Singularity is out!

The Singularity System is out!

Go and buy it if you like:
-Roleplaying games
-Science fiction
-Mechs, starfighters, and starship battles
-Awesome shit

Oh, hello!

I have some cool news!

(http://www.endtransmissiongames.com/singularity.html)

Singularity System comes out in THREE WEEKS! Holy crap!

Do you like science fiction? Do you sling them dice? Are you a badass? (Of course you are.)

Do you like well-designed, well put together games, made with lots and lots of love?

Check us out! And follow us on @ETGames or on facebook (facebook.com/EndTransmissionGames) for more updates as we get closer!

Powered Armor!

This bitch has shoulder cannons all up in her pauldrons and she don’t care who knows it.

Not that anyone would want to steal my crappy roughs, but this art is (c) End Transmission Games LLC.

Mmm, delicious layout…

Surfacing yet again. Very excited about what’s going on with the Singularity System. Almost all the art is done. Except mine, of course…

Oh, I’m sorry, is that a badass spread from Singularity? Sweet.

Being in the throes of layout is my favorite part of the job, but it’s also the most stressful. I still feel like we’re in crunch time just trying to get this sucker shipped out to us in time for Origins (which, by the way, you should totally come to and say hello to us).

But I like putting together the puzzle pieces when laying out a book, seeing it come together right in front of my eyes. All the little parts that are cool alone, but awesome in concert. I like putting together the jumble of autoflow words and tables into something that – I think – looks pretty darn fine.

And that’s all she wrote, folks!

My little “helpers”

So, I’ve been itching to paint lately. Digital painting, mind – I’ve never been trained in the real medium. I’m afraid all my forays into actual wet media have ended in misery. But Photoshop and I get on just fine, for the most part.

I was excited to take the opportunity for the illustrations for our next release, Singularity, but then disaster struck.

Disaster, in this case, is brown, has four paws, one curly tail, and two very large ears.

This is ETG’s dog mascot, The Artful Dodger. Little did we know, when we named him, that his name would be incredibly apt. Dodger does not just have a taste for my non photocopy blue Prismacolors, but also my Wacom Intuos5 stylus’. I pluralize this because, of late, he has gone through three of them. That’s right – $180 worth of stylus has ended up inside this dog’s maw.

Before you call me an irresponsible tablet owner, I’d like to introduce you to Dodger’s accomplice.

This is ETG’s cat mascot. Lazarus Long, aka “Lazlo”, aka “Mister Mittens”, has been Dodger’s fast friend since they met in November. I was worried when we brought a cat home from rescue as a snap decision that there might be trouble. Well, there was, but it wasn’t the kind I expected.

Lazlo, you see, can open drawers. He can open drawers up high. He likes to take out fun and neat things from the drawers to bat around. Then the dog eats those fun and neat things. Those fun and neat things usually end up costing a lot of money, because electronic devices are their forte.

It think it’s Lazlo’s revenge for my calling him “Mister Mittens”, but I refuse to relent to terrorism.

These helpful critters are not the only reason I haven’t any illustration offerings lately, but they are not wholly innocent either. It’s a good thing they’re cute, but I’m hoping one of these days they’ll go out and get some jobs to pay off the massive debt they’ve amassed. I wonder if I can write off “animal destruction” on my taxes?

End Transmission Games official website

http://www.endtransmissiongames.com/

I’m finally done with my latest project… the thing that’s been keeping me from making more posts here. I’m pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out.

I figured I’d give you guys a little bit of background on me, at this point. My degree is in television writing; I got my BFA from a conservatory that only accepted 20 students per year. It was a wonderful program and I love writing, but there’s a lot more call for graphic design.

I have taken 1 art class in my senior year of high school; I took one HTML class in middle school; I took a graphic design class in high school too. Finally, I got a brush-up on the newer Adobe products recently. That’s the list of all my Art and Design training.

I’d love to get more classes, though. Namely I want to do a lot more still life and landscape practice. But for the most part, all my A&D work is born of necessity. End Transmission Games LLC is not a big company, and when one of two of its members can only draw stick figures, the rest of the stuff falls to me. I’m lucky I love graphic design, but I do still feel like an imposter 98% of the time, especially next to all the trained and talented artists out there.

Still, I’d say that website ain’t half bad for someone who hasn’t coded in over a decade ;).

Lunacon!

