Plans, Projects, and Pursuits

Hello everyone! I'm happy to see you all here. I don't ramble on like this often, but I've had a lot of Thoughts™ lately. I've finally wrestled through most of them and figured out the directions I want to take much of my work, both personal and professional. 

It's thanks to all of you that I am able to create and fund many of my projects! And now that I have a clearer direction, I feel it's important to share my plans with you. I'd have done this sooner but the year has been rough (as many of you are well aware) and my head's been all over the damn place. However, things are settling down, I'm feeling a good flow, and I'm finessing my routine every day to find a nice balance between professional work and personal aspirations.

So without further ado, my long-winded post about what's coming!

All titles are working titles, and these are not presented in any particular order.

Mr. Pact Worlds

I've been wanting to do a new TTRPG book for a good while. The Strapping Lads did well in Kickstarter, at conventions, and even online over the last year or so (speaking of the Lads, see below). So I've been itching to do another book like that.

Well, I think I found the itch. I did some Twitter ramblings about a hypothetical Starfinder competition that's basically a male beauty pageant. One representative from every planet competing for the title of Mr. Pact System (or whatever I end up calling it), possibly with a short one-shot adventure or a few adventure hooks to help players incorporate the characters in their games. I feel pretty pumped about this and it's going to be my next main Kickstarter project. As patrons, you'll get to see my sketches, designs, some of my ramblings on the characters before anyone else. 

So I hope you'll enjoy this trip around the Golarion System. Tell your friends I'll be drawing a bunch of sexy alien and human men!

Superhero Lads, Sparrowverse Edition

This was my original idea for a new Strapping Lads-like book. I wanted to make a team of gay male superheroes from all over the world. Each one would fill a different superhero niche, and together they'd serve as a sort of "Gay Justice League."

I kept running into problems with motivation. Eventually I got some rough outlines down for character names, powers, origin, the cliffs notes background info, but I just never felt inspired to create them. I've just been stumped. And while keeping up with commissions and Sparrow content, I haven't felt very driven to push myself with these guys.

HOWEVER!

I talked to a friend the other night, and I decided I'm going to make this a Sparrowverse themed book after all. Originally I was going to keep it a kind of generic "alternate real world" thing, and that may have been part of my hang-up. I think it will still work fine as a supplement (Mutants & Masterminds certainly welcomes mythology-inspired concepts), and that connection has made me feel excited about the project again. I'll be plodding along at this for a while, though I am still more eager to work on the Starfinder book for the next KS. 

I think the difference here is that I have a clearer story in my head that I want to tell about Mr. Pact Worlds. I'm still searching for that story with the Superhero Lads, and I need to refit some of the concepts to fit the Sparrowverse. But I also feel I'm closer to finding the story, and I am better able to start developing these characters once Mr. Pact Worlds is done.

Historical Husbands

Another addition to my growing list of Sparrowverse content, Historical Husbands is the working title to a graphic novel pitch I want to create. It's set in the Sparrowverse, but back in the 1600s. In a nutshell, historical mythological superheroes, with an extra helping of queerness. The main characters are Dr. Domenico Sabbatini, an Turco-Italian plague doctor, occultist, and alchemist, his husband Li Liang, a Chinese bureaucrat, Taoist, and spiritualist, and their friend Amarante, a French trans woman, expert sword fighter, and ravishing beauty with a knack for charming those around her. You'll be seeing more of them on here as I not only develop the designs and story, but talk about my pitch packet development.

The goal is to start pitching this to literary agents next year in hopes I can land some kind of publishing deal. And even if I don't, I'll find a way to make it myself!

The Sparrow

The Sparrow is definitely not going anywhere. As many of you have seen, I'm making slow and steady progress. I just started page 15 and my immediate goal is to get to page 20 where I'll start posting some of the pages to the public in traditional webcomic format. There are 60 pages total in Book 1, and at that point I'll probably run a Kickstarter of the collected story so far.

I'm also slowly building some reference guides and a modest "setting Bible" as I round out the world. I'll start posting more of that here.

Finally, I do want to shift more toward doing Sparrow and original content over fan art for my NSFW work. The fan art won't go away completely. I enjoy making it, and I know many fans of my work also like it. However, I also feel a lot of my audience really enjoys the Sparrow and other original work I do. 

Anyway, I hope to generate more Sparrow content for Patreon, especially once I begin posting pages to the public again. Time is a bit tight because I have to take on a lot of commissions lately. But I'm making progress a little at a time and I hope to share more early access content here.

Upcoming NSFW Content

Since many of you are here for NSFW art in addition to the rest (and I welcome you for it!), I'll be changing things up slightly. Here's a quick rundown:

• Kyle's Black Book -- I won't be stopping this, but I will be slowing it down to once or twice a month, probably starting September. The next poll will be the last for a while since I have a ton of good options to pair him with. I've logged all past nominations, so I'll circle through most or all of them eventually. If your fav hasn't appeared yet, please stick around! I promise Kyle will get to the majority of the list sooner or later.
• Strapping Lads NSFW -- I made these guys to be sexy and many people found me through this book. I'm going to start working them into my NSFW rotation. There will be solo pics and duo pics, some more sexual than others since I've got some official couples and some guys that make good friends with benefits.
• Sparrow & Sparrow/Fanart Crossovers -- Some of you may remember last poll I asked about Sparrow/Fanart crossover NSFW work. Response was overwhelmingly positive! So I'll be shifting more of my fan art focus toward this.

Other Projects - Looking Ahead

I have a few other projects I'm interested in doing eventually. After reasoning through some things I've been able to settle my thoughts and orient my drive, I'm more comfortable putting these on the back burner. I may dabble with them once in a while, but I'm okay setting them aside. Still, as a preview, these are a couple ideas I have in mind:

• "Man"-ual of the Planes -- A trip around the D&D multiverse where we get to meet sexy(?) men from most of the planes.
• "Boyshido," the men of Rokugan -- A few sexy L5R male pin-ups
• Pathfinder 2e "Lads" style book -- Self-explanatory, a version of the Lads but for Pathfinder 2e.
• Strapping Lads 2 -- possibly combined with the above, I'd like to do a second Lads book one day.
• Dragonmarked Men of Eberron & Guildsmen of Ravnica -- A couple more tentative ideas for some Lads-style DnD books

These are all kind of "wish list" ideas, so I'm not in a hurry to get on them. I'll circle back eventually. I may try to organize a zine or some other collaborative thing for one of them, but for now I'm good with working on these solo.
Anyway, that's what I've got on my plate outside paid gigs and commissions and all that. Thank you all for your support, both old and new! I hope you all enjoy what's coming, because I'm excited now that I have settled my ADHD mind down and figured out my direction. If you ever have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me here (via comments or DMs) or on Twitter!
Thank you,
Micah