UPDATE: The GZ 2020 Project!

Kinjite 2020

For those who have been following my pages, you have probably noticed the new black and white artwork posted with character names followed by 2020. This is the GZ 2020 project and I'm here to tell you what that is going to pertain to.

First and foremost, I am taking on the vast challenge to redraw almost all my characters in sharp updated scale. This is no small feat as we start with heroes and progress to villains. And while I'm doing all black and white right now, I will soon be starting in on digital coloring. But what else is happening?

This art is not only going to provide fresh new views of my best characters but apply to a couple of other projects:

NEW GAME: I'm working on a new cooperative card game that will allow up to 4 players (as heroes) with one player acting as host for the threats (that can be a 5th player if you wish). These threats will be none other than the best and worst GZ has to offer with new fantastic monsters (hint, you've already seen them) and villains with henchmen. There will be diabolical traps and incidents you must overcome in order to thwart your main villains master plot. This will utilize character building and multi-d6 combat. Recent game testing  has been very good to us so it's exciting to dig in on building this game!

NEW DATABASE: I'm working on plans for a new database that will also feature the art and details about all the characters. There is a possibility of this coming to book format through Amazon. You can learn all there is to learn about the GZ universe (well almost).

NEW COLORING BOOK: As a follow up to my coloring book Amazing Characters, you will get your own chance to color in these pictures. There will be at least 50 pics to color and enjoy.

And that isn't all. I stopped on work for GZ Tales vol 3 last year because of a number of issues that we don't need to revisit. The important thing is that I will be bringing it back to the front burner and working on new stories. As before these tales will tie in with novels and previous shorts from volumes 1 and 2. You know what that means? If you haven't yet, you need to dive into this universe a and get some experience with it! As always, there is the link in the upper right that leads to my Amazon author's page, but I'll give you a couple of the best links right here to get you started. The best part about this, is that you can read digitally (no waiting for delayed shipments) for just 99 cents! Super cheap!

GZ Tales Vol 1

Chessmen  Opening Moves

But do peruse the authors page HERE for ebooks that are all super affordable and fun to read.

So do stay tuned to my twitter and facebook because there are lots of update posts to come! It's going to be a wild year and I'm busting but to make it happen! Stay safe and healthy out there!

Two Projects coming to a slow down, Fallout76, however...

There is so much going on and I need to touch on all of it. I have greatly enjoyed bringing happiness to the Fallout community with my new scale of Fallout art that you get to color yourself; that was 100% supported by you the player with your submissions of in game photos. Your support past that has been wonderful too. Unfortunately, this is not meeting my new need of groceries and medications. Those cost. So I will have to do more toward efforts that I can be paid for and less on the freebie work.

I've done enough of the FCCP art and Chef adventures to fill 6 coloring books and you can download and print all of it for free. Other artist friends think I've gone completely insane. Who does that much free work? Well, for the joy it brings and hopefully will continue to bring, it's worth it in these trying times. People who are stuck at home can print out and color pages for that added distraction and relaxation with a side dish of silliness. Just what the doctor ordered. I did it for you.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to draw anymore of them. But there won't be near as big of releases as before and they will be released on a more spontaneous schedule. Kind of as I do them.

Now, if people want to ORDER a page from me I am happy to do custom work for a minimal charge. I will even drop the price to 7 dollars a page via paypal. I was doing 15. So hit me up if you want something special done that is just for you and will only be released to the public by you. That puts you at the head of the line because I always do paid work first. Like I said, I find myself in a need of groceries and meds for my MS.

You see, since moving to a new state and having everything shut down, I haven't been able to get a new doctor for me or my son. We are running out of important medications. So I have to put efforts into these things and try to push for what we need.

I am working on two new coloring book projects that I have posted teasers to so I hope you will be watching. I also have new character work coming for GZ with the 2020 project.

So there we are. I hope to still see you at my page!

Board game preview: HOW THE BOARD WORKS

I said I would and here I go. Time to show you the board for the New York edition and give you the scoop on how it works. By the way, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out content and stories that don't go anywhere else. This will include giveaways and contests. So what are you waiting for?

This is the New York Game board. It will fold in six sections.

Click on image for larger view

To re-explain the game a little bit, the object is to complete a random assigned goal before other players. A goal may have you hunting beasts or monsters, recruiting a number of allies, gathering artifacts, or just beating up other players. There are far more goals than even that, just to point out. Everything you try to gain in your goal will come from an event deck that you reveal cards from on every turn after you make a move. You might find that daunting to depend on luck of the draw to complete a goal, but fear not. The board will help you.

STARTING ZONES: The white flares around the edges of the board are the starting zones. Since the game supports 2-6 players, there are 6 zones. The player who goes first gets first choice of where to start. Starting at the right spot can put you closer to map points that support your goal. But even if you are on the losing end of that equation, there is a way around it.

AIRPORTS: If you look closely, you can see three airplane symbols on the map. When you land on a plane you can immediately continue your movement via any other plane on the map. Trivial fact: At least two of the airports are positioned where real airports are in the real New York City.

DRAW 2: When you land on a number 2, you get to reveal 2 cards from the event deck instead of one with no other restrictions. A normal move only reveals one card.

FOCAL POINTS: The red X's on the map are Focal Points. When you land on one, you reveal 3 cards from the event deck with a couple of restrictions. One, you can't evade or run away from anything that comes at you. Two, if there are freebie cards in the reveal, you can't have them unless you defeat any threats that appeared with them. The only control you have is if there are multiple combats or traps. In those cases, you only have to do one combat and you can discard the rest. Same for traps. But a combat and a trap will both stay and you must deal with both before you can take an item or artifact from the focal point. As an additional bonus to this, if you succeed against all threats of a focal point and there is an artifact, you do not have to make the obtain roll for the artifact. It becomes free.