Hello friends,

After having /been buried in work for the past month, we finally made it to the end of Lunacon. Lunacon is a sweet little Sci Fi con in Rye Brook, NY, but it’s sadly a dwindling con as well. All the staff are very nice, but many of the usual folks are older fans. New blood seems a bit hard to come by. Running LARPs in Westchester for almost 8 years, I understand… Westchester is not the most geek-laden of locations.

Still, we had a great time! We spent a long time in the dealers room and met a ton of nice folks, and had a great time on a few panels. Also, I walked away with two arts – the Vitruvian by Sarah Clemens, which Dev and I were both holy crap in love with, and the War Griffin by William O’Connor which… I mean, it was the cover of this year’s program and I just about died when I saw it.

Also, we got to play Eminent Domain, which is a great game! If you like deckbuilders like Dominion, and also space, check it out.

As for End Transmission Games, we managed to get print copies of Phantasm (2010) and Anathema out in time and they looked GORGEOUS. I’m glad we did, because they were pretty popular :).

Well, time to unwind a bit! Back to work tomorrow.

-Mik

I have so much to do!…

…But I’m here instead!

Because I wanted to update you guys on the exciting stuff that’s been going on over here. I’m going to do the brief, bullet-points version, for the sake of my sanity :).

• Our very first booth ever will be at Lunacon 2013 in Rye Brook, NY on March 15-17th. We’re also going to be on some panels, which is very exciting too! Lunacon has always been local to us, but we’ve always missed it for some reason or another. I’m excited to finally be doing it.
• We will be releasing a BRAND NEW GAME at the con! So exciting! And also one of the reasons I’ve been subsisting entirely off of coffee and other stimulants for the past week. You can read a bit more about it on our company page, here! The short version is that it’s an all-purpose science fiction game with lots of fun vehicle and starship combat stuff. We’ve been playtesting it a bunch and I can say it works well for both campaigns and quick pickup space battles between two people. I will hopefully be able to post some teaser art for it soon!
• We’re going to be Kickstartering our next game very soon! For those of you who liked Phantasm (2010), this is another game using the Cinema6 System (and if you haven’t checked out Phantasm (2010) yet… why not? It’s free!). I’d say more but I like mystery so… just stay tuned!
• Our con schedule for 2013 is boss! After Lunacon, we have a booth at Gen Con, which we’ll be sharing with the fabulous Machine Age Productions. For those Shadowrun fans, both the line dev for End Transmission and Machine Age are SR writers, so stop by our booth and say hi (and buy our stuff!). It’s also looking like we’ll be going to Origins Game Fair, and the awesome RetCon in Long Island, NY! And that’s just what we have (mostly) confirmed so far.

“Brief”, right? And I’m almost sure I’m forgetting something :).

– Mik ❤

Happy birthday, mom

I lost my mother a little over a year ago. When these little occasions pass… Christmas, her birthday, mother’s day… it hurts. I like to think she’s with all the little ones we lost to sickness and tragedy.

I drew this for her after she passed. I wish I’d been able to finish one of the many drawings of her I tried to start while she was still with us. You always think there’s going to be more time.

Update!

Hey everyone! It came to my attention today while talking with a dear friend that I don’t post in this blog that often. So I figured I’d give a quick update about what I’ve been up to lately, for the 2 of you who read this on the regular.

• I’ve begun contacting artists for our next release, and we have some REALLY exciting names lined up. I won’t say who because I haven’t finalized the contracts yet, but there’s one fellow in particular who’s done work on one of my favorite game supplements ever. I’m honored to be working with the folks we have so far… and we’re still looking to hire a few more. 🙂
• Working on our con schedule this year! We’re going a bit light on the cons but we’re trying to hit the big ones, and even trying to move forward on dealer space for Gen Con (sharing with a few other Indy companies). We were also graciously invited to exhibit at PAX East which is a huge honor, though we may not be able to make it this year due to budget and scheduling.
• A friend of Devon’s and mine contacted me recently about doing some illustrations for a potential project of his. Knowing this fellow’s creative and design strengths, I’m pretty excited to help out if this dream becomes a reality!
• I’m also working on getting End Transmission Games a real live website, through my novice fumbling with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Hoo-boy, I’m definitely not a programmer, and scarcely a designer, so we’ll see what happens. Hopefully it won’t be too hideous!

In closing, I don’t have any new art. So here’s some old art of an alien swordsman.

-Mik ❤