvdpQ-ii_Qtmgw

Been a while since I did any Patch images, and I got the proverbial itch tonight, so...

First, I should point out that I hate the name Drawlloween. I love the concept behind it, and I'm taking part, but there's just something about the name that is very much like fingernails on the chalkboard for me. I think it has something to do with the way some people have asked me throughout my life to "please drawl me something?". That's not the word.

I'm not really a grammar nazi. Not really. I just play one in my head.

Okay, yeah. I kinda am.

Anyway. I love the idea behind Inktober and Drawlloween. (Links are to their respective FB groups.) This year, I decided to take part in both. Yes, that's a little bit insane.

Unless, of course, someone got the idea in their head to combine the two. Which I did. So I created a quick cheat sheet which can be found here: Inktober Drawlloween Combo Prompts. (Document also contains the list of prompts for each separate group.)

So - I don't know if any of you were thinking of taking part, but if so, feel free to let me know! (I'll probably be posting the images here - or at least links to them throughout the month.)

So I'm late posting this (how often do I manage to get it posted in time?!) but whatevs.

It rained today (yesterday) for my birthday. That may sound like a complaint, but it's the opposite. It meant I had the day off.

Went out for a nice big breakfast at a chain restaurant called Cora's. They're only up here in Canada, and I think they might only be in Quebec. I don't recall seeing them elsewhere, at least.

Anyway, after my tasty breakfast and about a gallon of their coffee, I retreated back to my hotel room where I watched most of the second season of Daredevil and just did a shit ton of drawing. Quiet, peaceful (the rain was very soothing), and productive. The images above and blow are what I did today alone.

In addition to these, I updated my Deviantart page, and created a couple different videos. The only video I uploaded is here. The technique I used is very different for me. Far more 'painting' than 'drawing' once I got past the initial sketch stage.

Alright - I'm hitting the sack. Hours to make up for work tomorrow!

You'll get that awful pun in just a second...

I'm working on (yet another) new illustration project. Or rather, I'm picking up work on an idea I had a while back.

I've been looking at Patreon for a while. I would LOVE to do something that allowed me to make some decent money on illustration stuff.

Here are the problems with that concept:

• I'm not that good. That's not an attempt at some kind of false humility. It's not an attempt to seek praise. It's fact. If you're feeling like jumping to my defense, please don't. Trust that this is an area where I am likely better versed than you. You'll note that I don't tell musicians whether they're good or not. I tell them whether I enjoy what they did. I'm certainly not qualified to say whether or not they're good at what they do. Same concept applies here.
• I'm driven to distraction. I don't know if things would be different if there would be a bajillion dollars on the line. So far, no one has offered me that much. In fact, I've pretty much only ever made $4 per drawing with exceptionally rare exceptions to that rule. Anyway - it's hard for me to stay motivated for anything more than 'quick hit' projects. One or two single character illustrations for a small gaming manual? No problem. The dozens and dozens of drawings for my own card game? Well, how long have I been working on them and they're not done yet?
  
• I like simple illustration work. This is significantly tied to that last item, but it also deserves its own point. I don't have any great desire to do uber in depth, full colored, fully rendered illustrations with complete backgrounds. The amount of hours required versus the reward (up to this point, we're talking purely personal here - see aforemented low paying gigs) has just not been in my favor.
  

With all of this in mind, I had a recommendation from someone on Google Plus: Paper Minis.

For those who might not be familiar: Paper minis are kinda what they sound like. You've likely seen the small lead miniatures that some gamers painstakingly paint and use to lay out their table top gaming sessions (think Dungeons and Dragons). Well, you can now buy plastic covers which allow you to take a small drawing (printout) and use that as your character, or in the case of the game master - the NPCs / monsters.

You put the paper minis into a stand - something like this.

Anyway, I thought I might give it a shot. It seems like the kind of thing that works on Patreon: give even a small amount and you get access to all the paper minis that I create (they will come out in sheets (PDFs) that you can print at home). Give a little more, and you'll be entered into monthly(?) drawings to get a free custom drawing. Give a lot? You'll get a custom drawing from me each month.

Dunno. There are probably bugs to be worked out, but I need to start to find them.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I really am ridiculously verbose sometimes.

This guy Bruce Gulke created a program called Tablesmith a long time ago. It allows you to create your own tables (think 'recipe') and randomly generate results from that table.

I love the program and paid for the 'registration key'. Something I very rarely do in this world of exceedingly functional freeware. I think it has uses far outside gaming for folks like writers and concept artists.

I created one to give me some quick descriptions to use for a starting set of characters to be used as the initial set of minis to describe the project to potential Patrons.

Below is a quick screen grab of some of my initial results.