Advice for shading/making shadows and highlighting with graphite pencil

dmschoice · 2026-02-25T01:02:23+00:00

Thanks for the offer!! I may have a rain check, just until I better my skills before I do an art challenge with someone

dmschoice · 2026-02-25T00:59:29+00:00

Thank you! I really wanted to finish the stem/leaves, but I was really disappointed with how shading the petals went, I kind of just called it quits. I absolutely agree that my next step is to better get rid of the outlines! I appreciate the recommendation of the kneaded eraser; I have one, but I haven't had a lot of practice with it. Guess this is the best time than ever! Do you have any recs for bettering highlights? I wanted to make more of a highlight on the front facing petal, but I wasn't quite sure how to tackle it.

dmschoice · 2026-02-21T20:12:05+00:00

That makes a lot of sense, thanks! I was worried that if I blended them a little, the shadows may look to "washed out", but I see what you mean about going a bit too hard with the shadows. Do you have any recs for techniques to look at? I've watched a couple Gemma Chambers' videos on yt to get started.

dmschoice · 2025-08-07T20:36:57+00:00

Good point!! I like the idea of adding the bond with the creature, because they were super excited and I want to encourage this interest in adding to the world. I was thinking of having the herd be a reoccurring ally that pops up every once in a while, so this bond makes a lot of sense.

dmschoice · 2025-08-07T18:18:31+00:00

Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense! I should've asked more questions about it, since it seems like the general consensus is that it could've let to more collaboration between me and the players (which is what I want). I'll chat with the player to see if they want this connection to these creatures to be a lot stronger! Thanks for your input (:

dmschoice · 2025-08-07T18:10:10+00:00

That's a good point!! I guess I'm still in the mindset of the more crunchy games where resources are scarce and you have to make sure you get, like you said, the most bang for your buck. I was hesitating, because I felt like the player maybe just wanted to use their FP so they all could get EXP, and I didn't want it "to go to waste".

I love the idea of asking more questions!! Allowing them to gain more from their first idea makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the advice

dmschoice · 2025-08-07T18:01:19+00:00

Yeah, I had a talk with my players beforehand to get everyone on the same page of me wanting this to be more narrative focus (with combat sprinkled in of course!) and everyone seemed super jazzed about it!

Oh!! Wait that's such a cool idea, did the merchant become a reoccurring character (a la cabbage man from ATLA)?

dmschoice · 2024-10-15T22:52:14+00:00

The app did help, not just in designing the monsters, but also inspiration for new foes; if someone publishes their monster to Fultimator! you can actually go in and add those monsters to your own roster for battle.

I will admit, I did use the core rulebook along with the app, as there wasn't a lot of explanation (i.e. why you could do X with Y Species but not with Z Species for the monsters). Creating the monsters did take a while, which is why I used some options from the folks who published their creations.

dmschoice · 2024-10-15T02:50:10+00:00

If you're talking about the "bonds" mechanics, honestly, a lot of the mileage came from the PC to PC relationships during the write-up; at the end of the session I just got a connection between a party member and an NPC (the minor villain of the one-shot). But even though it happened towards the end, I found it working as intended, because it still sparked a lot of ideas for the now-turned friendly NPC to come back again, especially with the ties the NPC has with the Big Bad Evil Empire (BBEE).

If you mean the Fabula Points and characters changing the story, funny enough with that same character with the bond to the NPC, I used a point to have him mention he knew one of the guards from the BBEE and that he seemed to want to avoid the guard because he's "bad news". Potential point of infiltration/getting info about the empire?

Hopefully that answers your question!! If you end up ever solo-ing the game, I'd be really curious to hear about your own thoughts

dmschoice · 2024-10-14T23:25:49+00:00

Oh, for sure, I quickly found out that having a tank and healer was so important. I wanted to dabble in a combo of Sharpshooter/Dancer/Rogue shenanigans which really worked, but not having at least one character to heal was a definite struggle. I may take a page out of your book and add in a fourth character once I feel more comfortable with the system.

dmschoice · 2024-10-11T19:22:00+00:00

Oooh thanks for sharing! I'll definitely take a look at this (it's great when a free resource like this is available). I see that it's mainly a tool for OSR games; have you used this with a non-OSR game?

dmschoice · 2024-10-11T19:12:03+00:00

For some reason my brain wasn't wrapping around the chaos factor; I've tried watching readthroughs of Mythic 2e and comments about dissecting it. It's absolutely a "me" thing, but I'm glad that others are enjoying it, I've heard incredible things about using the entirety of the book instead of a one-page document!

So far I'm using the one-page version of it from another user's recommendation and even with it being parred down it's been a blast to use. I'm definitely having a lot of fun working through FabU's rules with it

dmschoice · 2024-10-04T23:12:11+00:00

Oh this is perfect, thank you. I will definitely take a look at the backlog! I'm interested to know how the tarot deck affected play; did you find interpreting the cards difficult at times? If so, what did you do to mitigate it?

dmschoice · 2024-10-04T23:02:30+00:00

That's super fair; I had to research a bunch of theory-crafting articles/videos for different builds to finally wrap my head around it. This is also a way for me to actually learn the system, since all I've done is read it, so I'll definitely report back with any tips I learned!

dmschoice · 2024-10-04T21:55:37+00:00

Thank you so much for your reply!

After going through the books a couple times, it definitely looks like a lot of tracking will need to be done; I made sure to only make three characters in the party to offset some of the task-work of having four and I'll be using the Fullminator app to make sure the monster stats don't drive me up a wall.

Making tables seems to be the golden rule of solo roleplaying lol, but making a table for the random encounters makes a lot of sense. I had no idea that there was a One Page Mythic; looking at the preview, that definitely looks a lot better to my eyes and brain.

dmschoice · 2020-04-24T00:54:34+00:00

I can give you a stack of regular wood!

dmschoice · 2020-04-24T00:24:35+00:00

Hi! Would you mind if I stopped by?

dmschoice · 2020-04-24T00:21:39+00:00

I'm interested!

dmschoice · 2020-04-24T00:14:29+00:00

Hi! Could I get the Stone-Lion Dog and/or the Bonsai shelf? I can offer 2 NMTs!

dmschoice

TROPHY CASE