Loose Ends and Crown & Skull Session 0

Successful Print Day

That’s a full successful print for my Quartz Trench Crusade models!

The Pixel Art Easter Egg

I’ve been working on my website and wanted an Easter egg. Of course I thought of the toad—the chaos toad from Miscast. I opened up Aseprite and started vibing out.

I learned this program to make Perler bead sprites many years ago, probably in high school. My only advice is to keep doing it over and over—you get better at it. I start with the outline first, then color in the inside. Once you have the outline, it’s a lot easier.

Crown & Skull Character Creation

This is a tool I built myself—running it locally. It has all the options for custom spell building that aren’t in the free kit. I’ll try to reach out to Brandon to see if I can share it.

You start with 50 points and build things out. I based my character loosely on Silena—built a custom blizzard spell that’s a mix of her abilities and Snow Squall. Also made a custom greatsword.

What I like about Crown & Skull: you can really adapt anything you want into it.

Building Silena

I started her at 100 points, then bumped to 150 so I could make the two cats as companions instead of separate characters. Normally you’d start at 50 points.

Since I’m playing solo, this won’t be cheesy because I’ll control it. I want her to be a legend—my plan is to play out this solo campaign, and then these characters become NPCs for when I run campaigns with a full group.

The Party

• Vyar: The repair guy and support. Armorer, medical, can repair skills.
• Helmet Guy: Climber, outdoorsman. Helm, cloak, plate mail, rope, climbing gear.
• Dual Wielder: Glass cannon with two greatswords. She can take about five real hits and she’s out—definitely need to protect her.
• Silena: Stealth, evade, take aim, scout. D10 damage bow with upgrades.

Getting the Airbrush Working

I always wanted one of these cleanout pots—finally got one. Did maintenance to get everything back to pretty much brand new.

The airbrush isn’t 100%—there’s something in the internals. Maybe there’s a way to take it apart from the bottom. But we’re primed! That’s all we needed.

The Turning Point

Tomorrow for real is day one of the new painting journey to get as good as possible. I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this—it’s a big turning point, like starting the next chapter of my life. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s a lot deeper than just deciding I want to paint better.

Transcript

I need to get some gloves on. But that is a full successful print for my quartz. I had a crazy idea. I’ve been working on my website just to have like more things that I can post and share that necessarily might not be video related. And [snorts] I I wanted a way to kind of have like an Easter egg kind of thing.

So I started to think what I could do. And of course, I thought of the toad, the chaos toad from Miscast. So, this is definitely heavily inspired by that. I opened up aspirate and then just kind of started vibing out. Um, I learned this program to actually make Pler beads bead sprites many, many years ago, probably in high school.

I don’t I don’t know if aspirates that old, but that’s when I first kind of like got interested in pixel art. So, uh, really my only advice is to just keep doing it over and over again and then you get better at it. I’m not good enough at it where I could explain to you how to do it, but I just kind of vibe out. Um, I start with the outline first and then from there I color in the inside cuz once you have the outline, it’s a lot easier, but uh, that’s what I did. I I wish I was better to explain to you how I did it, but but I’m just not.

So, sorry. But, enjoy this time lapse. Uh, and now I am finally going to show you how to make a character in Crown and Skull. So, this uh window right here, this is a tool that I just built myself. I’m running it locally.

I don’t know if I can share it. I’ll try to reach out to Brandon to find out. I know there’s an official character builder. Uh, but this one has all the options for the custom spell building and stuff that it’s not in the free kit that he released. So, that’s why I don’t want to publish it, but I I’ll find out.

But pretty much you you pick a character, you start with 50 points and then you kind of build things out. So, uh, here I was just trying to look at the the stat card. And I don’t want to base the character during game play on her, but I thought thought it was cool to like build my custom spell, which is like a blizzard effect based on a little mix of her feet as well as uh, snow squall. Uh, I’m also making a a custom greatsword here. So, a lot of the things I like about Crown and Skull is you can really adapt anything you want into it.

Uh, it’s a a very cool system. Um, and I’ll go back and kind of like show you all the things I picked once it’s done. But, uh, my laptop died as you can probably see that my my battery was dead. So, that’s what that little black flick was. But here, so I’m picking I’m [snorts] picking up this great sword.

And now I’m going to make it deadly, lucky, lightweight, dice upgrade, balance. is really pimping it out pretty much giving it all the all the things. This will make it so it essentially I was trying to recreate kind of like that blessed magical weapon master uh and really like make this a legendary sword. I started her off with with 100 points and I actually bumped her up to 150 so I could make the two cats as companions instead of their own characters. So normally when you’re when you’re making like a first what would be considered a first level or a zero level character, you just start at 50 points.

Uh, and I just wanted to make sure I really kind of captured her. I didn’t do this with any of the other characters. They’re just normal 50 point guys. And I think because I’m playing solo, this won’t be like super cheesy one because I’m going to control it and not make it super cheesy. Uh, but this is me just picking my spell effects and and building out my my custom spell.

That’s uh the mix. And I really I just I’ll play this. I’m going to go back and probably make some tweaks to this, but really the idea is just to make a blizzard that makes it so I’m hard to see and I am hard to shoot, but also might do some some bad damage to the enemies around me. Like almost like a blizzard effect. So, I’ll um I’ll tweak this and make sure it’s balanced and before I actually start playing, I’ll give it a little bit more thought.

But, I really just wanted to get the characters actually made. And so, here you can create your companions. Again, it’s it’s really a cool system. So, these uh just animals of this size would qualify as large just according to the rules. And again, I don’t want to get like too much into this part because it’s like the paid part that’s not free.

