iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Hey guys? For reasons, I'm gonna need you to go like the post I've quoted below. I need this adorable dragon.

A screenshot of two posts. The top post is made by Juniper, saying "I think sometimes it is important to draw a dragon the way your 9 year old self would have appreciated. Look at her. She's dreadful. What a splendid beast."
Below is a scrabbly-looking dragon in green.

The comment below this post is Tangent Joy, saying "If this gets 100 posts I'll add it to the game."

Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Haven't been online much, but here's a doodle I did recently of a CATAPHRACTS character I'm playing. They're... a really different vibe, for me. Usually I play big old dudes. Anyway, I swear I'm still alive!

A pretty blonde with a magician's wand sticking through their updo covers their mouth, looking surprised. They are wearing star-shaped jewelry and a high-necked tunic.
The light is soft and warm.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Interrupting my summer of inactivity to say: oh holy crap, one of our blue pearl neocaridina shrimp is carrying eggs! There’s a little yellow shrimp just below her, to the right. Li’l bonus for ya.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Got a lot of new followers today, but I haven’t been very productive this summer. Please enjoy this (invasive) mollusk shell that my kid found in the river. We spend a lot of time outside this time of year, but I’ll be back to posting bookbinding, publishing, and TTRPG stuff in September!

A gold triangular bivalve shell with brassy stripes leaning against a piece of driftwood. It probably belonged to a zebra mussel before it was found as a half-shell in a local riverbed. After a boil and scrub, it is now decor in a sandy, well planted, but otherwise unoccupied fish tank.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

The game master’s guide for LONGSWORD literally spells out how to present an adventure, folks. Step by step. If it doesn’t, and it’s an adventure-kinda-game, it’s not very useful. Indie systems aren’t as well supported as, say, DnD 5e. Your GM has to do the work themselves. Give them tools.

The first page of the Game Master’s guide of Longsword is a full page black and white digital inkwash illustration of two knights in full plate wailing on each other with swords in front of some crumbling ruins. Sam Tung is the artist.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Here’s an example: @vidityavoleti.bsky.social wrote LONGSWORD. I happen to have the Plus One EXP zine club physical print. It’s a 44 page zine, cover included, and roughly halfway through you hit the delightfully robust game master’s guide. This section is critical.

A zine, a notebook, and two mechanical pencils lay on top of a cream and blue patterned tablecloth. The zine is called LONGSWORD, it features an illustration of a group of knights gathered around a fire in a dark forest. The fire sheds light in the shape of the titular Longsword, with a moon for the pommel.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

So you’re a game designer who wants people to write adventures for your system. Here’s how you facilitate that:

Captain America sits backwards in a chair in a school hallway, about to drop a public service announcement like a cool dude

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

I try not to put spiders into my games, out of consideration for my arachnophobic friends, but I am making a terrarium for my girlfriend and look what I found while misting it today… webs! (This shot was selected because it does not have a visible spider) What a productive little dude.

A top-down shot into a not particularly well-established glass aquarium, featuring a cool rock, a few species of moss, and some dead root from a maple tree. Most of the image is occluded by a veil of fine webbing, which is only visible because it has been misted with a spray bottle.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

It’s summer, so we’re enjoying the best of the season. I got some worm castings for the terrarium, too!

A heart-shaped strawberry sits on the tip of my juice-stained fingers. Behind it, a flat of berries, slightly out of focus.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Whipped this together just for you.

A paper spinner, made out of a circular piece of paper separated into eight equal sections. A strip of paper rolled into a tight scroll has been inserted through a hole in the center, and an arrow with a hole in the base has been slipped on top of that. Flicking the arrow will cause it to spin, giving a result of 1-8. Paper clips work better but I had no paper clips.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

The oracles (specifically @binarystar.games) wisely suggests touching base with itch’s support team to see which data, specifically, needs to be protected and anonymized in order to get this resolved.

A discord screenshot of a user named Binary stating that the following tree should be followed on itch and shared to resolve this issue, with the caveat that some of this info might need to be anonymized.

