Oleg Tsoy

Another step forward!
The orc rogue has been sent off and is now waiting for feedback.

#wip

This commission is waiting for feedback, so I’m moving on.

Just a couple of burning overdue pieces left (from last year… shameful), and then a batch of artworks for D&D players whose characters are literally growing up before my eyes )

#wip

I still both love and hate all kinds of high-tech armor.

I hate the first half of the process, when the main shapes and elements are still trying to find their place - but I love it once I get to drawing all the little details.
#wip

Another commission is now waiting for feedback. This time it’s for Reverse Collapse.

#wip

I haven’t posted a timelapse in ages. Here’s a fresh one straight out of the oven )

The tower has been successfully approved, the DM is thrilled — hopefully the players will appreciate it too.

#timelapse

The living tower piece is almost at the finish line. Just need to finish the foreground with the heroes and do some post-processing.

#wip

I think I absolutely popped off today and sent out four sketches for four different long-overdue projects.

The cover has finally been fully approved. While I’m waiting for the description of the next one, I’m clearing out the rest of the backlog.

But the group seems ready to continue and move into a longer campaign. They already have the pre-gens from Lost Mine of Phandelver, so maybe that’s next ) I might even try running it through Roll20. Hopefully the Mac can handle it in a browser at least )

One technical hiccup: my old Mac doesn’t support the current version of Obsidian, so I had to improvise and run everything from my iPad. It worked, but wasn’t super convenient.

They cleared the entire small dungeon, grabbed all the loot, defeated every enemy, found all the secrets, and even solved the puzzle.

In the very first encounter, the rats nearly wiped the whole party, and I had to pull them back. After that, though, the players handled things much better - I probably could have made it even harder.

Since we used random tokens I happened to have with me, I kept forgetting which token represented which character.

I completely blanked on how spells worked at first and had to spend time digging through the rules to refresh my memory.

I forgot to hand out Inspiration cards and only remembered at the very end when someone really needed a reroll.
I skipped some descriptions. I forgot to prepare a list of random names, so the bartender ended up being named Igor.

My head was full of informational noise and worries about not forgetting anything - which of course meant I forgot everything.

First reckless mistake: agreeing to run a game and attend a mini board game fest at the club on the same day. Even though the turnout was small and the vibe was cozy and intimate, the fatigue definitely hit.

I won’t reveal any behind-the-screen secrets to preserve the mysterious DM aura or explain how much of the balance and story is held together with duct tape, but I’ll talk about the technical side )

And it actually went pretty well! It was a super short one-shot, Most Potent Brew, but it still took us 3–4 hours. I hope everyone enjoyed it. At the very least, our friends’ 9-year-old son who played with us was absolutely thrilled, so I’m calling that a success )

Well then, you can congratulate me - I ran my first game as a Dungeon Master )

Good news — the matte paper has arrived )

The print turned out great. In some places it even feels almost velvety and really nice to the touch. The only downside is that the paper is thinner than I expected (even though it’s 220 gsm). For postcards, I’d definitely prefer something thicker.

#wip
Work on the cover continues, and the finish line is finally coming into view. I hope )

I could spend forever adding details to the burning fortress in the background, but hopefully I’ll manage to stop myself in time.

Looks like I finally delivered this long-running commission with the suits for the game. And I think it burned me out a bit 😅

Also found my camera tripod, so hopefully the shots will turn out better now.

#wip
Arknights is finally loosening its grip on me, and I’ve sent out the cover sketch for the client’s next book.

This time the hero is facing a massive steampunk knight-golem, which I’m very happy about.

They turned out pretty nice. They look perfect on light surfaces, and on darker ones they lose a bit due to the semi-transparency, but still look good.

And another experimental merch item: stickers on transparent film.

These particular ones my wife made for herself, for her planner, but I might convince her to make some for sale too )

I'm also still experimenting with cut depth here, but on the second attempt, I managed to get it so the stickers are cut cleanly without cutting all the way through.

The banding issue seems to still be there a bit (though it’s much less noticeable after trying to clean the rollers with alcohol), but on stickers it’s only visible if you know what to look for and use a magnifying glass. I’d say that’s a perfectly acceptable result.

Hey! The self-adhesive paper finally arrived today, and I tested sticker printing.
The result looks pretty good to me.

#wip #deathstranding #higgs
I’ve been asked for a collectible card featuring Higgs from Death Stranding 1 for a long time.
Finally made it happen )

(Yes, I make original collectible cards and sell them at geek festivals.)

#wip
Ranger character commission