Staying Off The Naughty List

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was particularly enjoyable since my back problems seem to be under control for the first time in years. Unfortunately, the enforced inactivity of my recuperation, combined with a family love of good food, has combined to give me a physique that's looking all too Santa-like. I'm a jolly fat man by nature, but I hope being able to get back into a pool and the gym will mean there's a bit less of me jiggling around. Heh.

That aside, there was one other minor Christmas complication- a replica prop I ordered back in late October still hasn't arrived. Delivery dates have come and gone, promised tracking numbers have failed to materialize, and I find myself with nothing to show for the missing money in my wallet. I also have the uncomfortable task of explaining to the recipient why they won't be receiving a Christmas gift until well into January.

Experiences like this are all too common in the replica prop field, and one of the reasons why I'm obsessive about how I manage my own efforts. After participating in dozens of short-run projects I came to the conclusion that the surest sign of potential trouble was any delay between payment and shipping. It's simply amazing how many people, even those with sterling reputations and a history of reliability, suddenly become seriously ill, have a death in the family, or have their computers explode once they have a chunk of your money. Yes, unforeseen events can pop up, but if you have the time to collect my payment you damn well have the time to slap an address label on a box and get my stuff in the mail. If you can't, refund my money.

Really, is this that hard to understand?

Finished Elder Thing

The ornate sculpt of an Elder Thing by artist "jiangzu" is now finished. It was a work in progress when we checked in on it last month.

From Beyond

I was suprised to discover that "From Beyond" is available on Hulu. It has only a passing resemblance to Lovecraft's original story, but Stuart Gordon's over the top, cheese-laden take does have a certain visceral charm.

It also has this depiction of the Miskatonic University seal:













For comparison, here's the Brown University seal:



Based on the screencaps I think they kept the central shield design intact, but shifted the sun and clouds elements downward and trimmed off the top of the clouds.

S-Class Submarine Plans

Alban sent over a link to a very nice set of plans for an S-class submarine posted on Flickr by "daviddb". I'm pretty sure this is the S-class produced by Great Britain, which was a different design from the United States S-class. It isn't an accurate historical resource for the Innsmouth submarine, but the full-sized scan at the link would make an amazing prop or handout.



Be sure to browse the rest of the gallery as well. There's some incredibly cool stuff there.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Falaschi Edition

From artist Andrea Falaschi comes this well-worn depiction of Cthulhu made from one of the large figures in the "Bag of Cthulhu".

The Innsmouth Crew

A sailor from the S-8, hull number SS-113, the submarine that torpedoed the Deep One city off the coast of Innsmouth.*



*"Wait, that's not what Chaosium's "Escape From Innsmouth" says," I can hear you saying. That's true, but based on historical events I believe it was actually the S-8 that did the deed.

In real life, there were five submarines assigned to patrol the area where Lovecraft set the fictional town of Innsmouth in early February of 1928- S-6, S-8, S-12, S-19, and S-20. S-6 was assigned to the recovery efforts for the S-4, a submarine tragically sunk by an accidental collision in December of 1927. Of the remaining four, the cruise record for the S-8 is the only one that specifically mentions a delay in it's annual trip south (to late February) coinciding with the time of the Innsmouth raid.

The Innsmouth Look

One of the myriad joys of Ebay is how easy it makes collecting vintage photographs. You can pick up entire family albums from the 20's and 30's for a pittance, and you'll almost always score a few that are suitable for use as props as-is or with a little retouching.

Old black and white shots have an inherent creepiness that's hard to describe. There's an inescapable sadness in the fact that the people you're looking at are long dead, surviving only in the memories of their families and the piece of paper you hold in your hands. It's a concrete reminder of our own mortality, and as such invokes an emotional response on a very basic level. Re-purposing that unease to enhance the immersiveness of a scenario can produce some effective results.

This particular photograph was part of a lot from Postville, Iowa that I purchased earlier this year. As soon as I saw it I knew it would be perfect as a portrait of an Innsmouth hybrid starting to show the first signs of the inevitable change into a Deep One. There are three versions here. The first is the raw image exactly as I scanned it, the second a slightly cleaned up version for use as a contemporary photograph, and the third has been mildy retouched to enhance "the Innsmouth look".