FORCE POINTS: A force point is a location on the map that allows you to make a die roll on a d20 to force a specific card type from the event deck. For any of these points, you roll a 15 or more with no modifiers and you get to reveal until the specified type comes out. Then you shuffle the other cards back into the deck. A card forced cannot be evaded, so be careful. There is a symbol for each card type that can be forced from the deck to achieve your goal:

Pot of gold: Shop: force an item card

Ancient Ax: Museum: force an artifact

Paw Print: Zoo: force a beast

Tombstone: Cemetery: force a monster

Letter H: Hero base: force a good character

Letter V: Villain base: force an evil character

HOSPITAL: The red heart with a cross is the hospital. You can land there for a chance at healing yourself.

ZONES: Each colored location of the map is a zone that caters to a certain type of threat card (except Staten Island). In those zones, when a card of the zone type is revealed, you cannot evade it and it has +2 attack against you in combat. 

Bronx: Monster zone

Queens: Beast zone

Brooklyn: Villain (evil character) zone

Manhatten: Hero (good character) zone

The odd ball on these is Staten Island, the power zone. For each time you enter Staten Island (so long as you didn't start your turn there) you get to roll a d20. If you roll 15 or higher, you get a power from the power deck. The limit on powers is 3, so you might have to pick and choose. There are other ways to get powers built into the game so no worries if you can't get to that side of the map enough.

Any marked location on the map falls under a rule that you cannot start your turn on it, move away and go right back to it. You have to leave any one marked space for an entire round, before going back to it. If your movement allows you to reach another marked space of the same type, that is a legal move. 

And that's the board! What do you think? Enough action to go around? Tell me your thoughts in comments and thanks for reading! Remember to check out the links in the upper right for the books and the original game!

Updates March! New covers and game art!

Greetings heroes! Today I have things to share and the first is a brand new cover for Chessmen: Opening Moves designed by Scarlett Rugers of the Book Design House. If you are even a budding author looking to take serious steps, you should consider her services. She is an award winning designer and a published author herself. So check out the link and visit her page. I just love what she did for Chessmen's first book as you can see here.

As if that weren't cool enough, for now you can get the kindle of the first book of the series for just 99 cents. Far out! Just hit the book links up on the right or HERE and grab it!

I recently finished the last image for game cards for the next installment of the board game series for Galaxy Zento. This game will come with a brand new board with more interactive spaces covering an entire map of New York City. It will have Cursed Artifacts and we are going to look at some of those right here!

This edition of the board game will be directly attached to the novel, Chaos Rising (you saw the new cover for that in my last entry).

The Hearse: The Hearse is a living artifact and a being filled with hate and murder. It's indestructible and will go around the board ramming into players and dealing some damage. If you're lucky and your dice rolls are hot, you can wind up controlling the Hearse which can lead toward victory. No spoilers for the novel so I won't tell you just how nasty Hearse is to deal with by the heroes.

Hourglass of Time: If you get a cursed artifact in the game, you cannot simply rid yourself of it and it limits what other objects or artifacts you can use. And you can't always avoid using them either. The hourglass forces you to use it every time you have a turn. When you do, you get to increase or decrease counters on other players cards by one. This could risk them winning the game, if you want to increase damage that they have taken. OR, it could keep them from winning by reducing their goal tokens. Either way, you risk carrying a bullseye as players come after you for this artifact.

Skull of Sphidra: This macabre helm make of giant spider skull will give you psychic abilities but turn you into a monster in 3 rounds. It will change your character card into the card for Sphidra herself. It will change you from good to evil. The only way to change this, will be for other players to destroy you. And they will have little choice since you can attack all of them at once regardless of board position.


This will be the biggest event deck to draw from yet and playable with other sets. And as always, you don't have to read the lore to enjoy the game, but it helps.

Soon I'll be drafting up the very first edition of the newsletter with even more content that you won't see anywhere else. So be sure to SIGN UP for the mailing list so you don't miss one awesome thing! That includes downloadable printable black and white color sheets for the kids (or yourself). Character spotlight origins! And even flash fiction stories just for readers who sign up!  On top of that, you get Chessmen Opening Moves free just for signing up. Awesome!

Till next time, heroes!

New Year 2017 Update!

It's high time for a new update and what better way to kick off the new year? While planning stories for GZ Tales Volume 3, I've also dug into revisions for the GZ role playing game. This will be an official publication, likely available on Amazon! If you enjoy role playing games that give you lots of freedom and creativity, this will be for you.

GZ RPG will be a percentile and D10 based system. It is a game in a preset universe of characters, monsters, alien races, magics, and more. The old quote of 'everything but the kitchen sink' certainly applies.

It's a game where you get to choose how to build your character by use of Karma points you earn for your side of the balance of good and evil. And yet, you don't have to just good or evil. You can serve Chaos if you prefer and make your life goal the destruction of the balance. It's up to you!

It is a game of magic and super powers so there are lots of cool ways to power up your character creation. At today's count there are over 386 powers and you can roll for your powers on a new character totally at random. For that matter, you can roll your entire character at random if you so desire.

That's not to say there isn't an intelligent side or academic side to the game. There are over 200 possible occupations/academics for characters that give modifiers to dice rolls. Since it's set in a modern day setting, your character could be a person with any kind of actual job before their life turns upside down on adventures.

Still, you can be anything you want with a broad number of alien races also in the mix. You can see prime examples of all this with a visit to the Galaxy Zento Facebook page or even by perusing these blog entries.

I don't have a release date at this time because I'm just jumping in on the revisions now. But there will be updates.

Project work also continues for the board game and it's expansions and accessories. If you haven't jumped into the GZ universe yet, there's no time like the present. The current accessory pack will bring the gods of GZ to the board game. More posts on those completed cards will be coming soon. Currently, I'm halfway through the artwork (and there's been lots of positive feedback!).

That's pretty much it for the current update, but it's a major desk full for me!

