The Home Stretch

I've managed to make a lot of progress on Mutants & Marvels this past week.  The editing on the improved version is more-or-less done.  Yesterday, I think I managed to detail out the final piece that was missing from the Powers section (though I'm sure there are others).  I even managed to score some nifty artwork from an old friend.  Right now, the last step I have is to finish the new cover image to my liking.

I'm doing that one on my own.  I started by referencing some iconic images from comics, just to get the right body positions and overall shape.  I did a rough sketch in Photoshop, and then started digitally inking it.  But, I'm not very good at that, and it's really time-consuming for me.  So, I printed the rough sketch on paper, and started detailing the costumes and inking it with a pencil and pen.  It's looking good, and now I am just waiting for my wife to design her character's new costume, so I can implement it.  Then it's back to Photoshop for coloring.

From the very beginning, most of the artwork has been centered around characters created by myself and others for the now (sadly) defunct City of Heroes MMO (the original cover image was a commission of my main character, Dynamo-Man, and my wife's first character, Diana Cutthroat, who ended up being romantically involved in the game itself).  In fact, that game has even inspired a few elements in my writing (my city of New Sparta is meant as an homage to Paragon City).  In my mind, the "Avengers"/"Justice League" of the Mutants & Marvels setting is made up of heroes that I played and fought alongside in CoH.  I might even roll a few up, and include them in the final product as NPCs, or even playable characters.

(In fact, if you ever played CoH with me, and you would like one of your old characters to be immortalized in this game, or maybe a future supplement, roll him or her up and email me!)

But anyways, the revamp of the game is just about complete.  I hope to have it up at RPGNow soon, with a PoD version available there soon after (I have already taken down the Lulu version).  The new PoD version will be letter-sized, with B&W interior art.  Mainly because I find that I like that better, and it reminds me of the original game.