My zine history and why you should make one in 2026

With the rise of AI and generated 'content', I have found myself going back to my roots of zines. Why make printed, physical media in a social media, technological world? Well for one, zines are just cool. There is nothing better then handing some one a few pieces of paper stapled together that you spent an afternoon slapping it together. It's something that can only be experienced in person and is limited in is reach by having to be physically shared. Something that AI can't steal because its not posted to any sort of social media, website or downloadable aspect. 

I started making small zines in college and fortunately and unfortunately, I do not have record of any of the zines I created. I'll admit, they were not good... I was still discovering my voice as an illustrator and learning layout design. But I had some good ideas! 

In 2019-2020, I made my first 'real' zine, which is Deadly Garden. I made it for Zine Quest on kickstarter. It was an awesome initiative which promoted RPG zines for a whole month and so much creativity came out of it. A few years later, kickstarter killed it by making it during Gen Con. It usually ran in the winter which was a great time to stay indoors and make some zines. 

Deadly Garden is a collection of plant monsters for D&D 5e. This was the first time I felt like my art and design finally came together. I had at least a year of working on yearbooks under my belt and had been teaching myself how to do layout design. Did I take the job with the intent of learning layout design? Yes and no, I really didn't want to work retail anymore and needed employment for Health insurance and to pay rent. I used a specific system to design yearbooks that was owned by the company I worked for and had not really used any other design software. At the time, I did all the layouts for this zine in Photoshop which made layouts a pain, but I used what I knew. 

In the layout interesting? No but I think the drawings are really cool even years after. I have zero idea if these monsters are balanced and don't really care at this point. I would like to make an expansion to these zine with a mixture of drawings and kitbashes with system neutral rules. Something to add to my list for next year. 

The year after, I made another zine in collaboration with my sister Claire called Traveler's Trunk. This zine was based off a store I created in our D&D campaign. We created 30 new magic items that could be used in any fantasy RPG. The items are def on the weirder side from the standard magic items. They weren't made to be super powerful, just unique objects. It was really fun working with my sister and I'm pretty sure this is the first and really only zine we worked on together.

Was the layout particularly cool or interesting? No but all the art is! Some times you don't need to reinvent the wheel to make something. Just the act of creating and collaboration is enough. We had a few hundred printed and we are basically out of them now. Every once and a while I find a few I stashed someplace, but otherwise, its only available digitally on itch. 

After Traveler's Trunk, I didn't make a zine for a few years. I was so burnt out from yearbooks that spending more time on any sort of book project made me want to scream. Then the pandemic kept going and going and I wanted to make things for myself again. I remember getting home super late after spending 8 hours literally manufacturing books and being like if I could do anything right now what would I do and I told myself it was making a game. 

Because I was working late nights and was not able to play with my weekly game crew, I got into solo RPGs. I was really enjoying playing them. Notable favorite is Artifact which really inspired me. I liked that why I was playing, I would also illustrate the object. From that, I made a quick little game for creating a fantasy map of a ghostly ruined city. Is the system cutting edge or new? No, but it doesn't have to be, just make something! I do still have copies of these zine.

That same year, I made Dusty Cathedral which is a system Neutral location to use for RPGs inspired by folk horror and puppets. I had just read Into the Wyrd and Wild and was blown away! I was like I want to make something like this. So I created these zine full of weird characters. 

This is one zine that I do still have copies of! I need to actually bring these places and get them into people's hands. 

The next year, some friends and I did a zine jam over a weekend to help raise funds to get friends to Adepticon. I made a zine of system neutral monsters based on my Technicolor Nightmare models. This is the first time where I felt like my yearbook skills clicked with my zines. I used a vapor wave style to enhance the whole zine layout and make it feel like an old game manual. While I did enjoy using full color, I never got any printed since it was too expensive. 

Later in 2024, I created Kaiju Kitbash as a way to create giant monsters. Its mostly tables to roll on for idea generation. When designing this zine, I specifically made it black and white to keep printing costs down and leaned more into texture. I really like texture in my drawings but always struggled to get it right in my zines. Luckily some friends made a texture pack called Skin Graft  and it was full of amazing textures to use. This was also my second zine doing layout in Affinity pro which is what I use now for all book / zine projects. I highly recommend it as an alternative to adobe. Now its free but at the time, I paid 50 bucks and feel that is was absolutely worth it. 