But you you can pick three skills when they’re large to start off with, and you can also upgrade them uh for points again. So, I just made these deadly, cunning, and precise again to kind of make up for like that Matt 7 uh and PAL 15. Like that’s pretty awesome. Made them evasive because they have that defense 14 as well. And then I made them trophies.

Uh just because again I’m kind of I don’t plan on like roleplaying Crown and Skull in the Iron Kingdoms, but I’m definitely heavy borrowing on like the N and how like really this group is is the only one of the the N left, I think. And also like there she’s carrying Sorrow, which is going to be a famous legendary sword. My my plan for the solo campaign is I’m gonna have fun and play it out, but this will become like a an NPC like people of legend for when I run like campaigns with a full group. And so now I’ll just I’ll just run through the rest of the group real quick so you can see uh I spit out just a very easy simple character sheet and crown and skull. You don’t have HP.

Your skills and equipment are actually your HP. Uh which I think is pretty cool. And I picked battlem on this guy which is essentially exploding sixes. same similar concept. So, this one uh Vyer is just going to be like my my repair guy and my support guy.

He’s an armorer. He knows medical. He can repair skills. And I really just kind of most of the equipment I just copied like kind of one to one of what I saw on the figure. So, great sword, cloaks, greaves, uh this guy’s got a scale vest, cold weather fur, and then I gave him some just like tools that I thought like an engineer or a craftsman guy would have.

And I I kind of made that up. Like that’s obviously not on the card. Um, this guy, he’s the one with a helmet. So, I gave him a helm. I gave him a cloak.

He had chest like plate mail on. Gave him some some rope and some climbing gear and couches. And he’s he’s going to be my climber guy, my uh my outdoorsmanish. And also, I want to point out like these characters are not optimized to do good in Crown and Skull because like I said, as you take hits, you’ll lose your skills and equipment. So this one especially, she has that that 12 and dual wield which is actually from the crown of soul volume 2 just because the model had two great swords which is also pretty crazy.

I had to make them custom lightweight. Uh she she’s going to probably die if I don’t protect her just because that’s uh she’s essentially can take five like real hits and and she’ll be out of commission and it’s a little bit more nuanced than that but she’s definitely a glass cannon. And then on Selena herself, I took stealth, evade, take aim, scout. I gave her a really cool bow and then the standard gear. Uh, her bow actually it’s d10 damage cuz I upgraded it.

But this program is also buggy. That’s another reason I don’t think it’s good enough to release into the world. But it helps me kind of just like brainstorm my characters. And I’ll probably tweak these a little bit when I actually like fill out the real character sheets uh in the real world. always wanted one of these cleanout pots and I’ve always just kind of used like jars back there with a paper towel over the top.

Uh but I I finally got one of these. Decided to get one after many many years of airbrushing. Um I just did a just a quick little bit of maintenance just to make sure I cleaned it last time I ran it. I just did a big another quick clean of it. Just made sure everything was back to pretty much brand new.

Lubed it up. Also, while I was at it, I figured since it wasn’t working at all, I might as well like see what I could do. I soaked this thing in in this uh overnight. So, I I pulled the gaskets out, soaked it in this. I figured if this couldn’t get all the stuff out of it, nothing would.

And then I really would be trashed. But, uh, one I think I might need to get some lube because even though I pulled the gasket out, uh, I just didn’t like it’s not getting pushed back up. So, I think it’s just too stuck too tight. It’s going to need some lube, though. All right.

So, we’re lubed up. I just ran a little bit more of that Mr. Mr. Tool Cleaner through it into my my fancy new cleanout pot, which uh, if you don’t It makes a vacuum. And then this has a filter on it.

Pretty awesome. All right. So, uh, in my that I had everything primed and ready to paint, I didn’t prime the one miniature I actually wanted to paint. I had her set aside because I had to put green stuff in here to get this magnet to stay on. And I had her set aside to do this.

And of course, I didn’t grab her when I primed everything else. So, I um I don’t know if I think I’ve shown these before. It’s a I got one big dowel rod, put these washers on it, and now uh the magnets will stick to it. Or sometimes if the if the model is like lopsided, I’ll put it over this way so the model sticks in it, and I’ll just black them on. And I’m going to black her on just for extra security, too.

And after I prime her, I’ll probably switch her to uh the the GW paint handle cuz I do love that thing, but I don’t want to keep getting primer all over that thing. All right. So, here’s the moment of truth on this. Going to grab my primer, which I I know where it is now. Right exactly where it should be.

Ooh, this is getting You can hear it. This is getting empty. Here. All right. Wish me luck.

Hey, we’ve got Oh, where we did the game, baby. It’s not uh it’s not 100%. I don’t know how to cut it. And you can see it. >> So, there’s just something in the internals.

And maybe there’s a way to take this apart like from the bottom. But I’m going to be able to finish priming. Uh but it’s definitely not 100%. But we’re primed. That’s all we needed.

Oh, and uh last thing for tonight. I got these guys printed earlier this morning and I got them all assembled, cleaned up, based. Uh, I got a little bit more left of Trench Crusade to print, but I need to wait until I get more resin. So, don’t know when that’s going to be. Sorry for the the background noise.

I try to clean it up. Uh, I that cleaner it just smells terrible. So, I have air purifier and exhaust fan and ceiling fan going. So, thanks for watching. Tomorrow, tomorrow for real is day one of the new painting journey to get as good as possible.

And I’ve got a lot of thoughts on that because um it’s a big big kind of like turning point of like starting the next chapter of my life for me, as ridiculous as that sounds. Uh, but it’s uh it’s a lot deeper than just deciding I want to paint