Tech, Computers, Dungeons, and Drawings!
In the lands of Wundleich, the adventurers Kadmos and Yum pursue fantastical tales of treasure and mystery, slowly unearthing ancient secrets and forgotten lore that could see their world remade…
These characters are played by close friends, who asked that I draw them as part of their ongoing Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Over the course of the summer of 2019, I was lucky enough to be able to teach at the Stem Kids NYC Summer camp. For four weeks between January and August, I taught programming to kids ages 6-13. During lunch breaks, I started a game of Dungeons and Dragons for a group of the kids. The kids decided to name their group “Python” (spelled using the Greek letter) in reference to the programming language I used in my lessons. As both a teacher and tabletop gaming enthusiast, it was amazing for me to see how much fun they all had during the games.
Once upon a time, Aaaron Amnotxy was the promising heir to the noble House Antaniel, they of the Silver Word. Such a bright child, the scribes would say, such promise as with the pen or bow. The sages of the Trials, for all his promise, found him wanting. For the dishonor, the stain of failure upon the name of the House, his father the Lord Antaniel says he is to leave. What realm is there beyond the wood for an elf without a name?
I have played the character of Aaaron in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for the past year – this is a pencil and paper sketch of a scene from his backstory – of the moment he left the elven woods, and left the signet ring of his house behind.
Over the summer of 2019, I was lucky enough to be able to work on a short play written by one of my friends from school, and produced as part of the New York Theatre Festival’s Summerfest series. My role was an aglomeration of sound designer, composer, and sound operator along with lighting designer, stage manager and lighting operator . The show was a short Lovecraftian horror thriller set aboard a stranded antarctic expedition in the early 20th Century.
I created poster art, a musical theme, and sound effects for the production. The show opened with a slightly shortened variant of the theme over which played a narration done by the chair of our school’s theatre department, which is playable from the link below. Although running sound and lighting during a show can be incredibly stressful, this was without a doubt one of the most fun and rewarding collaborative projects I’ve been part of.
Drawn in black and white pencils on toned paper. 2 GE Genesis locomotives hauling a rake of Superliner coaches through the American West, serving the California Zephyr route.
At the crux of light and dark – the Lands Above and the Undeworld – lies a blade both great and terrible; kingdoms have risen and empires routed by its power. Though it yet slumbers, it will one day awake to leave its mark upon our age.
The Doctor is a mysterious figure who wanders the land treating the sick and dying. His name, his home, and even his face are secrets known to few except himself. All that is known is that he seeks the cure for the Plague which ravages the land.
On the dark side of a world locked by tidal forces to its star, a small town glimmers in the frigid desert.
An exploration starship blasts out of Hyperspace, winging its way towards the edge of the galaxy.
This is an animation I made to experiment with and learn to use the 3d animation program Blender, rendered at about 30fps using the Cycles render.
As a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons, I love to have miniature figures for my character. I also love playing tinker and inventor characters, and so when I saw the latest version of the artificer class on Unearthed Arcana (the pdf is on Unearthed Arcana, linked here) I was… excited.
Now, for some context, I’m part of a massive high-school spanning Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) game with my friends, and my character has bounced around a little bit in terms of his class. I was looking for a fun and interesting set of game mechanics, and boy does the artificer have those in spades. So, I took the artificer, choosing the artillerist subclass as the logical choice for someone just coming off of a gunslinger. The big selling point of the artillerist was the ability to build specialized turrets, which participate in combat (These mechanics have been changed in the official release).
A while ago, I bought a miniature figure of my character from the site HeroForge, which I use to mark the location of my character on the battlefield whenever our party engages in combat. Amidst the general excitement about the awesomeness of the new class and the anticipation of our first session in more than a month, an idea came to me – use Tinkercad to make custom miniatures of the turrets I would be placing which I could use alongside my character’s miniature in combat. And so the adventure began.
The first step was to design the miniatures in Tinkercad. To this end, I enlisted the aid of my friend Jawon Lee to come up with interesting concepts for a few of the turrets. The artificer artillerist subclass specifies three types of turrets: Flamethrowers, Force Ballistas, and Defense Turrets. We set to work on concepts, and eventually finished the models you see here. (You can see and download them here)(Jawon completely modeled the turrets on the left and right of the back row, the rest were mine; the little scopes visible on most of the turrets were his idea as well). After a few days of work, we were ready to print.
Now, you may have noticed that the model pictured above has an awful lot of overhangs and hollow areas, normally anathema to most consumer 3d Printers. Fortunately, my school recently acquired a new model of printer which can print both solid, normal plastic and special dissoluble plastic that it uses for supports. Simply placing the model in water (as pictured above) dissolves away the supports, leaving just the original model. Since the materials don’t mix or bond during printing, the resulting edges and overhangs are perfectly smooth. Fun fact – the supports absorb water as they dissolve, so they hang out as a sort of goop for a while before completely washing away; if you’ve ever handled a hagfish, imagine that stuff sorta clinging to the model. Its super cool (and no, I’m not a weirdo, goop is fun and all of you who think this sounds gross need to go and find a hagfish).
After about twelve hours of soaking, the minis came out just about perfectly! because of the small scale, the fine details like the sloped top of the ballista and the tip of the flamethrower barrel came out a bit rough, but in all other ways it was about as cool as can be imagined!
Cheers, and may the dice roll ever in your favor.