Two years later, I finally printed the zine! I have an upcoming zine fest next year and wanted to get a head start on making sure I have new stuff for my table. 

This year I made more zines then ever! I started out by making this mini zine of my Cauldron warband for an event I was playing in. It introduced my opponent to my models and what they are. I managed to lose all 3 of my games! But hey, I had a cool zine. 

Next I finally 'finished' the layout for Missile Toads (I do need to go back and make some adjustments). I did most of the game design in 2025 but dragged my feet to get the zine together. I will admit that most of my design time was dedicated to other projects (aka Threnodyssey) but I worked on this while letting my mind stew on problem solving. 

I use to post my zines for download online but recently I decided moving forward, I'm not going to. I will still post a bare bones version of Missile Toads for free but the rules with the designed layout and art wont be! I don't want to limit the rules of the zine, I want it to be free an accessible to everyone. But I want the zine to feel special. And getting the whole experience will be reserved for the physical tabletop. 

Last week, I slapped together a zine using lore I wrote for my Lobster Pot 28 warband over the summer. This lore will appear in another publication, but I spent way too long writing the lore to not make a little zine of it. I use to do a lot of creative writing growing up but as I got older, I stopped. I think similar to how people stop drawing because they realize they can't draw well, I stopped writing for that reason. But hey, why not try and even if I'm not the next Ursula K Le Guin doesn't mean I can't just do it for fun. I think the internet makes us feel like if we are not doing a creative pursuit as adult to a pro level, its not worth pursuing. This was the first time that I sat down to write something with the intent of having fun in mind. I used some of my favorite fake history to play into the setting of the game. This zine will only be available in person! You wont be able to buy it from my online store. 

Why should you make a zine? Well for one its fun and is a great exercise in creative story telling. You can make one with collage or just hand writing or you can use an online program like canva or Affinity. It doesn't have to look like a professional book, as long as you are sharing your ideas, it will automatically be cool. Its a great way to share your passions with others. It can be recipes, local history, the cool things you see on your walk, there are no limits to zines. But more and more in the AI Slop world, combat it by making a zine. And if you cant make a zine, make a flyer And if you can't make a flyer, make a postcard. If you can't make a postcard, make a sticker. It doesn't have to take hours and hours to make, to contribute creatively to the physical media world. Break out your glue, grab some paper and staple them together.

How to paint a Nurgle Folk horror Villagers

 I'm no pro painter, I will never win awards for how I paint. Its quick, its dirty and it has attitude. For a long time, painting was my least favorite part of the hobby. I felt out of my zone and even with all my art training, lacked brush control on a small scale. I don't have a problem on large canvases, I actually enjoyed oil painting in college but knew that as an illustrator oil painting was not going to be my focus at all. I also loved sculpting but knew there was no way I would ever make money at that. 

Any way, painting models is difficult. There are people who just focus on painting and spend 50 plus hours on a single small little figure. I do not have that type of patience and probably never will. I prefer to focus on kitbashing and sculpting. So over time, I developed a painting system that works for me. As I got back into miniatures in 2022-2023, I had to develop a way to paint that didn't give me anxiety. At the time, really grim dark miniatures were popping up on my feed but I also didn't want to paint that way, I like color but I liked the way grim dark miniatures didn't need to stay in the lines like traditional miniature painting tends to do. 

Thats when I pulled out my color wheel and started painting in a triad. Pick 3 colors, one as the darkest, one as the midtone and one as the highlight. From there, I never worried about painting again. I like this method as it does not require alot of brush control and is quick.

To get started, first you need a model. This model was kitbashed to be a villager in my Nurgle folk horror army. It has a plague barrier body with a belly sculpted, some dryad arms, orc head and lots of flock. 

Since this model has flock on it and it was raining outside, I painted the model flat black. I just really hate gloss in any of my paints including the primer. Sorry Gloss fans!

Once the primer dried, it was time to pull the paints out. HIGHLY recommend to record the colors you use for a warband or army. If you ever want to add to it or need to fix something, you know exactly which bottles you need. Personally I have a terrible memory so writing this down is very important to me. 