Here's hoping you all had a wonderful holiday season and face a new year of all new excitement and adventure.

Iron Maiden founder dies of Multiple Sclerosis

Clive Burr, gone too soon

Let's say you have dreams you want to accomplish in life, like writing books, designing games, or heck, anything. Then lets add something to that, namely a life threatening disease that could take you out anytime it feels like it. Let's put this in perspective.

Do you understand how your body works? At the very end of everything your body does, responsible for everything your body is capable of, is your nervous system. Multiple sclerosis (at a laymen level of explanation) is a disease that eats your nervous system. Now pause and think about that for a second. Every single function of your body, your organs, your senses, requires your nervous system to function.  Without the electric charges of your nervous system, your heart will stop beating. UNDERSTAND? At any time, if you have MS, it could damage the nerve actions required for your lungs to work. It can screw up your swallowing reflex and choke you to death. Got it?

That is what I live with. People tell us to shut up about having MS; that we are just full of excuses. Oh if only that were true. You see, you can get therapy for being "full of excuses". And if I were full of excuses, guess what, you'd never see me complete a damn thing. And what brought all of this about today was this story:

Clive Burr, founding member and drummer for Iron Maiden has died of MS at only 56 years old. He was diagnosed in 2001. Treatment for MS made it hard for him to pay for his home and general life. Think about that. He had amassed something of a fortune by being one of the worlds greatest heavy metal drummers. MS took it all. Would you say his problems were just excuses? Really?

I take copaxone shots to stabilize my MS. They cost my insurance nearly 6000 dollars a month. And still, my legs randomly go out on me, I have strange gasping fits, cognitive fogs, dizziness, and severe fatigue for no discernible reason. I have hand tremors that ruin my artwork and make even general things difficult. My insurance, medicare, lists me as "catastrophic" in coverage. It's a twisted situation.

Now, let's set aside my personal dreams for a moment (namely my universe of Galaxy Zento and all that it has going for it with 4 published books and a board game). I'm also a disabled parent of a young man with autism. Without being able to go out and work a regular job to teach him about life, I have to do something. I can't have him thinking that a disability like mine (without letting him know how easily it could kill me) means giving up on lifelong dreams or even making an effort at life itself. I can't be the disabled Dad who stares at the walls all day. That is what Galaxy Zento is for. It's the job I do to show him how to live, in spite of what holds him back.

And every time someone tells me my artwork isn't good enough or my game isn't good enough to be given any consideration, they actually help me with him. Because when I don't give up, just because people hate on my work, it shows him something. And I can't just wait in life until I can afford to pay someone else to do the artwork. If you can't see why after all you just read, I don't know what to tell you.

I know my art isn't the best you can get. It's cartoony and not seriously "graphic". Its not like a Rembrandt painting. But it's also not like I don't work hard. I work very hard and beyond my capabilities at times. That means I hurt myself to get things done. Hard to avoid actually.

But every single day, I have to wonder if I am going to be able to function for the whole day, or just part of it. That's because MS can take me out at any given level of exhaustion at any given moment of time; no matter what I've actually been doing. I could totally just be sitting on my ass, doing nothing, and crash anyway.

Is it so terrible to want people to understand? I mean, I get it if someone just doesn't like my work and they turn their nose up at it. That's going to happen. But for those who tell me I'm full of excuses, that actually stings at times. Maybe it shouldn't. But over 400,000 people in the US alone have MS. And it totally depends on what area(s) of the nervous system are damaged for each person, but its capable of killing you outright.

Famous people who died of MS

Celebs with MS

Even bigger list

Just to be clear; I don't expect anyone to jump on a bandwagon and buy things from me just because I have MS. I do want people to realize that I'm not your average game designer, not your average artist, not your average author. I'm not even your average parent, husband, or human being. It's understanding and awareness that I'm after. What would you want in my situation or if you have MS. If you do have MS, what is important in awareness for you? Feel free to post in comments.

Homage to MORE guest artists!

Today I want to talk about artists, very particular artists who have agreed to jump in and lend their talent to GZ. Mind you, this is even if they don't have work that's in the set for any reason, they either offered or said yes when I approached them. These are artists you need to know. I'm writing this because I'm grateful beyond words either way.

Big Rob Beltran: This is the man who made my hat. A hat that has lasted for a good 3 years through hot sun and rain storms. It's as awesome as the day I paid 40 bucks for it. This guy will put anything you want on a shirt, hat, shoes and even a bicycle! Check out his Deviant Art page HERE. He's well known in his area conventions and heralds his own special artistic style. People know me better for my hat than without it. That's thanks to this guy.

Dave Bain: Keeping the hits rolling, you get the amazing styles of this artist who is also on his own convention routes. I got to meet him at Southern Geekfest and hope to do so again. He has a sharp line style that's hard to miss. Check out his work HERE. I can tell you he already picked what he wants to do from the card list, but I'm not going to reveal that today. You'll just have to be surprised.










Gavin Michelli: Another of my good friends with Southern Geek who I met at the convention and every bit as talented as anyone on this list. Check out his amazing TMNT work right HERE. The colors will blow you away.

Ken Davis: Rounding out a trio from Southern Geek (they are an awesome bunch of people check them out), is this man. He's already contributed and at both cards have been shown off online so far. If you missed them, just check past blog articles or visit the Facebook page via links upper right. Ken also has his own signature style and some bookwork under his belt that you can check out HERE.













Billy Barnette: He was the first to jump in and offer assistance in the art and he's been a great help. He also has his own distinct style and a few of the cards he's helped with have been posted! His work has been freelance of late, but I did do a guest artist spot on him some time ago and his work could be seen HERE.

Kevin Woolfork: Speaking of prior articles, I wrote on on this man too. He did the gridwork for the first game board and now he's back! Just look at what he did for my character, Major Xeroh! And of course you can see his work HERE.  What he's going to do for the game cards coming up; well, you'll see. Kevin is well versed in photoshop and great with his colors too.