“Earnings, payment, details on a payment, view invoice” should give PayPal what they want.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

New mosses, from my father’s garden. My desk collection is slowly growing…

A ziploc bag with two different types of moss inside, as yet unidentified.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

My DMs alternate wildly between people saying: “I didn’t know you were the guy who made HedgeWitch!” and “Oh my god, you’re the Print It Yourself guy!” So, uh, yeah. This is just a post to say I am both of those people, and I make other things, too: shoutingcrow.itch.io

A cover for a solo journaling game called Hedge Witch, drawn in a cutesy simplified style in the original gameboy palette of all green. A little witch wearing an apron and flowers on her pointed hat holds a star in her hand, eyes big with wonder and worry.

The cover of issue 2 of Print it Yourself, which centers heavily on basic zine production. It features a greyscale illustration of a clipboard with a target drawn on it being punctured through the bullseye with a pencil while coins spill out.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

For context, this isn’t, like, a crazy reduction in size. Here’s the mini version beside the intended size, which measures in at something like 2.75”x4.25”. … which is great, but that only fits in the billfold of my wallet and we are trying to get ridiculous about this.

Two almost identical booklets, one just slightly smaller than the other. The smaller one is roughly 3/4ths the size, making it more convenient to carry.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

How mini can your minizine get? @innocentgoblin.bsky.social used a nice sans-serif typeset for the body, here, so even though I reduced it to 2x3” (smaller than a business card!) it remains legible while still fitting inside the card sleeve in my wallet.

A slightly more miniature version of a minizine game called “The Kaiju Love You, big hulking monsters have even bigger hearts” by Innocent Goblin. The cover uses a bubbly font that matches the colours of a big pink heart with a blue outline in the center of the page.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

I messed this up horrifically and should probably start over, but… maybe it’s worth it?

A tear in the thigh of a pair of well-loved jeans, with lines of stitch forming a weft on top.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

I regret to inform you that, yes, that, but also this:

a lineless illustration of Eryk of Peregrine Coast Press-- a man with messy brown hair and a funny little mustache, wearing a stripey yellow shirt and yellow-framed glasses-- making a disgusted face

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Doing weird, stupid stuff with wheat paste and newsprint today. God forgive me, I know not what I do.

A paper mache-covered balloon, drying in front of a window.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This one is giving Ranunculus with the way you’ve wrapped it and I want you to know I felt a pang of envy when I saw it.

A peachy-pink strip of cardstock wrapped in a tight spiral so that it resembles a flower with dense layers of petals.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Literally an hour after I post about anthotypes, the cool folks at my local florist/cafe hand me what I can only describe as a BUCKETLOAD of flowers that are just a little past their prime or are just too short to use in arrangements. Kiddo and I are going to make some prints! shopsundayblooms.com

A decadent amount of tulips, snapdragons, and roses in shades of yellow, orange and red. A smaller vase below contains smaller flowers, including some purple sea Holly.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Weird printing techniques have taken hold of my soul. Send help... or make weird art. Think you can't make art? I swear you are wrong. Here's a little blurb on anthotyping, a print-making process that uses little else but sunlight and plant-juice:

A page describing how anthotyping works, and how it differs from cyanotyping. The text reads as follows: Anthotyping is a photoreactive process using fugitive dyes. This process works because UV light breaks down and fades plant-based pigments such as curcumin. If we coat a surface in a dye that is not lightfast and then cover parts of the paper with something opaque, dark silhouettes form around them as the exposed surface bleaches out. Once the desired contrast is achieved, the paper is sometimes treated with an alkaline solution to change the colour.
Cyanotypes use iron-based chemicals (potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate) to produce rich blue images. The results are quite stable and long lasting and can be toned post-process in shades of red or yellow. Cyanotypes require negatives to produce positive images.
Anthotypes require no mineral salts, instead using fugitive plant dyes to create images. This process does not require the use of negatives. The type of plant dye determines the colour of the print. Materials required to make an anthotype can be found in an average household. The prints fade with time, whether you use an alkaline wash or not. You should scan or photograph their work before visible light eventually destroys it.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Genuinely a great person to comm. Look how cute this is! @acbenning.bsky.social and I have never looked better.

A short, feminine witch with pink heart-shaped glasses poses for a photograph with a scruffy cowboy. They are making a heart with their hands together.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Actual photo taken the moment of

A poorly photoshopped headswap of the famous "Michael Scott shaking Ed Truck's Hand" prop photo, except Ed Truck's head has been replaced with young Michael Scott's head. So Michael Scott with a mullet is shaking Michael Scott with a mullet's hand.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

I made this face when I got the email I swear to god.

