Saturday, December 31, 2016

Behold the New Flesh

This delightfully squicky monstrosity comes to us from the gifted Jonathan Payne.   I like how the mimicry is off just enough to keep it from being truly obscene.  That makes it even more disturbing.



Friday, December 30, 2016

Mutant Skulls

These misshapen mutant animal skulls come to us from propmaker Oscar Edlund.  Just the thing to adorn your post-apocalyptic ensemble.


Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Sovereign of Decay

Artist Mordor Legion brings us the "Sovereign of Decay", a beautifully crafted LARP mask.  It's usable in combat thanks to being molded in kevlar reinforced plastic.


Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The Key of R'lyeh

French leather crafter L'Artisan des Ombres brings us the "Key of R'lyeh" grimoire.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Making an Abominable Snowman

Glam and Gore has posted a fun little tutorial on creating an Abominable Snowman/Yeti.  What's notable about the project is how simple cotton and liquid latex is used to build up a surprisingly effective facial prosthetic. 




Sunday, December 25, 2016

Idols of the Old Gods

This collection of idols dedicated to the Old Gods comes to us from Ukrainian LARP suppliers Masks Mastery.  They have an interesting line of statuettes based on both fictional and historic deities.


Saturday, December 24, 2016

Friday, December 23, 2016

The Grand Bestiary

Artist Laurent Gontier is the coolest uncle ever.  He created this bestiary as a gift for his nephew.  It's illustrated with period woodcuts of mythological creatures and hand bound in leather.



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Treasure of the Leprechauns

Ethis Crea brings us an unusual treat- the true, potentially NSFW, treasure of the Leprechauns.  What really makes the joke work is that it's played totally straight and the props are extremely well done. Non-French speakers will find the Google translation helpful.




Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Up From the Depths

This fantastic aquatic humanoid comes to us from the talented Casey Love.  When I finally win the lottery he'll be doing the design work for my 10 hour miniseries dramatizing the raid on Innsmouth.



Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Monday, December 19, 2016

The Troll Compass

The talented James Ewing returns to our pages with this unusual artifact.
The Troll Compass Pendant is an essential part of any ethereal investigators wardrobe.  The arrow or pointer at it’s centre is comprised of two main materials; Copper and Iron.  The Copper has a slight attraction to ethereal energy but is mostly neutral. However, the Iron in the tail of the pointer is repellent to most ethereal entities, especially Trolls, and so will always be pushed away in their presence.





Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Kingsport Specimen

Fiend Upon My Back brings us this curious specimen collected from the eastern shore of Hog Island in 1971.


Saturday, December 17, 2016

A Terminal Case

Power Up Props has posted a nice build log on the RPF for their recreation of the wall mounted terminals in "Fallout 4".    The level of detail the process can capture is pretty impressive, but they don't gloss over how much finishing work is required.  Getting rid of the striations from printing means hours of applying bondo and sanding things down.


Friday, December 16, 2016

A Giant Tentacle

This is a giant tentacle.  I can't think of much more to say about it, other than to confess my admiration for shanev12's sheer determination in making the damn thing.  They woke up one day, said "I want to have a giant tentacle in my house," and then turned their dream into reality.  They also happened to fully document the process of creating "Larry", their name for the bespoke, and be-suckered,  appendage.

You know, I don't like cheesy Mythos Christmas stuff.  Tentacle ornaments?  Plush Christmas Cthulhu?  Blech.  None for me, thanks.

But, as God is my witness, a giant tentacle covered in blinking lights and topped with a holiday star has to be one of the coolest things I've seen this year. 






Quest for the Book of Eibon

Cyberook brings us this wonderful prop tableau from a gloriously insane "Achtung! Cthulhu" scenario.

Enter the Book of Eibon, a spell book written by the Hyperborean wizard Eibon and translated by a handful of scholars - all manuscripts of which have been hidden or lost. If the Reich gets their hands on a copy, they could theoretically turn the tides of war in their favor. So, the Ahnenerbe send out teams from both the Black Sun and Nachtwölfe.

Unfortunately for Nachtwölfe, the Black Sun wants all the glory - and, well, to unleash the Valley of the Black Sun into this world. To further this end, they have let slip the current location of the Nachtwölfe team that's searching for the Book to... well... what the heck... The Inglourious Basterds. Bear with me here, this is alternate WW2 and there's nothing saying there wasn't a savage band of American soldiers scalping Nazis...

On top of Aldo "The Apache" Raine and the boys the adventure features a sojourn to Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne, one of the best fantasy settings in literature.


Thursday, December 15, 2016

The Effigy of Nabu Incarnate

Warning: Stop here if you're going to be playing the Call of Cthulhu adventure "The Curse of Nineveh" by Cubicle 7.