Next you need to get a brush, it doesn't or shouldn't be your brand new perfect tip brush. Find a stiff brush that has seen better days. I also like to use a wet pallet, the paint being damp will really help when it comes to dry brushing. You don't want your paint drying out especially in warm weather (Thanks 109 F holiday weekend). The drier the paint, the more difficult this painting process will be. I also like to use a painting handle, but its not required. I just drop my models all the time and this helps me. 

Add some paint to your brush then using a towel, swipe it back and forth 3-4 times to get the majority off. This may seem wasteful, but when you do your second layer, you are going to drag your brush through the deposited paint on the towel. 

Slowly over two layers, build up your base green layer. You are going to want to cover the model for the most part but leave the deepest recesses black. The black helps build contrast but can be a pain to cover. If you feel like the color isn't covering the black enough, add more layers until you are satisfied. But be careful to not add layers of thick paint. Wait 10 minutes for the base layer to dry before moving onto the mid tone. This is a great time to clean off your brush and let it dry as well. You do not want your brush being wet when adding the next layer. 

Next grab your mid tone color which is a light green. Follow the same process to adding pigment to your brush. This time you want to cover less of the model. I usually start with painting the front and back of the model, leaving the right and left side the base color. Then hit the important parts like the face, hands and any object they might be holding. Since this color is lighter it may take a few thin layers to build up the saturation. I personally like my colors saturated so I have at least two layers on the model. 

Clean off your brush and let your model dry! Each layer needs to dry otherwise they will mix together (which I have done intentionally) but in this case we want each layer visible. This is a great time to get a snack and a coke zero while you wait. 

For the highlighting step, I prefer to use a smaller brush. This prevents me from covering all the other work I have already done, plus this stage is really for picking out specific areas. Here I am using a small squared off brush. Similar to before, follow the same steps for applying pigment to your brush.

Take your brush and only hit the important features like the face, legs, and fingers. This is really where your eye is going to be drawn to first. On the back I highlighted the shroud of grass too. Yellow is a difficult color since the coverage tends to vary. I usually get away with 2-3 thin layers of yellow to build up the saturation. Sometimes I'll add more if the yellow is ontop of much darker colors. 

After that just paint the base up, either in the same colors or something else! The whole proecess is about 15 minutes per model which seems longer then it should. But it has to be thin layers to keep the model from being cakey. 

Give this a go and show me what your models look like! 

Realm of Chaos: Nurgle Folk Horror Warband

Long time, no post. I'll admit as life got more busy I forgot about updating the blog. I did have a big lore post planned for my Lobsterpot28 warband but after writing it I submitted it to a zine for publishing. Keep a look out for that later this year.

Anyway, over the winter a few friends and I decided to make Realm of Chaos Warbands rolling out of the classic Realm of Chaos Books. I of course chose Nurgle and with some help rolled my first champion and warband. (In the future, I would like to kitbash a champion for each Chaos God). 

For the Champion, he was a level 5 human hero with cloven hooves, beastial face and enormous noise. With the 5 equipment points, he received a set of heavy army and a double handed sword.

Next I rolled 6 Beastmen with scaly skin. 1 Magus who can't cast any magic spells yet. And 3 cultists with iron hard skin and Beastial face. 

Some how I managed to roll Beastial face or Beastmen for all of my warband. With that I knew that their would not be any human faces in my warband but knew I needed the Beastmen to be different then the other characters. I didnt want to do the classic fat, bloated characters for my Nurgle warband. I wanted to use the Garden of Nurgle as a starting off point as well as different influences.

Right when I was discovering my painting style 

A few years ago, I kitbashed this spell caster for my Forbidden Psalm / Mordheim warband. She is the Wicker Woman.

Holy Cleric St. Agatha thought she was hearing guidance from her God during the end times. Continuously he asked her to collect more of the corrupted weird stone to protect the vulnerable from dark magic. the more weird stone she collected, the more her God spoke to her. Her sisters saw the corruption of her soul and sentenced her to be burned at the stake. St. Agatha was set ablaze, left as ash in the countryside upon a hill with a single tree. Her God heard her calls for salvation and blossed her with a new form of the Wicker Woman, she returned to the Fallen City, gaining followers and building a new world that embraced the chaos. 