Jay Morgan: I've mentioned my fellow local author before and I'll mention him again. Examples of his art will show strong colors. For now, I can only send you to his authors page HERE. But you can be sure he's going to fit on this list just as well as the rest.

Ali Lamkin: Last but not least and newest is this man. He's a great form artist with talents he hasn't shown us yet, but just look. The pic is drawn by him and colored by Kevin Woolfork.

Some people may wonder what I'm doing. Well, over half the art is still being done by yours truly with some new twists and tricks. I'm working hard to get this together so that Galaxy Zento the board game will be as truly customizable as it's meant to be. You can bet there is going to be so much more to show and very soon.

Pre-Summer Update! Seriously Good!

There is a ton of stuff going on and it is seriously good. Let's kick things off today with the drawing that is still gathering names for this pile of goodies (plus a sweet black coffee mug!). I've decided there will be runner ups for additional prizes because this has gone pretty well in gaining interest! To spell out what's in the picture (or what you get so far) it's a copy of each of my games; The Galaxy Zento Adventure game and Marshmallow Fight (the links will take you to their Gamecrafter pages), a complimentary bag of marshmallows, a sample card for GZ's first expansion set, a cool magnet, and all four of my books that set the lore for GZ. The edition of Marshmallow Fight is a prototype edition but it still looks and plays great.

HOW TO GET IN ON THE DRAWING: You just visit the GZ Facebook page and follow the instructions in the pinned post. It's really simple. You make sure you hit "like" for the page and share the pinned post. That's it! I'll get an alert and put your name in! Sorry, for US residents only this time.

If you don't want to deal with all that but Marshmallow Fight looks like crazy fun to you, it's on sale NOW for 23.99 on TheGamecrafter. Just hit the link above to order your copy! Of course, I'll be signing everything from the giveaway (wink). You do get an improved game in several ways with ordering though, I must admit. Only in a few small ways though.

So let's talk about Marshmallow Fight for a second. What is this? The name alone sounds like crazy fun. Well it is! It's a game for 3-6 players (but you could feasibly have more than that) ages 6 and up that last for about 15 minutes per game. The win condition is achieving 10 points before anyone else. You do that, by completing stunts with, you guessed it, marshmallows. Each player takes a turn revealing a card from the 36 card stunt deck and doing the stunts that they reveal. It's just that easy! There are two things that the game calls for that don't come with it; a bag of marshmallows and a clean dry coffee cup. But marshmallows are cheap and everyone has at least something like a coffee cup right? Oh, I neglected to mention that you will be throwing them at each other at some point in the game, possibly more than once. Hence it's name!

The game is easy to learn but the stunts may just have you rolling.

In additional news, I'm nearly finished with the first draft of Chessmen book two, The Queen's Gambit where the Chyssian solar system is in greater danger than ever when a plot to kill the Chessmen backfires. If you read the first book and though it was packed with action, book two will positively blow you away.

After that it's time to get to work on the first expansion for GZ the Adventure game to make it even crazier than it already is. That's the awesome thing about making this game customizable. This set is going to add so much to play.

That's it for this update, stay tuned, there is always more on the way!

Early schedule for 2016!

Oh yes! 2016 is starting with a bang. I have two events to tell you about and you can bet I'm planning on having plenty of goodies to hand out!

I'm so honored to have been invited to these events, I can't even relay it in effective words. Just so you all know.

Bar Con at Bad Wolf! Starting at high noon on March 12th will be a con unlike most I've ever heard of. It will be held at the Bad Wolf Bar and Grill in Marrero, Louisiana. I'm going to be there with my wife. We will have the books, the board game, and goodies! My wife will also have some great geek stuff from her project (partnered with GZ) Passions by Pecanflower. I'll get more into her work in a minute! This really looks to be a unique and amazing event!

Southern GeekFest! April 2nd and 3rd will see us in Hattiesburg, MS for the first ever of it's kind, Southern Geekfest con! You best check out the link because the guest list is already huge! I can already tell that, for being a new con, it's going to be mind blowing! Again, dear wife will be with me and you can meet us both! More books, games and goodies!

For the creative schedule, my next direct projects are finishing Chessmen 2 and getting work done on the expansion set for the board game. This first expansion of cards are really going to spice up the game. You're going to have the ability to tailor your game experience with all new characters, artifacts, and spells. There's even a CURSED artifact! The art is going to take some cool new directions with guest artists to make the game even more unique. The next expansion after this will actually have a new board with bearing a new location and new effects! I'm really excited about this.

The schedule follows the books that have already been released, so you can get an inside view by reading the stories.

Now I want to tell you about Passions by Pecanflower. My wife Lisa Hale makes the coolest crocheted geek things in our given area. Her best work by far has been the Dr. Who scarf. But she's great at so very much. The link is to her Facebook page. Don't worry, she'll be posting more there soon. But she makes dice bags, geek scarves, and pretty much anything else. Her prices are good too. She'll have some works to show off at the events mentioned right next to me. Be sure to add her page to your favorites!

That's the update for now but there is so much more to come. 2016 is going to be a great year!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2015! Year in Review

Well, it's been quite a year. Ups and downs, ins and outs, and all of it survived to bring us to this holiday season. It's amazing. My wife and I just celebrated our four year anniversary and I couldn't be happier for that. It was a great day. She's been by my side for so much that is GZ. She's the editor and proof reader for the stories and my morale support.

I put two books out this year; Chaos Rising and GZ Tales 2. I haven't been able to keep any stock on my person or send to all the people on my list to send to, but there is so much in process that such will change. I'm listed as a guest for a great convention coming up in Spring (Southern Geekfest) and there will be more on that as the date gets closer.

