Filling in the Blanks by Todd Leback

Todd Leback Filling in the Blanks

Title: Filling in the Blanks
Publisher: Old-School Essentials
Author: Todd Leback
Cover Artist: Jenna Drummond (jendart.com),
Interior Artists: Chad Dickhaut, Adrian Barber, and Dan Smith
Year: 2020
Pages: 79 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This particular book comes in two forms, the preview edition and the regular edition. I have both. The preview edition is a text only copy of the main concepts of the full book, which is more than enough to let you know if you would want or need this title. 

Starting at the beginning, let me tell you about the author. Todd Leback is the author of a series of books on Hexcrawling. He has also written on topics such as domain building, authored a one page dungeon and had two successful Kickstarters. The most recent, as mentioned before, is the book Into the Wild. This should be out in about a month or so. He started playing with the Red Box D&D set and enjoys the OSR style of play with family. He runs a great Patreon page which provides 5-8 pages of Hex based content to his patrons every 3-4 weeks. As I mentioned in my review of Hexcrawl Basics, the link to both his Patreon and Jenna Drumman's sites are too small so I have reproduced them here. 

Filling in the Blanks is all about generating hexes. He covers geologic features, habitation of a variety of sizes, resources, hazards, lairs, etc. Of course there is a bit about magic and weather. This product is totally table driven with the text providing guidance and examples for usage. Those three together are great for demonstration of how the game is supposed to work. It's also a great way to allow for adaption to specific campaigns and thematic settings. 

My personal favorite part is on graveyards, but I think most people will like the section on Inns. That one seems to be the most useful for any campaign. Maps are in color, while the art is black and white. Somehow, I suffered a printer mishap and all of the black and white art came out blue tinted. I actually like that, but is probably my own problem. 

All in all, this is a great book on the someone who is well versed in hexcrawling. The only slight weakness is the lack of links back to Hexcrawl Basics. That title makes a good primer for what this book covers. While this title is only 79 pages, it is can feel like drinking from a firehose. There is a lot of information packed into this book. 

It would make a great addition and edition for anyone desiring a full featured exploration of the concept of Hex Crawling. While written for Old School Essentials, it can be easily adapted to any rule set. I might even be using this for a continuing Star Wars campaign. 

Camera Test for Spring Model Series

I'm doing a camera test for my spring model series. This is just a quick and dirty edit. The images were downsized to 11 inches across, then the canvas was resized to 7" by 5" with the image centered. On the webside, I downscaled the images to 65%. We'll see how that works. 

Outlining Ideas

Here is what I have been up to the past few days. I'm working a lot, so I don't have that much time. 

Today, I burned a bunch of time reading blogs, 3 Toadstools mostly. This week on 3 Toadstools he revisit's a favorite of mine, Isle of Dread. 3 Toadstools came up with this great tool for campaign building, where you select 10 monsters and run with them. He has a list of categories here. It's a great read and simplifies worldbuilding. 

Anyway, I am getting ready to return to my Peninsula of Plenty campaign, but modifying it to be a hex crawl. You probably noticed I have thinking about hexcrawls a lot. I have Filling in the Blanks scheduled for my next review, but haven't done it because I've been reading and rereading it for ideas for this new campaign style. I have to get both of these done as Into the Wild will be out next month. 

What I have had time for is sketching. I like to do paper plans for new ideas in Inkscape. I am also tinkering with a new display format for images. Ideally, all images will be the same size so the page doesn't jump. This will be the case with my photos of models, but harder to do with drawings. It's a start. 

1 / 5

Castle in Green

2 / 5

Black and blue

3 / 5

Reds

4 / 5

Wilds

5 / 5

Tower

❮ ❯

From the Sketchpad

Benny disapproves

This collection is more about using things before they dry up and get wasted. I have a set of markers that are a thin copy of Copic markers. They have a great array of colors in the pack, but no way to work them for shading because those are the only colors available. If I don't use them up, they'll dry up. Nothing worse than losing a marker to disuse. 

I do have this thing for retro designs using a very limited color palette, so I am burning these markers up to make rough drafts for my Inkscape work. The work is quick and very loose, as these are just rough ideas to keep my hands steady and moving. Use it or loose it. 

I'll probably redo these a couple of times before they graduate to something I do digitally. The whole digital thing is also new to me, so I need to practice, practice, practice. Inkscape is my go-to tool for digital work. I like the ability to make geometric designs with bold colors. 

I'll probably have a few more later tonight and tomorrow. I'm in training for the week, so it's natural to sketch while taking notes. 

I've seen any number of designs by Disney artists like this and you'd be correct if you thought I was dying to get back to an Amusement Park soon. Disney is out for 2021, but Six Flags is more doable. 

These are really small, about 4 or five inches. 

I did like the ship design with the water playing around the front and back. I'm going to revisit that idea because it was really an after thought in these designs. 

Funny how the little thinks just pop out at you. 

Teaser Art - Working with Pros.

I want to hire an artist for an upcoming project. The one I have selected has sent me some samples of works in progress. This means my commissions are on the back burner. Yeah, that happens. We have to work out the deal, pricing mostly, then style. 

She works in a digital anime style. At least that's what I would call it. The image above is the wireframe for the image to the right. She works fast, so I hope I can afford to hire her. 

Of course, all this talk of artwork has my brain singing. I need to start drawing again.