A Bestiary and Complete World Atlas
I’m Amanda, and I’m making art and writing games and thinking about new kinds of animals. I’ll be sharing art (including lots of spot art that’s free to use in your zines & rpgs!) and a series of illustrated one page adventure locations.
When I can’t sleep I draw pictures of whales & haunted houses & and I will be sharing things like that too.
I’m the author of You Got A Job On The Garbage Barge and a bunch of other rpgs (https://amandalee.itch.io/) and I’ve made illustrations for many more, including The Between, Mausritter, and covers for Codex Magazine.
Your support will enable my excellent habit of staying up till 3am drawing giraffe centaurs.
Supporters
Per month
Per month
Your subscription will get you a page a month (about 5-10 pieces, size depending) of spot art: royalty free, with a transparent background for your wild layout ease, on themes such as: Caves, More Weird Than Beautiful Fairies, Creatures Made Only of Bones, and All the Kinds of Pikes There Are.
I’ll also be sharing illustrated, one-page adventure locations (every other month) for those times in a game when everyone wants to go to town and you are tired of regular style medieval town and maybe rather want to visit a place where all the houses are suspended over the edge of an eroding canyon, or a palace someone hired bees to build.
Per month
You will receive the monthly spot art, adventure locations, the knowledge that you are extremely generous, and the power to submit a quarterly spot art request for a drawing of anything at all.
Your support will help me devote more time to making more work available to everyone who subscribes at any level.
Hi friends,
here's a little preview of this months spot art collection: Plants, most of them totally made up.
Also this month: a new short adventure in mostly comic form:
this is just a tiny part of the map, (plus there's some text about parts I couldn't fit into the map). I wanted to capture this feeling of reading the map as a kind of play, while hopefully giving enough details that you could still run this as a game.
More stuff coming soon!
Amanda
Hello Friends,
I have made two pages of wizards this month for you! I've been working lots on a bunch of illustration projects as well. Most importantly, I'm doing art for two Zinequest projects that are going to be launching soon.
Hecate Cassette Archive is a Mothership zine about infiltrating a ghost-filled archive in search of dangerous recordings! Its by Joshua Justice (Static Distance), who makes lots of sound files to go with his adventures so you can have a extra scary time. Here's the prelaunch page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctor-violet/hecate-cassette-archive.
I'm also working on the cover for From Midgard to Eternity, a solo game where you play as a viking seeking the path to Valhalla, by Armanda Haller and Hipólita. It's going to be super colorful, which is rad because most viking stuff gets really drab but if you read about actual Valhalla you take a rainbow to get there and its full of giant animals that you can milk beer out of and everything is extremely shiny. The prelaunch page is here: https://crowdfundr.com/frommidgardtoeternity?ref=ab_2ibzjHQqBWi2ibzjHQqBWi
I hope everyone has a good february & finds lots of cool zines,
Amanda
Hello friends,
I hope you are having good holidays! This month I have made a bunch of character portraits, for either science fiction or fantasy style games, for npcs or to use as an avatar if you are playing online or if you just want to be a robot for awhile.
(plus there's a page of subscriber requests)
In case you missed it, I was on the excellent podcast Between Two Cairns (you can listen here:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2042709) to talk about Reach of The Roach God by Centuar Games (Zedeck Siew & Mun Kao). Between Two Cairns is one of the best podcasts going & I'm so glad I got to be on it to talk about caves & bugs & writing an rpg that is as exciting to read as it is to play.
I've been very busy working on a bunch of art for stuff that is not out yet but I will let you know when it is!
See you soon,
Amanda
Hi friends!
Art for this month is spaceships, in full color & (also in b&w). I've been doing a lot of painting & coloring work lately to try & get better at it, I have even been reading some books (one of the most recommended books on Color & Light is by James Gurney, the Dinotopia guy, who is really into dinosaurs, and all of the example images in the book are paintings of dinosaurs which is honestly pretty charming) The main thing I think that I have started to grasp is that often you just need a tiny color shift to create depth or shadows, almost invisible. And that most things are mostly grey, but the greys will look like colors because of what's around them. This is definately something you could study for a lifetime & still keep learning how to do it properly, which is something I find really comforting: knowing that there will always be more to learn.
I listened to this cool lecture about space travel:https://youtu.be/R3Igzfte8Pc?si=N1Nw6j75E8KyAZC7
and they are talking about using sails for interstellar travel so I drew sails on bunch of the spaceships (probably not realistically big enough sails though).
I also finished coloring the short comic I've been working on & will be uploading that as well!
P.s if you need a non-digital copy of Crush Depth Apparition you can pick one up at Ratti Incantati here:https://rattiincantati.com/products/crush-depth-apparition
Thanks! Hope you are having a nice late autumn! (It legit snowed on Halloween in Chicago it was so distressing! It stuck to the grass and the neighborhood animatronic spooky demon yard decor.)
Amanda
Dear Friends,
Hi, Here is a new game for Halloween! Barlow's Lark, a haunted house. I tried to keep this one super compact, so you can finish it in one session (say on halloween game night. Everyone plays scary games for halloween right?). This game was inspired by the one-person built castles & grottos & other things that people make sometimes if they have a bit of land & some old bottles (like Watts Towers, but there's lots of these places around.)