Early in the year I tried my hand at Kickstarter, but a severe concussion ended that. I don't know if it would have been successful or not, but it really doesn't matter at this point. The work goes on. Putting the board game out with The Game Crafter has been excellent exposure for the game. People who have played it have reported it as a fun game and it made an appearance at Geekonomicon this month with the help of a good friend and supporter at the con, Steve Huckabee.

So the official score is two books and a board game. That's pretty darn good for a year's work.

Guest artists have stepped forward this year too and I couldn't be more grateful. Billy Barnette helped out with several illustrations that will be in the expansion set for the board game. Other artists are in consideration for the upcoming year where most of the work will take place to put the expansion together.

The art you see in this post is holiday art from last year, but it still holds up to festive theme and I am working on new art as well as improvements.

I look forward to blasting into a new year with a wonderful fan base of people all around. So happy holidays and every other way you look at this time of year. May all of you be blessed, happy and safe. See you next year!

Still Seeking my A-Team

It's no big secret that I'm still looking for a team to take GZ to the next level. While I do have a couple of people pitching in some artwork here and there for the board game expansions, I'm definitely seeking more than that.

I want to find someone who can be committed to the project from beginning to end. Not just an artist who does a few illustrations and walks, but someone willing to do more than that. I need people to help me get the word out and take on social media marketing, preaching to the masses, and yeah; even selling some games. Someone with a work ethic that may even rival my own (and mine is pretty strong if I do say so myself).

GZ can totally go places and I know it can. That's why I'll never stop creating, doing the artwork, or writing or trying to sell the game and get it in peoples hands.

I know what I seek is not a small or minor request. It comes with all the risks of failure that anyone could dream of. I've certainly taken some hard knocks in moving forward. But look, I'm still here. That  has to count for something. As a partner, I don't think you could find anyone more serious about it.

But it will take commitment and hard work with rolled up sleeves to make it happen. I'm not looking to give out ownership, but do know that I never forget those who help me and I will give back. Upon success, it's like this. If the game makes money, YOU make money. If I make money, YOU make money.

You have to be strong, have geek roots and be willing to work with me.

Who has what it takes to be part of my A-Team? Well, here are the places I want to go:

Graphic novels
App Games
Video Games
Card Games
Board Games
Already doing novels and short stories to establish a history.
Coloring Books

GZ needs a pro website with all the bells and whistles. It needs consistent and cool art postings of the characters in action. It definitely needs better pics of the female characters! I admit it.

The person or persons I'm talking about would have access to the GZ Facebook page as Admins so they can freely post GZ stuff and same for any websites or the blogspot. I do have a couple of people in mind that I'm about to approach, but we will see what happens.

How game are you? Are you who I'm looking for?

Galaxy Zento Heroclix!

No, no, I'm  not actually getting my characters made into clix yet. Sorry, I sure wish I were. No, today I'm diving into my personal fantasy of having my characters made into clix. What's Heroclix? Heroclix is a tabletop game played on a map. It uses figurines of comicbook characters on special game dials to simulate comic book battles. Here, are a couple of site you can visit to learn about it:

Heroclix.com

HCRealms.com

HeroclixWorld.com

Anyway, it's my fantasy that one fine day my characters will become a set of Heroclix. I will likely do more than one blog on this. Why? Because I've actually made a set and designed dials too! HA! Credit for how I was able to make the dial maps goes to HCRealms. Love those guys. So if you don't totally understand this, it's okay. This post is just part of my dream.

So, allow me to show you the team of PAC (Parahuman Activity Commission), federal agents. They are in my novel Chaos Rising available on Amazon.

SANDSTORM: You see him right there, the worlds most powerful elemental. He has quite a few special powers (black bordered sections). General info for those who don't know the game. Each vertical section of numbers shows up in a special window on the plastic dial base. See the symbols on the left? Those are for (in order from top to bottom) Movement (how many spaces the character can go); Attack (how good the character is at attacking other characters); Defense (the number an attacker has to make with dice to hit this character) and Damage (how many times you turn another character's dial toward KO when this character hits them).

Now back to it. Those who know heroclix may just choke a little at the sight of power like this. His ability to switch up powers serves to show just how many ways he can use his elemental forces. Since he's an elemental/weather controller and shape changer, it all makes sense. He has a high price tag in use since he costs 260 points. You wouldn't see him in lower point games.

ELECTRODE: The Nuclear-Electric Man moves at twice the speed of light and hurls super powered lightning. He's Sandstorm's partner and protege. His points allow for  a duo team with his partner in a 400 point match. I'm confident they'd be dangerous. I should also mention their Team Ability since listed on a team (PAC). When outwitted their defense rises by 1. His trait is powerful, but outwittable, unlike most.

ATOMIZER: He can cause inanimate objects to go atomic by mental command. He can control those explosions to any magnitude (as far as he knows). His favorite object is a ping pong ball. He tosses them at perpetrators to subdue them shockwave style.  He's Redeagle's partner. His special attack power has been done before so it shouldn't be too much of stretch. It lasts his whole dial but his attack numbers aren't outrageous.

REDEAGLE: The Native American hero with animal senses, super strength and a wicked eye for shooting. He and his partner Atomizer fit nicely in a very small team for 200 points. They would also work well for general built teams. I think his dial is really pretty basic for sharpshooter character with a couple extra powers.

BLACKTIDE: This dial demonstrates his disintegrative powers and all the ways they work. He punches through defense like a champion and it's nearly lethal to attack him up close. Fortunately, he has to get fairly close to be dangerous. But that's where his partner, Nyhtwulf comes in.

NYHTWULF: The Twilie demon who is Blacktide's partner, point costed to be with his friend. It's dangerous to attack Blacktide up close, and dangerous to attack his partner from range. Never mind the fact that Nyhtwulf can carry a friend 12 spaces. They can almost human shield each other.