This was always one of my favorite models I've made and I don't get the chance to use her that much. I always liked the branch wings and twig arms on the character. This Nurgle warband was a good excuse to continue exploring that idea which pointed me towards folk horror, folklore and legends as the inspiration for this warband. Inspirations include: Baba Yaga, The Green Knight Movie, The Ritual Movie, Midsommar, The Wild Hunt, Arthurian Legends, Knights in general, Dark Woods, and old manuscripts. 

A quick lore about the warband to help explain design choices is that this small village in the middle of the woods began to have issues with their crops growing, not matter what they did all the plant life would die. Knowing they did not have enough food for Winter, the town's one Knight went into the deep woods to see if he could discover what the issue is. After days of walking, he discovered an old dead tree of blackened wood. At the base of the tree was a path that traveled deep into the earth. He ventured deeep underground where no light could reach. As he felt a cold chill down his spine, a voice called out to him. He asked what the Knight wanted and He answered with wanting the town's crops to grow. The creature promised the crops would grow as long as they prayed to him. The Knight took this creature as an old forest spirit and promised a feast in his honor once he returned home. After returning to the village, the Knight demanded the mayor set about a feast for the salvation of their crops. A week later, the whole town celebrated and the next morning, plants sprouted. As summer passed and the crops grew more then ever, the villagers began to notice a change in themselves. The town guards grew thick mains of hair and cloven feet. The farmers faces grew long snouts and roots crawled out of their spines. The more they prayed to the Forest Sprit, the more they transformed into the forest itself.  

Later on I plan to do a more in depth story telling for this warband about the named characters and some of the other strange denizens that appear in town. 

Work in progress of the WarBand

Sir Morcant, The Fly King's Hand, The Spore Crowned Warden

To start off I worked on the Champion, since his design would dictate the rest of the warband. It actually started out as a kitbash for the original warband. One of the warriors had upgraded to a two handed weapon and heavy armor. The base model was a push fit Storm Cast Eternal model with the sigmar bits scrapped off. I chopped off the head of the weapon to add a more unique option inspired by the Witch King of Angmar. More branches were added to the back to increase the size of the champion compared to what I had originally. A few head options were played around with since Beastial Face was rolled. I didn't want an expected Beast head and happened to have this metal fly face which I was given as a gift for Christmas. With some flocking added to the shoulders and holes drilled into the armor, my Champion was completed. 

The Black Brair Herd

A few months before this project was started, I happened across a great deal on some GW models off of Facebook marketplace. I originally wanted the Metal Middle Earth Hero minis but he also had some boxes of monopose beastmen and Skaven. Since I liked both of those armies as well (Big Skaven fan over here), I picked those up as well for my Old Hammer shelf. As soon as I rolled beastmen, I knew exactly which models to use. A million of these Beastmen models exist so I didn't feel bad about chopping them up. Since each model was posed in the same way, I used different bits to change up the silhouette. Luckily the Nurgle bits worked great with all the Dryad pieces. Any parts I think needed extra texutre got sand and flock. 

Soran the Rotten, the town Mayor

The PoxBound Pilgrims

 The villages were more difficult for me to resolve. I didn't want them to be humans with beast fans as they were also being transformed by their prayers. Luckily I had a few extra Plague Monk bodies and parts that I could use for the villagers. The hunched backs were perfect for the roots along with the plague barrier arms. The scale difference between the Champion, beastmen and cultists really helped the villagers feel weaker in comparison. 

In progress Chaos Warrior

Of course, after finishing this warband I was having too much fun mixing all the bits together to create new characters. I was in a bit of a slump of what project to do next so I picked up an old getting Started Set of Chaos Warriors which gave me a great start to adding more units and expanding the characters.

In progress Villager

I wanted a coven of witches and warlocks to use as Chaos Sorcerers. A warband of Chaos Warriors to use as reanimated Knights of old. A Great Unclean one as the Forest Spirit. A band of demons of the forrest inspired by twisted fae creatures. Knights on horseback sent by the Fly King to help the village and of course the Fly King on chariot. I have finished a few of these models so far! But am definitely looking forward to fleshing out their ranks even more. My hope is to finish most of the general units to bring to Under the Dice fest. I can use them for a variety of games like Warhammer, Mordhiem, Dragon Rampant, Forbidden Psalm, or any fantasy game really. 