I've also made 2 pages of spooky sci-fi landscapes: wrecked planet, derelict spaceshipyard, abandoned robot factory, stuff like that. All the drawings are long & narrow so they will look very cinematic & also fit nice across the bottom of a tri-fold brochure.
I've been working on a short comic as well & it's not quite done yet (still coloring) but I am going to post the whole thing here as soon as it is done! I got to take an online class with Polly Guo (she wrote this comic which is super good & you should read it: https://main.pollyguo.com/Gawain-s-Girlfriend) and I'm really excited about doing something more ambitious next time! It turns out that the really hard part is writing an ending; you never have to worry about that if you are writing ttrpgs.
Here is the first page, more to come soon:
Thanks & Happy Halloween,
Amanda
Hello Friends.
here's a preivew of the spot art collection for August (I colored this one). This month there is some horses & carnivorous plants & dueling mice & more.
In other exciting news Crush Depth Apparition,the long awaited haunted submarine game is finally done! The layout looks super beautiful & the zines have been printed & preorders will be going out soon (by the way if you pre-ordered & have changed your address send me an email! I will make sure it gets to the right spot).
After all the pre-orders go out I will put the pdf up here: https://amandalee.itch.io/crush-depth-apparition
& I will also let you know where to get print copies when they are out. I'm so excited for everyone to see this game!
Thanks so much for the art requests & I hope you are having a good summer!
Amanda
Hello friends!
here's a preview of the spot art for July, a collection of decorative borders (also available in black & white, in case that's what you need or if you want to color them yourself). This month subscribers also get a whole new game: Duellists: A Gentleman's Roleplaying Game.
In this game you create a few duellists and start getting into fights with your friends! The role-playing is entirely duel related, but as you come up with reasons to have duels you start building up a tangle of relationships & circumstances & more things to have duels about. I think it would make a great party game! Its heavily inspired by the Ridley Scott film The Duellists, an excellent movie that I recommend especially if you enjoy amazing hats and fights.
I hope you are having a good summer!
Amanda
Assorted Creatures Spot Art!
Coming later this month: a short rpg for one or two players about Dueling. Make a duelist, make him fight, see who wins! There will be lots of tables.
I hope everyone is having a lovely summer!
Amanda
Hello!
Here's a preview of the new short adventure for April, Minatar's Magical U-Stor-It. It's about a storage solution for wizards and includes maps, lots of orbs, and some of the worst potions ever made.
Spot Art for april will be posted soon as well!
In other news, I did illustrations for the truly wild Dungeon Grand Prix: Dagone in 60 Seconds by Noora Rose, part of a series of go-kart themed adventures from Orbital Intelligence. You can get it here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/433772
there is vampires and aliens and dinosaurs! Everyone is very stylish and driving very fast!
I hope you are having a nice spring & playing lots of games,
Amanda
Hi friends!
Here's a preview of all the swords I drew this month (some of them I went all the way to the museum to draw & some of them I made up).
This month there's also a new short adventure:
it includes npcs, spaceship map, & adventuring classes for some alien arthropods.
I hope you are having a good winter & playing lots of games. I'm still working on a dungeon23 project, its getting too big to photograph:
you can check out individual weeks here:https://cohost.org/annabelle-lee
I'm having a great time working on it. I have no idea if this would be useable as an actual dungeon but someday I will try it out & let you know.
thanks so much!
Amanda
Hi Friends,
Here's a preview of the spot art for this month: subscriber requests with some bonus mermaids (mermaids fit into leftover page space real nice).
I hope you are having a good new year! I have been very very busy but I'm hopeful things will get easier soon. I'm not doing Zinequest this year (still working on last year's project) but I'm working on illustrations for this zine: Waeldaeg , about bronze age people journeying into a mysterious frozen landscape. I've been enjoying doing research about boats & garments & strange light effects.
I've also started working on the short adventure for next month: it's about a shipwrecked boat hotel that's about to sink for good. And I've been working on my dungeon 23 project, which looks like this so far:
Its hard to photograph cause i've been using paint & ink & markers & pretty much everything I've got laying around. Eventually I figure I'll scan everything & put it up online somewhere. I've been enjoying working on it, although I suspect it will be just a huge mess eventually (I have not been planning things out at all, just building on what I put in the week before).
Thanks & I hope it is warm where you are (it is like 11 degrees in Chicago alas),
Amanda
Hello Friends,
here's a preview of the new spot art & adventure for December, I hope you enjoy it!
I made the angels holding banners so that you can write anything you like in there, give it a real solemn & authoritative air.I started drawing all these little marginalia style creatures by drawing the abstract outlines first and then finding some kind of little guy in them.
This is the map for the new adventure, a journey through an unreliable landscape.
i hope you have lovely holidays,
Amanda
ps next month is subscriber requests so if you need any (specific) spot art keep an eye out for an email from me!
Hello Friends,
I've just uploaded the november spot art collection, all spaceships & megastructures. I hope they are useful & good to look at!