So playing them all together as one massive team will cost 849 points. Not awful for a large point team. I don't think they are terribly off balance either. Each team of two fits in a team point category and should be able to hold their own there. So, Heroclix fans, what do you think of my guys as clix? What would you do differently? Let your voice be heard in comments and have a great day!

End of summer update

Lots of promising things going on as Summer draws to a close. I didn't give away half as many things as I wanted to, but there was no helping it. This summer's accomplishments have been few but very good. Releasing Chaos Rising (novel) and the board game were no small potatoes. Both were long in the making. Now it's time to get the next book of short stories done along with some artwork for the first game expansion.

Recently there has been a lull in development as I get my son ready to go back to school. I get the feeling this is going to be a big year for him. Primarily he's in 8th grade, but the school works with him where his actual strengths are. His math is back a couple grades, but the plan is to catch him up so he can go on to high school. If that means another year at the school he's attending, it will be worth it.

Sports season is coming in full swing and my wife will be doing scoreboards at the radio station. Weekends are going to be fairly closed off for a lot of things. But I'll use the extra time to keep on creating and writing. I have plenty to do.

Come January, we hope to make a trip to New Orleans for a new place that's opened up there. I've med the owner on Facebook and I'm excited about checking it out. It's called the Bad Wolf Bar and Grill. They are going to have gaming and other nerd geek ventures going on there. My game may be making an appearance. Be sure to check them out.

In the coming months I will be getting my game out into people's hands and into cool places. Exposure is promising. Speaking of exposure, my books got into people's hands this summer with three freebie specials. I can only do a freebie giveaway like that once every 3 months for each book, but it was a success.

It is not easy to be seen in the endless ocean we call the internet. I strive to learn all I can about acceptable ways to market myself and my work. Sometimes I think it would be easier to defuse complicated explosive devices, but one can never give up. You give up and guarantee you'll be invisible before you know it.

With my son at school, I'll be taking advantage of some quiet time to really get some stuff done. At least that's always the plan up front. You never know what's going to happen to challenge your efforts. Best laid plans right?

Tabletop, Wil Wheaton, and Internet Judgment

(Language warning)

Incidents with Wil Wheaton's blog last week created an uproar on the net of tidal proportions. Who doesn't know that Wil Wheaton runs the coolest game demoing show on the net? If you haven't watched Tabletop, you are missing out. Alas, his third season has had some problems that he comes out to explain in the following of his blog posts:

TABLETOP, KINGDOM BUILDER AND SCREWING UP THE RULES

CRITICAL FAILURE

Before I get too far, I'm going to quote Wil on that second blog post where he says something that hits remarkably close to home for me and my project.

Note that first sentence. It's of incredible importance. It's a solemn reminder that we are human. Something that people seem to want to cast aside when it comes to the internet. You aren't allowed to be human on the internet. The entirety of both those blog posts show that Wil is just that, human. It shows that he deals with all the same bull that someone new to the industry can deal with.

It's also an important lesson in dealing with people who aren't going to like what you do. It's a lesson I learned, but I wasn't prepared for the level of gross "shitting on" I was going to receive. It honestly took me by surprise. As Wil said in his second blog post, he may not have responded to the issues in the best way he could. Same goes for me. But there are points for everyone when the needling just hits that nerve one too many times.

You're supposed to always be positive and always wear a happy face. But that's not the human thing to do when people are taking that gratuitous dump on your work.

When my art work was attacked; hold on, let me explain that. It felt like being attacked because the feedback consisted of unhelpful negative remarks given in force of numbers. When 8-15 people line up in one comment thread to say things like:

"Your work looks like a five year old did it."
"It looks purposely bad."
"It's abysmal."
"My kid could do better on MS Paint."
"Hire someone else to do it."

It's only natural to feel  outnumbered and it shook me up. Then I had people ask me questions that they clearly didn't want the answers to. When they got the answer they said I was full of excuses. But you know what all that really means? Two things.

-I'll never impress those people with anything. No, Nothing. Accept it.
-Those are the absolute wrong people for me to show my work to.

My artwork is my achievement. Do I expect it to be the permanent face of my project. No I don't. But it's still my achievement. These people have no idea how  hard it was for me to do what I did, and frankly, they don't give two shits.

So I have to get this going in my mind. When someone lines up to shit on my work, I need to dismiss them. I have too much to do to worry about their woes. If they have a constructive idea to toss my way, I'm all cool with that. If they just don't like my games or stories. That's fine too.

But even in the practice of that, I'm human. Has being human alienated me? Probably to some degree. I feel bad about that, but I just have to dust myself off and keep working.

I think Wil Wheaton is going to bounce back from this and keep doing amazing things. I'm sure I can follow that example.

I have to stick with the facts that matter too. People who have played my game have enjoyed it. I have published two books. I have actually fully developed and designed a prototype in solid cardboard. These are my achievements. Let no amount of elitist shit ever tarnish them.

Gearing up for Print and Play! And a bit more.

It seems there is some decent demand for games in the Print and Play society. One notable is Cards Against Humanity. There are others too. I'm putting together a print and play version of Galaxy Zento and hope to get it into players hands, for guess how much?

NOTHING.

That's right, pretty simple right? I'm not totally sure how I will make it available. I will likely give it out via email to certain folks who enjoy print and play games or who want to give it a go.

Lining up the pages hasn't been easy. You can see what I've done in Photoshop. The idea is that you print it all out and put the decks together. You can play on any board with a sufficient amount of spaces OR draw your own board with a big ol piece of cardboard, ruler and marker. That doesn't mean I won't have the board available though. Depends on how tech savvy you are when it comes to images and printing. I'm not.

It seems weird to give away my game like that, but the reports I get back is that people who enjoy my game are more likely to order the hard copy. The hard copy isn't available yet as I'm still waiting for a new copy of my game to get to me so I can check the new designs I added. The same designs you see right here.

