You kids today and your realistic LARP weapons. Back in the day, we fought with swords made from pipe insulation wrapped in silver duct tape. And we were happy!
Geezer flashback aside, it really is amazing how LARP weapons have evolved. As artisans like Sander Propworx demonstrate with this dagger, things have gone far beyond being "Hollywood quality". Stunt weapons on both the big and small screen just have to look good to a camera. LARP blades are now so good they can survive up close scrutiny.
Valraven brings us this interesting blend of cutting edge technology and old school gaff-making. Their mounted mermaid skeleton was 3D printed in high resolution, assembled, and aged. The results speak for themselves, with the bones devoid of the striations that are the mark of poor print head calibration.
I'm not sure why, but I've never connected with the Harry Potter franchise. In my circle of friends and family there are no shortage of fans. That includes my son, who has an impressive collection of both licensed and unlicensed props from the wizarding world.
Ultimately, his fandom transferred over to me in one small way- wands. I started browsing the work of wandmakers to find suitably magical holiday gifts for him. In the process, I began picking up a few for myself. The attraction is similar to the one I have for collecting Cthulhu idols. It's just cool to see all the wild variations on a basic theme.
Which brings me to this wonderfully gnarled antique maple wand from McCormick Wands. I'm not sure if the spalted effect is natural or part of the finish, but it's visually impressive either way.
Alex Libris returns to our pages with another masterful example of tomecraft. This time it's a journal bearing a cast ouroboros embossment, custom hardware, and hand-tooled leather cover.
Silverrend Props brings us this tableaux of props from the newly remastered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. That includes a wanted poster for the infamous Gray Fox, advertisement for the Imperial City's arena, Septim coin, and some very cool reproductions of the Varla and Welkynd stones.
Don't let their name fool you. Magnoli Clothiers is one of the premier producers of movie prop reproductions in the world. Yes, they specialize in bespoke clothing, in particular meticulously researched shirts, ties, and jackets from famous film franchises, but they do so much more than that. The One Eyed Willy's treasure map from "The Goonies" featured in this video is a good example. More importantly, at least for our purposes, it provides a master class in aging paper in less than three minutes.
1. The paper is stained brown with a light spray of tea solution and immediately dried with a heat gun. The entire process takes place on a flat working surface.
2. This is one of the very, very few cases where burning the edges of a paper prop makes sense. It's how the original screen-used prop duplicated the look of edge-browning caused by oxidation. Importantly, note how controlled the process is.
3. General dirt and grime is recreated using pastel chalks, with particular attention to the extra material caught by creases in the paper.
4. Finally, just for you closet pyromaniacs, some actual paper burning! Again, it's a very fleeting, controlled exposure to recreate the scorch marks on the original prop.
I love seeing alternate takes on subjects I've done myself. In this case, Levi Combs of Planet X Games shares his version of a mummified vampire heart. That includes a look at how he actually made it:
"I found the box at a yard sale.
Got the heart from a Halloween Express and then coated it with multiple layers of adhesive and ash from my fireplace to give it a withered color/texture/look.
The pages were taken from a small book inside the Hellboy Special Edition DVD."
Reproducing the texture of very old mummified body parts using layers of ash is a brilliant idea.
For once the YouTube algorithm kicked out a banger.
If you're a Call of Cthulhu tabletop player you're probably aware the game has a huge following in Japan. What I never actually grasped is that Chaosium's creation effectively is tabletop roleplaying there. The Weird Place channel has a great look at some of the cultural quirks that made that happen.
There's a lot to digest here. I was vaguely aware of how important "Record of the Lodoss War" was to popularizing pen and paper RPGs, but never realized CoC campaign recaps were so insanely popular with the Japanese fanbase. More importantly, now I know why a Japanese schoolgirl and her friends pop up whenever I Google "Nyarlathotep".
Thanks to Alibaba, you can purchase a massive animatronic Cthulhu from the Gengu Dinosaurs Technology Company in China. Just $6,380, not including shipping. It's a goofy sculpt, but the fact it exists at all is absolutely mind-boggling. Click through on the link to see a video of this beast in action.
It was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very man-like hands and head, and the goatish, chinless
face had the stamp of the Whateleys upon it. But the torso and lower parts of the body were
teratologically fabulous, so that only generous clothing could ever have enabled it to walk
on earth unchallenged or uneradicated.
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror
This incredible sculpt of Wilbur Whately from Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" comes to us from professional motion picture makeup artist and designer Joel Harlow. I'd love to see this maquette translated into a CGI creature.
"Then down the wide lane betwixt the two columns a lone figure strode; a tall,
slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned
with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light. Close up to Carter strode that regal figure;
whose proud carriage and swart features had in them the fascination of a dark god or fallen
archangel, and around whose eyes there lurked the languid sparkle of capricious humour."
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
This massive hydrocephalic skull specimen comes to us from professional artist Tom Kuebler. You really need to open the full sized pictures in another tab to appreciate the level of detail. The second picture in particular gives you a great look at a small, but telling part of the sculpt- the deformation of the skull sutures created by the massive cranial vault.
The novelty site PhotoFunia has a pretty nifty "Spy Dossier" generator. Fill in the blanks, upload a photo, and you can download a great handout for a character or NPC.
I was asked to design a libretto to accompany a theater heist that's happening in Waterdeep in my girlfriend's campaign.
I styled it off of late 19th century showbills, borrowing the art of
the devil from a 1930s pulp novel. It was built entirely in Photoshop,
in my experience in graphic design, finding a good font is 80% of the
battle and I relied heavily on Hermann Ihlenburg’s typefaces for
inspiration.
One of the biggest challenges with designing something like this is
that a lot of the very fun and engaging titles were all drawn by hand,
which meant me doing a similar thing, drawing everything with Sharpie
and scanning it and then tweaking it to make it look more contemporary.
All in all, this is the result of about five and a half hours of work,
and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
I'm normally not a fan of Cthulhu toys, but this idol from Altar Toys is an exception. Despite the color scheme (and it's available in even more finishes best described as "eye-catching"), I really like the sculpt.
Ordacraft of Brutal Workshop returns to our pages with this WIP shaman's belt. I love the wonderful blend of textures between the soft textile elements and the bones and teeth.
This carved wooden Cthulhu idol comes to us from Ukrainian artist Luna Wood Workshop. It's rare indeed that we get an idol that doesn't have a stone or metal finish. Ones made from actual wood are few and far between.
Chris Heisman is getting ready to wrap up his current Traveller campaign, and he's doing it in style. Each of the players will be getting one of these custom-made "Grand Star of the Directorate" medals. It's a brilliant idea, and the kind of prop that players will remember for years.
Beachgoers have found a "strange skeleton-like" figure which washed up on the shore at a British beach and left them puzzled over what it could be.
Paula Regan stumbled across the eerie object while enjoying a seaside walk with her husband Dave in Margate, Kent, on Monday, March 10, and a crowd gathered to look at it. Photos show what looks like a skeleton and mermaid hybrid, partially buried in sand and surrounded by seaweed- with a skeletal head and tail-like structure.
Followers of the blog will immediately recognize the creature as a traditional sideshow-style Fiji Mermaid. It's hard not to congratulate the Regans for a hoax well played, but I really wish the reporter hadn't played along quite so enthusiastically.
Richard Svensson is a dedicated amateur filmmaker who specializes in hand-animated fantasy. Over the years he's produced dozens of short films, including a number of Mythos-inspired works. He created this puppet to appear as the creature at the climax of his adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's "Dagon". It's a fantastic sculpt, built using techniques that Ray Harryhausen would be familiar with. Click through the link for a detailed look at the film, and the puppet's construction.
