The Aleks (they/them)
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thealeks.bsky.social
The Aleks (they/them)
@thealeks.bsky.social
910 followers 990 following 1.4K posts
I make art, video games, tabletop roleplaying games, that kind of thing. Very cool. The Poochie of social media.

https://thealeks.itch.io
https://unverifiedpersonalgnosis.neocities.org

https://ko-fi.com/feedthealeks
https://patreon.com/atelier_aleks
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thealeks.bsky.social
Vgen seems like something I should be joining. I can't say that asking around for a code isn't inconvenient, but I do rather like the hard anti-AI / quality assurance stance it engenders ...

So ...is there anyone who can help a graying, aging artist out as they try to get hip with it? #VGenCode
Screaming face / Guy with flare comfronted by beings in the dark / guy hiding from lanky eyeball monster. Ferris wheel at night. Dark figure walking towards bulbs in snow. Ghoul in the woods. Undead dandy. Tentacle person in trenchcoat. Blob of fleshy grossness. Giant, three eyed monkey-rat beast. Three aliens with pearls for head. BDSM chicken man.
November 1, 2025 at 12:14 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
So, I'd like to try selling #adoptables - I've drawn up a decent starting batch, but, as is customary for yours truly, don't really have much of an idea where or how to actually "set up shop." Any advice from more experienced sellers?

#art
Ghosty guy with hat, scarf, fingerless gloves, and striped pants. Goblin with spiky shoulders and painted eyes. Spooky chibi rendition of a Pierrot style character from the Comedia Del Arte. Cartoon green haired femme rendered in flat, largely pastel colors wearing dark pink tunic and pants, blue boots and shoulder guards, and gray elbow guards.
October 31, 2025 at 11:50 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
Artist! Quote with your night art ✨
Painting of a balding bearded man in a blue coat and striped shirt climbing a graffiti covered staircase framed by a diner at night.
October 27, 2025 at 1:14 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
It is terrible and evil of me to include my own thing, but imma do it anyway, cause nobody sees this deck (Lacuna Tarot) otherwise.

Don't know if I can say it's my "favorite," but it's obviously (as of now) the one I have the closest personal relationship with, and it's certainly not standard.
A surrealist interpretation of the Chariot Tarot card, featuring an unblinking eye set into a blobulous shape atop several abstract wheel forms floating over a void and what looks to be torn pieces of paper featuring hand drawn, arcane diagrams.
October 19, 2025 at 12:59 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
I don't think much of it is would be considered all-ages, since it's usually some brand of surreal horror with a trauma subtext, but I'm a coward, so I use the subtext and symbolism as a shield ... but you can take a look and evaluate. I did make this weird leather bird-person recently (far left)!
Three images side by side. Giant, three eyed rat/man/monkey monster. Three strange, faceless humanoids. An avian monster with a long tongue and human face in leather straps.
October 15, 2025 at 1:30 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Gods, the burnout is real ... I kind of want to take the next few days off while the Kickstarter goes through the review process, but it's hard not to feel guilty. I'm gonna at least try to chill out, I guess.

