Howdy Y’all!
You’ve managed to find your way here, now please stay a few minutes and allow me to introduce myself.
Starting Out
Since I was very young, I’ve been fascinated with “Imaginary Worlds”. As a child, I liked reading the “Hardy Boys”, sure, but I loved “Tom Swift”! As my reading matured, I found myself carting around Robert Heinlein, J. R. R. Tolkien, and as an adult have devoured the novels of Peter Watts.
Once in middle school, I found friends who also enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons (although at that point in time we had to all but do it in secret in darkened basements to avoid being labelled as “deviants”). We would meet on weekends when we could, all the way through high school; and this was the first time I tried to create my own imaginary world instead of borrowing someone else’s.
Growing Up
When I was in college, “on line computer games” became available, most of which were MUDs or Space / Sci-Fi adventures, like Trade Wars.
As life began to get in the way, I found myself having to face “real life problems” a lot more often, and I had to withdraw from the fantasy and release my imaginary realms.
Then, amazingly enough, I found myself looking for a game to play with my kids that would involve math, logical reasoning, and imagination. Voilà! Dungeons & Dragons came back to the dinner table.
I started out running my kids through ‘prefab’ adventures I had kept in a box for year upon year, and they loved it. Then, excited (and pretty much OCD in desperate need of a creative outlet) I figured I’d start writing my own as well. Over the five to six years that we played off and on on weekends, I amassed quite a few adventures ranging up to the 10th level. Some written by me, some written by my kids. But all reminded me of the fun I had had playing that game since I was their age.
Evolving
In the late 1990s, when I was able to acquire my first Silicon Graphics Iris workstation, I started mucking about with 3 Dimensional Visualization Software. I started off slow, and then ended up actually breaking down and purchasing commercial software around 2004. I loved making landscapes, and creating the images that, up until then, had only existed in my mind.
The main page background is one such image I rendered. There is a gallery of some of my other sample renders. I also kept striving to work on effective 3D modeling of buildings. Amazingly enough, those buildings always ended up being medieval buildings. Go figure.
Today, Coming Full Circle and Moving Forward
I’m starting to pull together and sanitize the adventures I’ve written over the past 30 years. I’m tying them together with a common plot and have created my own realm for all of the adventures to take place in. In addition to supporting Dungeons & Dragons I’m also trying to make sure that they can also be used with Pathfinder. Once I’ve gotten them to a place where I think that they are ready for the public, I’m hoping to start publishing them.
By “them” I mean about four dozen hand drawn maps, an entire continent with multiple locality backstories, unifying conflicts, and my “Improved Monsters” that inhabit those lands alongside the tried and true Creatures, Vermin, Monsters, and Aberrations.
I’ve also started up the rendering engines again, and am focusing on modeling more than landscapes, and considering even some simple animation and maybe even some simple games. I’m hoping to get enough models built that each of my adventures, when published, will also have a customer rendered image or building that gives it a uniqueness.
