by Leo Hartas | Mar 30, 2017 | Computers, Drawing Equipment, Fighting Fantasy, Game books, Game Development, General, Illustration, Kickstarter, Old work, Organisation
Last September Megara Entertainment approached me to colour the special edition release of The Temple of Flame, in the Golden Dragon Game Book series, written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, that I had illustrated in the early 80s. It was the first project I had done that required me to do some research and find visual reference about the Mayan civilisation. I remember Dave sent to a book with a handful of drawings in it of Mayan art and temples, and I remember going to my local library in Seaford to dig out more. At just 19 I knew nothing of Mayans and it is one of the wonderful aspects of illustration that for various jobs I had reason to learn about new subjects. Of course I would get distracted and end up straying into other books on the very limited shelves of the local library.
That distraction is now a major issue that requires an iron will to resist in the age of the internet. Although I now have the mind blowing resource of virtually all human knowledge, and every possible visual reference on any subject at my fingertips, I have to struggle all the time to avoid endless distraction.
I coloured them all using Clip Studio Paint.
Here for your delectation are the first 6 illustrations to Temple of Flame. I’ll roll out the others over the following weeks.
by Leo Hartas | Sep 24, 2014 | General, Organisation, Small business
I’ve been freelance for all my working life and struggled with organising my time. I have a feeling that most people in regular work think the self employed barely do any work between watching day time TV, and meeting other freelancers in trendy coffee shops. I can’t remember when I last did either of those! My biggest problem is organising the mass of stuff I have to do as I have no boss to tell me, no assistants or diary keepers. I can’t help thinking that others do all this effortlessly. How do you manage it all, or is it more like constant crisis management like me? Over time I’ve developed list keeping on paper or computer and it kind of works ok, but I’ve just stumbled upon something that I thought would make it fun too and appeal to my game loving side too. It’s open source so it’s free and it’s called HabitRPG, and it’s on PC and Android. I don’t know how it’ll pan out, but I can’t wait to don my armour, grab my battle-axe and start slaying my evil foes such as the sinister necromancer, Tax Return, the suppurating life draining armies of DIY Job, and the vile pus-leaking slime monster, Regular Exercise. Let the battle commence!
Apparently you can play with others, I’m not sure how it works but if anyone out there wants to join me on the quest let me know!