One of the Witches from the Coven. Kitbashed by my friend Anthony and it was perfect for this army.

Over the next few months, there will be more posts about this army as well as some projects I finished previously like my Chaos Giants for Age of Signmar. My goal is two posts of month! I think the next post will a painting tutorial for this army. 

Gathering of the Jersey Girls

At the end of January, the Jersey Girls ran their first event! We had been planning for months for this and invited everyone we knew from the Tri-State area to attend. To prepare, we wanted to create a few new boards. We were lucky that Mikey had created a bunch of boards for Garage Con in 2024 and had they safely stored away. He brought them all to the shop while we were building boards and realized we had plenty of boards to play on, but hey new boards are cool.

Mikey's sick vertical dungeon board

Mikey and Dellon focused on creating a castle board. There was endless brick cutting and brick laying paid off to create an awesome castle. There were many games of defending the castle on this board. I also appreciated the fact that the castle was not gray and had some nice greens and purples. Mike, owner of Sanctorium , painted up the board the week of the event! 

Castle Board

Anthony created a sick Graveyard board. Similarly full of color for a normally bleak place. Theres resin pools, plenty of flock, hand sculpted tree and even accessible tombs. This is a board I definitely want to play Necropolis on. 

The Graveyard

I had never made a full game board before. Only a few pieces of scatter terrain and some larger buildings but this was my chance to build one! The inspiration for my board was a Giant's graveyard that is being archaeologically excavated. To get between the bones and hill sides, lots of bridges were created. Each little platform had at least 2 ways to get to it. The larger forts were built for Garage Con but rather than having them mobile, I glued the pieces down and blended them into the board. Many coffee stir sticks were sacrificed to the creation. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Even got to play a game of Cauldron on it with my friend Sam. 

Now it was time for the event! I was unsure of how many people would show up. I was thinking like 12-15 people. The guys were confident more people would be there. And they were right! At the height of the event we had close to 30 people in the Game room playing games, hanging out or kitbashing.

As people rolled in, games of Cauldron started! Many people brought their own warbands from home. There were plenty of colorful miniatures and I regret not getting more pictures! Luckily lots of other people took photos. Thank you Frankie and Charlie! 

Charlie's warband of Froggy dudes

Frankie's colorful warriors

Jake's Cauldron Winning Troll
He kitbashed this model at the first hangout

Dellon's Cauldron Warband fighting a knight

We off course had many games going on! Cauldron, Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, RAID, Ballad of Blades and Mordheim. Everyone was buzzing around from table to table. 

My first game back to MESBG after 15 years. My Goblins did not stand a chance against Mark's elves. Thanks for walking me through a game Mark! 

Mordheim in action!

So many games of Cauldron!

Preparing for the Ballad of Blades tournament

I started out my day kitbashing some miniatures with Sam and Jake while people strolled in. We had plenty of bits and glue to share. After people got settled, I jumped into a game of Middle Earth Strategy Battle game with Mark. Mark was a great teacher! He walked me through building my list and helping with rules. I managed to only take out 1 elf but I managed to kill more of my own goblins.. but hey I learned. After that I helped clarify some Cauldron rules while admiring people's miniatures. Quickly, I jumped into a game of Cauldron teaching Sam how to play. He kitbashed his warband that day and got them game ready! Like the rest of after his first game, he was hooked on playing Cauldron. It was nearly 5 and I hadn't eaten yet so a group of us went next store to grab some pizza. Next I played Cauldron on the castle board. My warband did not fair well against Jake's warband. Come on did you see the troll he made! Towards the end of the night, we prepared to plat Ballad of Blades. This is a game I've played a bunch of times, I was confident my warrior would fair well. I lost every single battle I had. But hey it took the most wounds so I kinda of won? Dellon and Jake faced off for the title of Champion. With the toadify spell and a bop on the head afterward, Dellon won the title. By this time it was nearly 10 and we packed it up for the night.

We learned alot running our first event. It went very well for the most part but learned signs and limiting the number of game systems we will be running will help for the next event. Don't worry we have another Gathering planed for the summer! Once we have the date locked it, we'll be posting!