Over the last few years the Call of Cthulhu fan site Yog-Sothoth has been running a series of recorded campaigns. Their latest effort is a run through "The Curse of Nineveh" from Cubicle 7.  The adventure features a number of plot tokens that have to be collected by the players, among them a solid gold idol of Nabu Incarnate.
The statuette given to Neve Selcibuc by Archie Glossop, which in turn is given to the investigators at the start of this scenario, is known as “Nabu Incarnate.” It is approximately 20cm (8”) high and made from pure gold. The statuette is of a bearded king who appears to be transforming out of a second, plainer humanoid figure. The effect is to suggest some form of divine conversion or god-like birth. There are no marks or inscriptions save for a small sigil carved on the base, which looks like a rune of some kind: it is in no human language and requires a successful Cthulhu Mythos roll to decipher that it means “Yul’huthris”, a being with a link to the coterminous blasphemy that is Yog-Sothoth.

Wayne Peters was commissioned to create the idol based solely on that description.  He's posted an in-depth look at the process from initial sketch to the final finishing of the 3-d printed piece.  It's a fascinating process, and good look at the future of propmaking.





Wednesday, December 14, 2016

That Elven Glow

I'm a sucker for any kind of glowing crystal.  This bespoke lamp from Laurefin-Estelinion features a glass prism illuminated by LEDs hidden inside the base of swirling leaves.


Tuesday, December 13, 2016

The Alchemist's Grimoire

The gifted Mille Cuirs returns to our pages with this wonderful Alchemist's Grimoire.  Click through to see the full sized picture for a better look at the weathering.  Pristine leatherwork at this level always looks fantastic, but duplicating the look of a forbidden tome really requires some wear and tear.


Monday, December 12, 2016

Edible Props

I stumbled across this on Reddit and thought it was pretty cool. Wats6831 jazzed up his tabletop game with some authentic "trail rations" to serve as snacks.

Homemade artisan herb bread, home grown and dried apples and prunes, uncured beef sausage, munster cheese. Made a small bag from cheesecloth and tied it closed. Going to try some other variations like a dwarf variety with black bread and blood sausage, and a halfling variety with waybread and honeycomb.


We've touched on food as an immersive game element before, primarily in regards to iron rations and pemmican.  There's nothing wrong with the traditional menu of chips and soda for tabletop snacking, but for the same price you can get something far more lore-friendly.  I'm a big fan of nuts, dried fruit, landjäger, and biltong. Which, surprisingly enough, is what I eat when I'm actually hiking.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Pietrzykowska Edition.

This classical-style Cthulhu idol is the work of Kasia Pietrzykowska.  Despite being sculpted from polymer clay it has the feel of a piece carved from stone.




Sunday, December 11, 2016

The Mask of Cthulhu

Sick and Twisted FX brings us this Cthulhu mask cast in silicone.  This would be great for cultists in a LARP.


Saturday, December 10, 2016

The King in Yellow

This inhuman take on the King in Yellow comes to us from sculptor Jim Phillips.  Hail to the King.


Friday, December 9, 2016

Mummified Imp

The gifted Hajime Emoto returns to our pages with this mummified specimen of Daemononis dolusim. The wings are extremely well done.





Thursday, December 8, 2016

The Red Weed


Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint. At any rate, the seeds which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with them gave rise in all cases to red-coloured growths. Only that known popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, and few people have seen it growing. For a time, however, the red weed grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance.

- The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells

Artist Tom Ellis brings us this sample of the insidious Martian vegetation that infested the globe after the invasion of 1898.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

A Merry Miskatonic Solstice

I've added a few more Miskatonic University items on Ebay, perfect for the ethnographic solstice celebration of your choice. 



From the Miskatonic Museum

Matt Szafran created this intriguing clay tablet from the Miskatonic Museum collection. Given his professional experience with actual tablets the entire thread is a goldmine of useful information. He also posted the source PDF for the letter pictured below, which includes a translation of the cuneiform writing and some interesting speculation.



Tuesday, December 6, 2016

The Only Good Imp is a Dead Imp

Given the number of imp heads on display at his site it's safe to say that artist Diego M. Rodriguez has earned the "Imp Slayer" achievement.  Browse his gallery and  you'll see they aren't the only supernatural nuisances he's exterminated.




Monday, December 5, 2016

Stocking Stuffers

If you're looking for some Mythos stocking stuffers I just happen to have a few items up on Ebay.  I'll be adding more listings later this week.


The Stars Are Right

Artist Josh Yelle has posted some snapshots of the beautiful paper props he produced for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's "Brotherhood of the Beast" project.  The set includes a functional chart for determining exactly when the stars are right.  As you would expect, the craftsmanship is outstanding. My thanks to Joe Shea for giving me a heads up.





Sunday, December 4, 2016

Fallout Props

Ammnra Creations has posted a tutorial video for a slew of minor Fallout props.


The video opens with the most interesting segment- how he recreated the game's IV drugs, including Rad-Away. It turns out Bethesda based the label on a marketing prop used by Touch Branding. They literally plopped a prop blood bag into a scanner, scanned the label, and removed the marketing references. For a game that was in development for six years.

Click through on the YouTube logo in the player below to open up the full sized version of the video.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Bad Apple

Artist Morgan Loebel demonstrates that, indeed, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.  And what a very bad apple it is.