A young man with a mullet and a Fanny pack, but also a short sleeve collared shirt and a bright blue necktie, looks confused and frightened as he shakes the hand of an older and significantly more established man in an office.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

You’re a gym leader, but your gym isn’t a certain type, it’s a theme. What’s the theme? The theme is “why does this gym have so many shiny bidoo— oh! A regular one. Okay.”

A shiny bidoof, a Pokémon that looks a lot like a hamster. It’s roughly that effective as a fighter, too.

Another shiny bidoof, a Pokémon that looks a lot like a hamster. It’s roughly that effective as a fighter, too.

Yet another shiny bidoof, a Pokémon that looks a lot like a hamster. It’s roughly that effective as a fighter, too.

A regular bidoof, a Pokémon who looks like a hamster. Just a silly little guy.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I am going to be extremely indulgent and post the thumbnail image here, because Bluesky crops them in a funny way. This is pure cope, yes, thanks for asking.

The thumbnail image for the link in the previous post. it has a grey background and an illustration of a white paper crane. The text reads: "How to fold a paper crane (Orizuru). CC-BY Illustrations."

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

I grabbed a screenshot at exactly $1 til it’s funded. I don’t think you can get any closer to the cusp than that.

A screenshot of the kickstarter for Wandering Blades, showing that the project is only $1 short of it’s $15,000 funding goal

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

For easy reference: PIY Foldies here: shoutingcrow.itch.io/make-your-ow... Bonus round: a little bookmark I did as a demo some time last month

Folding instructions for an origami bookmark that slips over the corner of a page. You start with a square piece of paper, noting that the finished bookmark will be 1/4 of this starting size. Fold the sheet in half so that it forms a triangle with the longest flat edge towards you. Bring the bottom left corner to the top point and crease, then unfold. Then bring the bottom right corner to the top and crease before unfolding. Fold down a single sheet of the top corner so that its point lines up with the center of the bottom edge. Bring the bottom left corner to the top once more. Then, tuck its topmost point into the pocket formed by of the single sheet you folded down earlier. Do the same with the other side. Good job! You're finished.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Another thing I made and have no particular use for. Ya'll are welcome to it, I suppose. Message me on discord if you need an SVG. In any case... a theme seems to be brewing?

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I wrote it for my little sister who owns the titular jerk of a frog. Here’s a picture of the little monster. In real life her name is Tina (sometimes Tuna.)

A top-down photograph of a Pac-Man frog, in a strawberry morph. They are basically a round orange-and-tan circle with baleful little eyes glaring upwards.
The frog is surrounded by coir and is half-buried beside their water dish.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Bah! I forgot to show the cute endpaper Andrea picked out. Look at those shiny stars! Also pictured: the cover for my matching journal.

The wrapped cover boards for two spineless books. On the left is a warm olive green with a bright yellow interior stamped with hot foil holographic stars. On the right is an apparently teal blue with an off white paper printed with a grey rococo leaf motif.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

By my girlfriend’s request, I made us a matching set of custom fitness journals. This is my last coptic stitch project for now, after this I’ll be exploring a glued-spine technique while binding a nice copy of Munkao’s Kala Mandala. Things I learned:

An olive green paper cover of a hand-bound journal laying on a cutting mat marked with one inch squares. The book is roughly five and a half by eight and a half inches. Six lime green threads are visible roughly a centimeter from the spine, holding the book together.

The spine of this olive green hand-bound journal is exposed, displaying six neat rows of tiny loops forming Coptic stitches.

An interior of the journal shows it laying fully flat, a line of lime green stitches running through the gutter. The journal appears to track both individual days and provide weekly goal check-ins, providing spaces to write down personal measurements, exercises the user performed, what they ate, etc. The actual contents are customized to the user: the receiver of this journal specified what fields they required.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

No, seriously, have y’all seen this? What a gorgeously illustrated, fully realized, incredibly human bit of work. We should all take notes.

The cover of a hastily-trimmed copy of the Kala Mandala Playbook, an early edition of a Tabletop roleplaying game recently released by Munkao.

An early spread about character creation. This section is very long, and has an entire page dedicated to name creation.

The first spread of the core rules. You shouldn’t read them off this photograph, though— you should download the book.

A spread about food and rations, fully illustrated, giving literal flavour to the setting.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

If the fonts aren't credited: open the PDF in your layout program (this works in InDesign and Affinity Publisher, for example) and see what pops up in the "missing fonts" window.