I'm already working on another short adventure for next month, its about taking a dangerous shortcut. I've been trying to figure out how to make a game that's about unknowable illogical places (like fairyland or dreamland) & that is still fun to play. Folks were talking about it on over on cohost: https://cohost.org/annabelle-lee/post/188739-how-do-you-make-rule and I think I have figured out a solution that I am happy with? The nice thing about trying to work on very small adventures is it makes it more practical to experiment with stuff that might not totally work.
Relatedly, if you happen to be leaving twitter & want to follow me at other places, I'm posting on mastodon at https://mastodon.art/web/@annabelle_lee and I have a tumblr at https://at.tumblr.com/velebita/k5t39zgj7xu9
but mainly I've been hanging out on cohost cause it's simple and you can write for as long as you want, & it's pretty well suited for chatting about game design & ideas & stuff.
Other news: I think that I will be doing a piece for this kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gawain/speak-false-machine
(It is a huge book of Patrick Stuart's blog)I got all my friends killed in Deep Carbon Observatory once and also his writing is a big inspiration and all of the other artists are so good, I'm so excited about it.
I hope everyone has a swell thanksgiving or a nice dinner with friends soon,
Amanda
Hello Friends,
Here's a preview of the October Haunted Spot Art, and also of a new short game called The Ghost Game:
It's a complete one-shot game system that's inspired by abandoned places and found footage films, and it is designed to be as scary as possible for the people who are playing it. I guess it is sort of a lyric game? But not one of the cute ones.
What I'm hoping to do is copy the way a found footage movie works, which is by setting up a situation that acknowledges you are watching a movie, so that there's one less layer between you & the things you are seeing and its easier to pretend that it's real. The Ghost Game has a layer of game being run by a GM, but also a second game being run by one of the players (do these things if you want to see a ghost) so that all the layers run into eachother and you can get scared just like when you were ten & saying bloody mary to a mirror.
If anyone is brave enough to play on halloween let me know how it went!
Happy Halloween,
Amanda
Hello Friends!
here is the August Spot Art Collection, featuring some trees & decorative flowers & sea serpents & a Skeleton who is just trying to get by. I hope you them! I'm running a little behind as I am still recovering from breaking my ankle but I can now walk as much as two miles before i have to lay down on the floor and complain, an amazing feat.
I am looking forward to drawing Haunted Houses for September, and I'm working on a 2 page spooky game for halloween, and I have recently gotten the first round of edits back on Crush Depth (the submarine game) so it is finally so close to being done.
thanks so much and I hope everyone is having a grand summer,
Amanda
Dear Friends,
The July Spot art collection is finally here: 10 wizard homes, ready for any kind of wizard you got. Space wizard, flying wizard, any kind (as always, hi-res & transparent images will be in a seperate post for supporters but if you can't afford that send me a note & I will get you the files!)
Also: PIGLIFT
a 2 page adventure about goblins & what happens when they accidently get involved in having a society.
Sorry its a bit late! I just started walking again last week and it turns out that's super exhausting when you haven't done it for almost two months. I'm feeling better everyday and I'm already biking again, which is great cause it is the only way I get around.
I hope everyone is having a lovely summer. Next month spot art collection I'll be doing special requests from 10$ supporters, so if that is you think about what you'd like & keep & eye out for an email from me.
Thanks always,
Amanda
Hi Friends,
Heres's a preview of the June spot art collection, which is inspired by many excellent subscribers who requested stuff like 'goblin rats in powdered wigs', 'sci-fi dj', and 'a crab'. Its been super fun drawing all this and I hope they are useful!
this is pretty much the main thing I have been working on this month, cause I broke my whole entire ankle & I had to have surgery twice, but turns out I can draw mostly just as well lying down. I've written most of the short adventure thats coming out in July already (it's called Piglift and its about some cliff dwelling goblins who accidentally formed a society & how thats going for them), and I ran a playtest for Crush Depth Apparition (zine month project which should come out in October). I feel really lucky that I've been able to both keep working & rest as much as I've needed to this month, & I am very proud that I both got this art collection done as planned, and that I can move my own foot around very gently like a tiny baby bird.
Thanks so much for your support & as always, if you need spot art & can't afford to subscribe, just send me a note & I will hook you up with the files.
Amanda
Hi friends,
I'm excited to present the first entry in this thing that I'm pretending is a book: CAVES, a spot art collection featuring 14 pieces of art to do whatever you like with. If you're interested in the project or need cave art real bad, become a supporter & you will get a link to hi res transparent art in a bunch of different file types. I'll be making a new spot art collection (5-10 pieces) every month!
ALSO:
Nighthouse: a system neutral 2 page ttrpg adventure setting of carnivorous plants & bad apples. Could work as a one-shot adventure or a town to stop in on your way somewhere else. Become a supporter to get the pdf! New adventure settings coming about every 2 months!
ALSO:
A special one time deal: The first 10 supporters (at any level) can request one spot art of anything for next month's spot art collection. Anything you want at all! (note that if you ask for like 300 dragons, it will pretty much look like a tornado with a bit of wing sticking out)
thank you awfully much,
Amanda
PS If you need spot art & can't afford being a supporter just send me a note & I will hook you up with the files, no questions asked.