SchlockMercenary

Celebrating Howard with a BOGO deal

Greetings Patrons!

It is Howard's birthday next week and to celebrate we're offering a special Buy One Get One Free deal on all the digital downloads in our store. 

This deal lasts until March 15 and will be automa...

Progress on XDM2e with Bonus Puzzle Sneak Peek

Greetings Patrons,

This week we've got another page spread GIF from the XDM2e project. (Latest full update here, If you want to place an order for the book you can do that 2022-01-07 23:28:53 +0000 UTC View Post

Work Continues on XDM2e

Greetings Patrons!

Here is a glimpse of some of the art that Howard has been doing for the past several weeks. This is for the X-treme Dungeon Mastery 2nd Edition project that we ran a Kickstarter for last August. (You can read details about the project 2021-12-17 18:17:05 +0000 UTC View Post

XDM2e Continues to Progress

We're working our way through the book from beginning to end. Howard draws pictures, Sandra pushes text around on pages to update the design around the images. We still have work to do to finalize the set up, but each pass through a set of pages makes it better.

New Project: X-treme Dungeon Mastery Second Edition

Greetings Patrons!

We wanted to make sure that you are aware that we've launched a Kickstarter project for a second edition of X-treme Dungeon Mastery. 

Click here to see the project!<...

Hangout and Time Lapses

Greetings Patrons!

One of the things that Howard and Sandra intend to be working on in the next months is providing additional content specifically for Patrons. Today we have two things for you.

1. On May 7 we will be hosting a Schlocker Hangout from 6-8pm MDT. So put that on your calendar. We'll have a way for yo...

Time Lapse: Outlining a Bonus Story

I've been spending a LOT of my art cycles on TypeCastRPG stuff. Sandra reminded me that I do have actual deadlines for OTHER things, and asked what my progress on those looked like.   Here, then, is a time-lapse of what the progress looks like.

We're all fine here now. How are you?

We've been self-isolating pretty rigorously here at Chez Tayler. Sandra goes shopping once per week, and Howard doesn't go anywhere except the back yard, where he'll occasionally have shouting-distance conversations with the neighbors. None of us are sick, which is nice, and we'd like to keep it that way.  

That sa...

Holiday Sale

We're holding a holiday sale from now until December 5. Use coupon code 2019HOLIDAY to get 10% off your entire order.  Including the items which are already on sale.

Thank you again for all your support.

Kickstarter for Big Dumb Objects is Live!

We want to make sure Patrons get the earliest possible notification that our Kickstarter is live. We'll have updates about your special access to Kickstarter perks later. 

2019-10-22 16:55:51 +0000 UTC View Post

New Merchandise Alert

Greetings Patrons,

We have a couple of special new store items with limited quantities and we wanted to alert Patrons first before we announce to the general Schlockiverse. 

First: 2019-10-14 15:41:12 +0000 UTC View Post

Kickstarter is live!

Greetings Patrons,

Our Kickstarter for Schlock Mercenary books 14 & 15 is now live. Please come and help us meet the funding goals. We plan to do special extras for Patrons as various stretch goals are met. You can find the project here:  2018-10-16 14:02:25 +0000 UTC View Post

Fobott'r Numerology

Here's a quick snapshot of the spreadsheet I'm using to keep track of Fobott'r numerology, which enters into things like Fobott'r names. 

The first six numerals are about the Fobott'r body. They have two legs, four three-fingered hands, and one head. Numbers 7 through B (11 base 12) are external to the body. (The Fobott'r...

Five Billion Years, Four Panels

Here are the inks for an upcoming strip in which the formation and stabilization of planetary systems is used as the setup for a punchline.

The punchline and narration are not included here. Gonna make you wait for those.

I considered inking the starfields rather than letting Travis layer one of his blue-hued starfield...

Cover Art Time Lapse

Last week I posted the rough pencils for the DELEGATES AND DELEGATION cover art. Here is the series of scans taken from the beginning of the penciling all the way to the final line art (no colors yet.)

When the pencil lines disappear at the end it's not because I erased stuff. I scanned in black-and-white mode, and all t...

Cover Pencils, Delegates and Delegation

Work-in-Progress

This will be another one of those covers where you can confidently say "this scene was never in the book."

The penciling isn't done. The corner above Schlock's hand needs to be tightened up a lot, and all the architecture lacks detail in the horizontal plane.

The scan has been post-processed a bi...

Juno + Hubble = Wallpaper

I was perusing the PJ11 images for views of Jupiter's horizon, and I was not disappointed. So I turned it into a wallpaper. Unfortunately, the original image was plain black above Jupiter's horizon, so I decided to add a Hubble image.

My only concern is that people will look at this and think it's real, so I put a faint g...

Sketchbook 10

This  sketch page shows some rough sketches of lightning storms inside Eina Afa. It also shows some of Howard's scripting notes. These are from the book Broken Wind and describe the action from this week of strips. Comparing the scripting no...

As the Year Closes

Greetings Patrons,

Since Patreon decided to not implement their fee changes, updates here will continue as normal. For anyone who no longer wants to donate through Patreon, we have a Paypal button on the main Schlock site. We'll continue to explore other options, but for now Patreon seems to provide the best mechanism for allo...

Patreon's Announced Fee Changes

Greetings Patrons,

Yesterday we got word from Patreon that, beginning on December 18th, they will change their fee structure. 

Here’s the short version: you’re going to be charged more than you have been in the past, and we’re concerned about this. The rest of this message h...

End of Year Sale

 Greetings Patrons,

We'd like to draw your attention to some special end-of-year deals that may be useful to your holiday gift giving plans. Be sure to check the next Patrons only post, which will have a coupon code good for 15% off of your purchases.

Our 2017-11-23 19:49:47 +0000 UTC View Post

So, Photoshop Crashed...

I had just done a "save for web" of this preliminary take on a desktop wallpaper featuring Bristlecone when Photoshop crashed. In fact, my whole PC crashed, complete with a QR code for the error.

"Save for Web" means I hadn't actually saved my work in a way that would let me make meaningful tweaks. The laye...

Hiring Out Design Work

When Howard was coming up to the conclusion of the latest Schlock book online, he knew he needed to create designs for Ot Skadak warriors, but he was really pressed for time in advance of all the August travel. He was complaining about this in the kitchen when our daughter Keliana said "I can do that" and vanished into her room....

Kickstarter Announcement

Greetings Patrons,

We've just launched a Kickstarter for Deluxe RPG Screens made to look like Schlockiverse handbrains. In keeping with our attempts to give you all special access to merchandise, we want to make sure that you have this announcement before Howard blogs about it on the Schlock site on Wednesday. This means you h...

More Pixels!

Patrons at the $5.00 level can read the comic in high-resolution on supported devices, which until this morning pretty much meant "mobile devices." We've¹ just deployed a new site layout that will let patrons see the higher resolution goodness on ordinary PC/Mac browsers. 

The screen real-estate required for this came fr...

Ad-Free and Hi-Res

Sandra here. Howard is locked in his office making comics.

We'll be updating and upgrading the Schlock Mercenary Patreon in the next few days. 

1) Patreon supporters at the $2.50 level and above will get ad-free browsing, and can read the archives a week at a time. This will be in addition to the re...