Meanwhile, have some more #art from the upcoming #horror #ttrpg Shores Of Night.
Three black-and-white illustrations side by side: A many-limbed wooden marionette, with a spherical head with an empty hole in it. An loose rendering of an imagined cityscape seen from above. A monstrous, vaguely draconic creature with leathery wings, long twisted tail, and an eyeless head characterized by a round, angry maw, is perched on top of a city building.
September 16, 2025 at 10:58 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
Alright, there's a fair bit more where that's coming from, but I'm getting tired of inspiring hype and rampant signal boosting from everyone who lays eyes on this, so just one more set from the game's bestiary for tonight ... #horror #ttrpg #art
Three black and white monster / bestiary illustrations side by side. A massive, hairy, vaguely simian quadrupedal being with a cruel, hungry grin, three eyes, and an erect rat-like tail grips a crushed human body in its right hand. A trio of humanoid entities in loose, one-piece outfits and sporting fleshy cavities filled with something akin to large, imperfect pearls where a human's neck and head would be. A winged monstrosity with a long, dark tongue, twisting, serpentine neck, and a very human face is apparently saddled up for a rider (or is, perhaps, simply into the leather lifestyle).
September 15, 2025 at 12:49 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
I be y'all forgot, or, in the parlance of our times, "forgore?" that the Aleks is, in fact, a talented and traditionally trained visual artists, since they hardly ever post their creations. Well, time to remember, because your hype and money will be needed soon.
#art #ttrpg #gethype
Two paintings side by side: a narrow composition featuring an eerily proportioned humanoid figure with dark hair, light yellow shawl, and tan skirt blowing in the wind, framed by a sliver of tiled floor, a graffiti covered wall, and window overlooking a twilit city-scape. A mass of fleshy, pale tendrils of various sizes feeding through suction on three human corpses at varying stages of decomposition, seemingly encased in some combination of web and slime.
September 15, 2025 at 12:41 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
What, you are still begging to see more #artwork from the upcoming #horror #ttrpg, Shores Of Night, painted with aching hands and an aching heart by yours truly, so you can get even MORE hype? And what's that, you plan on reposting so everyone can get hype too? Fine, I can't say no to you.
Three images side by side: an akwwardly proportioned human face with a mechanical third eye screaming from within a tangle of gauze bandages. A wiry man in a tanktop wielding a burning flare and a crowbar is confronted by two dark, spindly figure in a cramped, industrial space, illuminated bright red. A desperate, pale figure with yellowed bandages on its head is pressed against a graffiti covered brick wall, staring sadly ahead as a tall, vaguely humanoid figure with a spherical head and one massive eye is casually rounding the corner.
September 15, 2025 at 12:37 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
What's that you say, you want a preview of the character sheet from the freakadelic #horror #ttrpg of surreal and cosmic weirdness, created from scratch by incredibly desirable #lgbtqa icon Aleks Samoylov? Well, it's still a bit rough, but okay, if you insist.
Basic character sheet for Shore Of Night, featuring Corpus, Locus, and Animus score trackers, Gnosis and Veil meters, and places to write in Aptitudes and their scores, Traits, Fetters, Epiphanies, and Development information.
September 15, 2025 at 12:32 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
You want more #art for the excellent, upcoming #horror #ttrpg Shores Of Night, by the seksi and talented Aleks Samoylov, who is currently doing all the writing and art solo (slop free, in case you're wondering - #fuckai)? Well, okay, pull my leg won't ya.
Three black-and-white monster / enemy illustrations side by side: a dapper guy-about-town in slightly rumpled but fashionable clothing leaning casually on a conveniently placed pillar, except he's basically a desiccated lich. A striking figure in a trench-coat with a mass of tendrils instead of a head and hands. A blobus, a large, amorphous, blobby, fleshy thing.
September 15, 2025 at 12:28 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Alright, the Kickstarter page for Shores Of Night, the hot new, non-Lovecraftean, sanity-mechanic-free, d6 dice pool #horror #ttrpg is ready for review, so it's time to start "building hype early" and sharing some #art
Three painting side by side : a Ferris wheel on a deserted beach by moonlight. A dark figure walking past a snowy graveyard towards cyclopean bulbs. A pale ghoulish creature grinning in front of a pine forest.
September 15, 2025 at 12:22 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
I know I'm "bad at marketing" or whatever ... but, you know, I kind of feel like my "branding" has been kind of on point over the years? I dunno. I think it's all pretty cute.
A screenshot of the DrivethruRPG.com storefront for Cloud Monster Press. A pink and white logo featuring a stylized, slightly deranged looking, grinning cat-like creature within an octagonal frame is the most relevant element.
April 21, 2025 at 10:56 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
Getting the fonts and the UI elements not to look totally terrible has been a pain in the butt, but we're slowly getting there. The art looks fine as is imo (it's pixellated, down-scaled non-pixel art, but that matches the PS1 aesthetic), but I might redo it in a simplified style later.
Indie video game screenshot featuring a story / visual novel segment from a PS1 style, low res, first person dungeon crawler. In it, a cool person with pink hair and an eyepatch is saying "So, are we all down for a spontaneous heist, then?"
March 5, 2025 at 10:48 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
Just found this draft again in one of my folders. Don't know how many years ago I first drew it, but I think I might finish it / polish it up, and repurpose it for the new "This Town Is Full of Monsters" release. Truly, this is peak hashtag #art
Three figures standing amidst crags and a leafless wood, dwarfed by the trees and the partially exposed statue that dominates the center of the composition. Only its massive head and arm emerge from the earth. It is holding a giant doughnut aloft between two dainty fingers.
March 5, 2025 at 8:54 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
Gotta hand it to the folks who worked on this New York Times article. How much you wanna bet that this little paragraph alone is going to make Trump feel some kind of way? (And let's not pretend he doesn't care about the NYT). Might get Musk out of his good graces in a damn hurry, honestly.
December 20, 2024 at 2:29 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Super hot artists, designer, and game developer here. I make and publish all manner of things, from tabletop roleplaying games, to decks of handpainted tarot cards, to large, open-ended "dream simulator" video games.
Screenshot from the video game Pleroma. A blue tinted, low poly urban environment viewed from a rooftop, featuring an industrial water-side street, and mist-shrouded skyscrapers visible across the bay. Screenshot from video game, Every City Is The Same. A weak, jaundiced overhead light illuminates a monochrome room in a modern apartment, mostly bare except for several clutches of stacked cardboard boxes. The only visible door opens into a dark corridor. The Sun card from The Lacuna Tarot Deck. A bright red sun hovering among dusky clouds and over a still sheet that has taken on the appearance of desert dunes and itself hovers over a stylized stone plinth. The Star card from The Lacuna Tarot Deck, a blue landscape featuring the suggestion of an industrial harbor dominated by a crane-like structure with two red lights. Above it all, a star illuminates a ghostly celestial labyrinth.
November 15, 2024 at 1:39 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
#ttrpg On a scale of "unprofessional" to "don't feed the trolls," how badly would you say I handled this negative review of one of my entirely free games from like six years ago?
August 19, 2024 at 9:50 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Some folks say, "eat the rich."

I say, "Orchestrate the demise of the rich in fantastical closed room mystery scenarios that couldn't poooosibly be explained by huuuummmans and their tricks, Ushiromya Baaaaattleeeer!!!"

#comradebeato
July 25, 2024 at 10:29 PM
thealeks.bsky.social
#screenshotsaturday

Guess what, you can actually play a free demo of this game right now at thealeks.itch.io/chameleons-d....

You can also back it at crowdfundr.com/chameleonsdish

#art #lqbtqa+ #indiedev
June 2, 2024 at 12:45 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Tarot was supposed to be real hot right now, you know ... but apparently the imagery is too weird or nonfigural for most folks to be comfortable reading it ... which I guess I get.
March 18, 2024 at 1:53 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Here, have some paintings from the Nighthawk Oracle. There are all technically in progress, but were far enough along, I felt, to be included in the Kickstarter page.

This kickstarter didn't maker it either. I'll probably return to these cards someday.

I kind of need a break for a while...
February 29, 2024 at 2:05 AM
thealeks.bsky.social
Just going to share some artwork from Queen of the Fireflies, the rpg thing I'd been working on. The Kickstarter probably won't fund, so, you know, the game itself isn't likely to get made for a while (prototypes notwithstanding), but the stuff I have made so far represents many hours of work.
February 26, 2024 at 1:50 AM