A screenshot from Affinity Publisher, showing the Battletech activity book. A warning has loaded about all the missing fonts, allowing the user to state which typesets they would like to use to replace them.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Feeling very self conscious about my new pinned post so… here’s my desk plant! That purple thing on the left is called Brass Buttons (Leptinella Platt’s Black), the green mass is Irish Moss (Sagina Subulata), and that pretty leafy mass with white veining is a Nerve Plant (Fittonia)

A potted plant under a blue desk lamp. There are three plants visible: the center mass of green seems to have the texture of short hair. The purple mostly on the left and right has a lot in common with tiny ferns. Finally, the nerve plant is the only one with broad leaves.

The same pot as before with a slightly different angle, showing off the shallow circular pot. A variety of mosses and small plants live inside of it.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Hi! I'm Justin. I make a free zine series about designing print-friendly tabletop games called PRINT IT YOURSELF. Every issue is absolutely chock full of diagrams and sometimes I do interviews with really talented and knowledgeable people. Check it out: itch.io/c/5612213/pr...

Fully illustrated, step by step instructions about how to staple a zine.

Step 1: Stack your sheets neatly in a landscape orientation. The cover goes on top, the centerfold goes on the bottom.
Step 2: Measure and mark the halfway point running up and down on the page. Make a mark two inches from the top and bottom of that line.
Step 3: With a longarm, swivel arm, or booklet stapler, punch staples through the page by aligning the outside edge of the stapler with the 2" mark.
Step 4: Flip the stack over so the centerfold is on top and fold it in half, left edge to right, so the cover is on top and the centerfold pages are kissing.
6: Put a crisp crease on the spine. A bone folder (a small simple tool with a rounded edge) is handy here.
7: If you have scruffy looking pages, you can trim them off carefully with a blade. Guillotine or rotary cutters work better!

A contrast diagram overlaying a gradient of black-to-white letters on top of a gradient of white-to-black squares. Some of them have white or black outlines. It demonstrates how strong contrast makes text more legible.

The text above it reads: BIG VISUAL IMPACT FOR STRONGLY-THEMED PROJECTS
If your game re-iterates on an idea several times and that’s kinda the point of it, you gotta consider using this format. This foldie just oozes drama.
That “constant” triangle that is nearly omnipresent in the top right of this foldie is going to haunt anyone reading this foldie. Take advantage of that fact and put something really important there.
TEXT ON TOP OF IMAGES
This format has a huge visual impact, and art works really well with it-- but if you absolutely have to put written words on a busy background keep it short and to the point. Use a thick, contrasting outline instead of a soft/drop shadow or fade the background out behind the text entirely. Avoid typesets that have very little negative space in some of the letters (center of lower-case ‘e’.) They don’t play nice with outlines.
DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YA...
It takes experience to make text and triangles play nicely with each other, and this format has a few unusually-shaped pages. Artists, this is your moment to shine! Verbose writers, beware. Also, don’t put anything on the “unused interior” except for folding instructions. Yes, even if you pre-fold it. Trust me on this one.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Woah, something happened to that upload. Lemme try again.

The same vector illustration of a minidisc in a clear case as before but hopefully not as weirdly out of focus because it is larger

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

In a fit of "my brain is unable to draw the thing I was SUPPOSED to draw today" I drew a minidisc for literally no reason. Do you need a minidisc illustration? Use this. It's free. If you need it higher res or as an SVG hit me up on discord and I'll make it happen.

A vector illustration of a small, shiny disk in an integrated clear plastic case.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

This was a great recc! I blasted through the binding much quicker-- ended up doing coptic stitch again, to see how much time I could shave off with a curved needle and waxed thread. Turns out: a lot. Cover is cheap-and-cheery chipboard wrapped in kraft paper.

The cover of Old School Revival Solo Role-Playing Guide by Arcane Sword Press features a pen and ink drawings stone mausoleum with an open doorway, someone is stepping into the darkness beyond the entryway with a torch held above their head.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Today my wonderful girlfriend @acbenning.bsky.social is a year older, bolder, and more beautiful than ever. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re gonna celebrate this birthday with strawberries and scones.