As for local friends who want to score a copy, I may have a way for them to do so if they wish. I'm still working on that. What I'm considering will require patience however, because I have to have it printed and sent to me before sending to others. But that means a signed copy so you have that to look forward to, if that's a direction I take. I will probably do so at something of a discount from the aimed price of 45 dollars. Maybe 40 plus the 12 dollars shipping.

One thing is for certain, there is a lot more to putting together a game than I even thought of. And I thought of quite a bit.

So, if you would be interested in a print and play copy of my game, hit me up at my Email: Galaxyzento@gmail.com. First come first serve.

Warning: it is a big file and in color, but you can always set your printer to black and white.

Just the start of the summer giveaways!

I'm finally jumping into an area of  promoting that I hadn't before. I'm actually going to give out some seriously cool free stuff.

Tomorrow I will begin with a 3 day event that allows you to get Chessmen, the fantasy novel, for free as the ebook version. All you have to have is the kindle app and you're golden. Guess what, the kindle app is free too! So there's really no reason not to jump in and grab yourself a book. The only thing I hope people will do in return is to return to the Amazon page later on, and do the 'star vote' thing to rate what you read. Even doing that is free. And no one has to write out anything, but if you do I consider that a bonus and I'll be quite grateful! Here is the LINK. But really it's also in the upper right of this page, my author's page.

Each of my books can only have ONE promotion like this in a month, so you can bet, that the book of short stories will be up next and not far behind.

But I'm not stopping there. How many of you would like to have your own print and play version of the Galaxy Zento game? It's a board game, but the cool trick to it is, that you don't actually need the official board to play the game. You can play GZ on any board game with a sufficient amount of square spaces to move around. Put a pair of chess boards next to each other if you want!. More on that will come later for you print and play fans out there, just know that.

I'm also still working on getting the new novel Chaos Rising ready to hit the shelf! It's not far from done, I promise. Then there is the next book of short stories and Chessmen book 2. So work is still being plugged away at.

On the board game front, we may go ahead and make the game available at The Game Crafter for a very fair price of 45 bucks. That is pending the next prototype I ordered this month. When we get a look at it, we will decide the next move. This should not affect print and play.

So much to learn and discover and so little time to cram it all together. I'm working on more than that, but I honestly have no idea what that all will be just yet. So stay tuned, there is more to come!

You're going to fail!

When I was a kid, I wanted to write books and I wanted to be a detective. Yeah, I'm always a mixture of things.

"You'll never be worth anything." Those were the words of my abusive stepmother. I won't go into the things she did because I'm not looking to shock or trigger you. Suffice to say I left home at age 14 to escape the abuse. I showed my determination by trying to travel from Utah to Florida. I started by hiking over the Wasatch mountain front. I was caught and sent home but left again and made it from Kaysville to the Colorado state line.

In my fleeing home I was made a ward of the State of Utah and the social worker assigned to me didn't seem to like kids much. "You'll never be a detective. You'll never be anything." She said it in such a matter of fact tone that I didn't say anything back. But my determination only grew.

I was told to give up on writing because I would never publish. But I proved them wrong on all counts. I joined the army and the 186th Military Police. I became professional security, a bodyguard, and eventually, I became a sort of detective. I became an animal cop and investigated things like animal cruelty and animal fighting. I send dozens of cases to court every year. I wrote official tickets with official fines. So I didn't become Sherlock Holmes, but I still achieved a great deal.

Then MS came along. It wasn't first, but it's here now. So I did the next thing that they said I wouldn't do. I published two books. I'm about release the third. Are they perfect? No, but who is? The fact I carried through to the end in my condition should tell you volumes. But to some people it still doesn't. I must just have a look about me that says "don't take this guy seriously". Yet, my track record continues to prove them wrong. And I'm not done.

Here is the thing. Critics will always look down their nose at everything you do. You can show them that your Facebook page has over 750 likes, but they'll go through and count the likes on independent posts and tell you your page isn't worth it. They'll look at your artwork and say that you should give up and go to paying someone else to do it (never mind that there's way simpler art out there that's making millions, just see Cartoon Network ;) ).

I could have listened to them a long time ago and maybe went to some mundane, who knows what, dead end life (I don't know). But I didn't. I didn't listen to them. Look where that got me. I'm here and I've done more than a few things they said I couldn't do. So if there's anything that my project could teach you, it's that you never give up because they say you're going to fail. You may restart, you may reposition, but you don't give up.

So, it's time to show people what you're made of. Show them that you can do it. I'm certainly not done. Why should you be?

GZ character stat cards!

Some may have noticed that I'm doing my characters from A-Z with some special info. I've hinted at future use for these cards and I wasn't bluffing. These are the first GZ character stat cards. They are based on the formula I use for the role playing game. Yes, I said "role playing game". It's a ways of in the distance yet, but in the meanwhile, you can enjoy the amazing stats and info of these characters.

So what do the numbers mean? In the five stats STRength, ENDurance, SPEed, AGiLity, and MeNTality, you will note a number from 1-10. 1 is the level of a very average human being. 10 is godlike. So, the higher then number you see, the more powerful they are in that stat.

Above that, you see the minimum character level they would start at, their sex/race if applicable, and their alignment from good- evil with personality scale if applicable.

You can clearly read what powers they have and then see any equipment they carry. Don't worry to much about the numbers you see with the equipment. Suffice to say that a number with a + sign is for dealing damage and a number with a minus (-) sign is for reducing damage.

The info section gives you a little bit of insight to the character. There will be a lot of info from stories, so be sure to catch up on the stories of GZ if you haven't already.

Right now, I'm working on this in between other projects What's my current schedule, you ask?

This is my tentative schedule:

Kickstarter for board game (coming very very soon)
Chaos Rising (novel)
GZ Tales 2 (short stories)
GZ Tales game expansion cards
Chessmen 2 (novel)
GZ New York (game expansion with new board)
Wicked Ways (novel to follow Chaos Rising)
GZ Tales 3

That doesn't include the fact that I plan on being at Geekonomicon in December and then Southern Geek Fest next year.

