Interior Colour...

Personal life is in overdrive at the moment, but the beat don't stop.

Here's some colour interior work recently completed for my friends at Uhrwerk Verlag in Germany. Looks like it's shaping up to be a very exciting world they're building over there, and I'm happy to be a part of it.


(C)2010 Jon Hodgson

And to see bigger: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9098/126qh.jpg

Lord of the Rings RPG announced

Here's the press release for the secret project I've been dropping infuriatingly vague hints about:


20 January 2010 - Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games announce that they are developing The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game.


Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games are proud to announce that they are jointly developing The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game.


“We’re tremendously excited about The One Ring,” said Dominic McDowall-Thomas, Cubicle 7 Director. “Our aim is to give our audience an authentic Middle-earth gaming experience, one that really captures the feel of Tolkien’s world.”


The designer and lead writer of this project, Francesco Nepitello, is a games industry veteran, best known for the hugely successful and critically acclaimed War of the Ring strategy board game, which he designed with The One Ring co-designer Marco Maggi and Roberto di Meglio. A recipient of the International Gamers Award, War of the Ring is recognised by many ‘Lord of the Rings’ enthusiasts and hobby gamers alike as one of the most engaging recreations of the world-renowned fantasy saga by J.R.R. Tolkien. Francesco and Marco are the designers of other immersive board game titles like Marvel Super Heroes and Age of Conan, but started their game-designing careers creating Lex Arcana, the most successful and popular fantasy role-playing game published in Italy.


Francesco has designed the new LOTR RPG game system to make sure that players are completely immersed in Middle-earth from the moment they begin creating their characters. As an experienced designer of games based on JRR Tolkien, as well as being a lifelong devotee of the Tolkien works, Francesco brings a dimension -and a depth- to this RPG which has probably never been seen before in a LOTR game.


Robert Hyde, head of Cambridge (UK) based Sophisticated Games said, “When we first acquired the rights from Tolkien Enterprises to publish this RPG - as part of our wider LOTR book based board game license- we had no hesitation in approaching Francesco to conceive a completely fresh LOTR and The Hobbit RPG, and for him to be the writer. We knew that he possessed both these skills and that the game would be in very safe hands. His presentation of Middle-earth, along with stunning artwork from John Howe and others, brings this incredibly evocative and exciting world to life.”


“We also approached Cubicle 7 to be our publishing partners on the new The One Ring RPG because we loved the quality of their previous publications and felt that Dominic and Angus (Abranson) had both the experience, and with the creation of Cubicle 7, the role playing game resources, to bring LOTR and The Hobbit to a very wide audience.”


For more information on The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game please contact Cubicle 7 on info@cubicle7.co.uk


The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game will be published in the second half of 2010.


The One Ring, Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises f/k/a Tolkien Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their licensees.

Invoice 300

Hi All,
Just wanted to write a quick post to commemorate issuing my 300th invoice. The lucky recipient being D101 games.

It's funny looking over 300 jobs, some for tiny one off illos, some covering entire books solely illustrated by my own fair hand.

Hey ho, onwards and upwards!

Oh and just to bug Jan, the secret project I haven't been able to talk about should be announced very soon, and I've just learned i will shortly be doing more work for it. Double yay!

Digital Artist 2

Hey All.
Back to work at a sprint, so my planned review of 2009 has been summarily shoved onto a back burner. Ever onwards! Hopefully I'll get a chance to write it up sometime. Hey just whilst I'm typing, here's a thought. I read in Chris Burdett's excellent article about when he started to get serious about making a career in art, that an AD had told him that if an artist didn't update their blog regularly they took that as a sign they were not working. Funnily enough I don't get time to do as much self promo as I would like, since I'm working constantly. And everything is generally under NDA for at least a couple of months, if not 12 to 18. Go figure. Seemed worth mentioning in relation to not getting as much blogging done as I'd like!

So back to the point. Issue 02 of Digital Artist is out and about, featuring a little interview with yours truly about ArtRage, and a bunch of my artwork. Go get it.