A red headed woman with sunglasses perched on her head holds the lapels of a faux fur jacket while mean-mugging the camera. She is standing in the aisle of a thrift shop between clothing racks.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Shipping tabletop roleplaying game books is expensive. Give the delivery dude a day off and print ‘em yourself. Sometimes it’s nice just to mess around with paper. Making things feels good. itch.io/b/2983/penny...

A old fashioned woodcut print of a man setting an old printing press. On the left, text reads: Penny Printables. Tabletop games for easy home printing.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Does it look super professional? Well, no. This was an experiment with alternate materials, not an exercise in polish. Tell you what, though… it lays flat when open, no matter what page you turn it to.

Pages 24 and 25 of the book Adventure! The book is wide open and is not weighed down or clipped into position in any way. Orange thread runs up the crease.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

ADVENTURE! is done! Things I learned: Yes, you can use unwaxed embroidery floss to bind a book… but you have to untangle it 1,000 times. Yes, you can do a Coptic stitch with a straight needle. It is a giant pain in the ass and curved needles are easier to use and only marginally harder to find.

A handmade book propped so that the spine is facing directly up, focusing on the exposed stitching. It is (mostly) tidy. The book has a blue paper cover. It is titled Adventure!

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I love the bare bones edition of Mörk Borg so much I might just give it the ol’ medieval treatment. Longstitch in yellow, coptic stitch in pink? Black linen book cloth? Hot pink endpapers?! A man can dream.

A softcover, exposed-spine, smyth-sewn copy of Mörk Borg (bare bones edition). The cover is black, with a scratchy illustration of a horrific monstrous skeleton, spattered with gore. A pair of horns curls downwards on its head.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Swear to god I’m going to make something profitable one day so I can buy fancy 4-ply Irish linen thread in fun colours. Since when does Crawford Threads come in hot pink?! Have you SEEN this cozy yellow? … makes me want to make something less slapdash…

A spool of hot pink/fuchsia cord. It is fairly thick, being a four-ply linen.

A spool of warm yellow cord. Like the last picture, it is a thick thread. The 2 in 2-ply is crossed out— the photo is from the Hollander’s website and they are advertising it as a 4-ply, so this product photo may or may not be a stand-in.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

And we’re off to the punching cradle! Might use some goofy thread for this project, all the waxed linen I have is in very plain colours. The whole point of this project is “bookbinding, but make it accessible,” anyway. How many of you have waxed linen just lying around?

An alternate cover of Adventure! by Exeunt Press lays on a cutting mat. The cover is blue. The back cover lays behind it, showing off a pink endpaper. A bone folder and yesterday’s wheat paste are in a jumble just behind.
In the foreground, a hand clutches a stack of folded signatures. All but the last are sixteen pages long.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Testing hardback binding techniques today— trying to find a compromise between quality, accessibility, and cost. This was an adhesive test with 22lb paper on davey board. Glue stick on the left (low bond), wheat paste on the right (some buckling). exeuntpress.itch.io/adventure prints well, btw.

An alternate cover for a book by Exeunt Press called “ADVENTURE! Make Your Own Tabletop Roleplaying Game Adventure”

There are two boards present, the back cover is on the left. It has cheap blue paper pasted to a davey board with a glue stick. The outer edges are clearly not adhered to the board. The front cover is on the right, it was adhered using wheat paste. It looks excellent except for some buckling on the bottom.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

A friend (Hi, Jason!) sent me this screenshot as it appeared in his timeline. @hausofdecline.bsky.social is another trans Canadian artist. I couldn't be in better company.

A screenshot of the two posts about burnout made by Shouting Crow, and just below it, a comic by Haus of Decline about Sailor Moon struggling with burnout. Smoking a cigarette, she explains her situation: she fights evil by moonlight, wins love by daylight, and gets absolutely no sleep. She is on the brink of collapse.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

A movie that takes place where you're from.

A promotional poster for a Canadian-American film called Defendor-- which is intentionally misspelled. Woody harrelson wears a trench helmet and has a classic hero mask stencilled on his face with greasepaint.

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Shouting Crow @shoutingcrow.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Both versions had the same size font and were printed on letter size paper. Look how much bigger the one on the right is after trimming, simply because it was formatted for the intended print size!

Both folios have been trimmed to remove the white unprinted area around the red margin line. The folio formatted for letter size pages is on the left— it is smaller. The folio formatted for digest sized pages is on the right— it is significantly larger.

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