I know you see a lot of reused artwork, but I assure you, I am working on new artwork too! There are definitely exciting days to come. I can hardly wait!

It's time for a Spring drive!

It's time for a web traffic drive! Now I don't know all of the best ways to do that so I'm going to contact some friends and their friends and you! Amazing things are happening and not only could I use some input, but it's a great time to share. Here's the biz as it is for Spring! How many people can we inform about Galaxy Zento? How many people can we bring to the Facebook page (see links upper right). And don't forget that the books are still 99 cents for Kindle and Kindle App!

BOARD GAME UPDATE:
See that image? That's the official design of the board for Galaxy Zento the board game! But I only did the lay out and colors. It got a hot makeover from Kevin Woolfork, whom you might remember as a guest artist! Kevin did this out of the cool goodness of his  heart and there is a package going to go to him as soon as I have the materials (like a free copy of the board game all his own!). He helped me get the grid on the board too. Big thanks to Kevin!

WHO SHOULD I USE?  Help me out here folks. It's going to be time for a kickstarter or something, but I want to go with what people will actually support. If I get no answers, I'll still make my choice somehow. The plan is to break out the board game at Geekonomicon in December! We don't have our table yet, so it's on the list of needs. In order to make things really pop, I need to get some stuff together. Manufacturing on the board game gives us a discount at 250 copies, so keep that in mind. Here are the needs for the convention:

Table: 180.00 (covers two badges for the con)
Chessmen novel (20 copies):  85.00
Short stories book (20 copies): 60.00
Chaos Rising novel (20 copies): 100.00
100 magnets: 30.00
Rack card bookmarks to give away (200): 45.00
250 copies of the board game:  9,750.00

Total aim: 10,250.00

You'll note that hotel isn't listed. People who help will get some equivalent coolness of course! Game copies and more will be up for grabs. Some money will obviously have to go for that but I will be ordering some extras for special thanks on the small amounts.  So here are my options.

Patreon: Allows people to put in a monthly amount over any period of time. May be too slow for this,  and people haven't seemed to want to mess with it before.

Kickstarter: The one most people recommend. Money cannot be tapped into during the course of the drive. So if I need to send money for my table, I can't until the drive is over. But it's fair to work with and I may have two outside sources who will help me spread the word.

GoFundMe: Funds can be tapped into and essentially works as well as Kickstarter with less requirements.

Indiegogo: No major requirements. Not sure about ability to tap into funds before drive is finished. Not sure who has used it so input greatly appreciated.

It looks like there is a lot of competition between Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I doubt Patreon  will be of use except for long term. So, what do you fine folks think? Who should I go with?

FREEBIES? Here's a fun question! What would you like to see for freebies to give out for participation? Do you like keychains or is there something else you think would be cooler? Shoot me your ideas! So far I have had art printed on rack cards and postcards to give away and people have been pretty appreciative of those. I want to make sure I'm delivering a form of cool that my readers and players will love! You now have the opportunity to steer that!

I have to say, my readers are the best! Looking forward to your awesome input!

STORYTIME! While we are on ideas, what character would you like to see a blog story on? And I mean an action packed super short, right here on this blogspot! Post your votes!

MAD MEN OF MARCH! For this month only, you get the chance to pick any two characters to go toe to toe with each other and I'll draw it! The winner gets a print of the art! So post your votes for the Mad men of march and let's see who can pick the best fight!

That's all I have for now! Stay tune and stay posted and keep being the awesome heroes you are!

More teasing on the board game!

As most of you know, I've been busting butt to put together this board game. Plans are still in high gear and it all looks very promising. Today is a special treat. You get to see the cards and what they do, but only a few of them. Nothing is finalized yet in how they look except for one thing. Recently I took votes on doing the artwork with or without borders on the cards. It wasn't overwhelming for one side over an another but a decision has been made. The cards will not have black borders. They will be 'open' in their artwork. I think that will allow me to make the artwork bolder and have it overflow in unique fashion. One thing you can be sure of and that's lots of color.

As a little recap on how the game is played. You start out by picking good or evil as your side of the balance. You get a character type and goal given to you at random. The first person to complete their goal is the winner! But how does this happen? Well, you make moves on the board and every time you make a move you reveal a card from the top of the main deck. Whatever jumps out at you is what you have to deal with. Today, I show you just a few things that will jump out of that deck at you. Ready?

EVENTS: An event is something that can affect everyone or just you. Either way, they shake up game play often. One of the craziest events is the Reality Warp. Reality Warp makes you roll a dice for every card you have to risk it vanishing into the aether. The only things you don't lose are your personal character type and your goal. Everything else is fair game. It's just one of the many things that can change the whole game in the blink of an eye.

TRAPS: Walking into a trap is never fun. You'll have to roll your d20 often to escape them. But some traps can work in your favor. Some traps will hurt other players if they are close enough to you on the board. Take the Explosive device for example. Sure, you get hurt, but so does everyone else. If you goal is to cause damage to other players (<spoiler!) this could be a win, unless it kills you of course.

POWERS: Hoping to get stronger as you travel the board? You may get a power while you are out wandering that helps out your game. Beware, everything is easy come easy go, so make sure you make good use while you can.

ITEMS: Don't you wish people would quit littering the universe? You never know what you'll find out there. Maybe some body armor or a sword? Who knows. But items are geared to make you stronger against the threats you'll face.

ARTIFACTS: While hard to get your hands on, artifacts can make you powerful and even complete a goal (<spoiler!). They can allow you to cast powerful spells or just bump up your numbers.

Then there's the Characters and Beasts that come out at you. Depending on your alignment of good or evil, you will either fight or recruit them as allies. There will be more on them later. I hope this whets your appetite for game play. Stay tuned because there will be more to come! Remember to click on the pictures for a closer view!