The Atlantis Legacy

The Dark Door LARP group returns to our pages with a gallery of shots from their latest event, "The Atlantis Legacy".  The UK-based group has some of the highest production values I've ever seen in a live action game.

Cthulhu Cultist Dagger

VonMeer brings us this nicely done sacrificial dagger from the Cthulhu cult.

Ever since Legrasse discovered what he did, we have found the degenerate cult of Cthulhu to be a worldwide threat. This Knife was recovered from some "yezdi" grave robbers outside Medina in 1932 and has remained in private collection since. It is believed to be as old as the 6th century and is mostly made of unknown bone and antler, and was re-wrapped in more recent times.  It shows a head of Cthulhu in a primitive style on one side, and his wings on the back. Also written is Cthulhu in early Arabic under the wings on the cruel serrated blade.

Infernal Devices

Josh W. Kinsey brings us a selection of custom props. These were all crafted for the web series "The Record Keeper". The steampunk-style reel-to-reel recorder is a brilliant piece, and the "photonic siphuncle" and case are equally impressive. When I see work like this I weep at the junk that gets passed off as "steampunk art". This is what real craftsmanship looks like.

Winter is Coming

AlexLibris brings us this beautiful hand bound journal from the library of House Stark.  The tooled leatherwork is amazing.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Centipede Edition.

Copper Centipede returns with a this carved stone Cthulhu idol.  You can't get much more authentic than real stone.

Classic Era Archeology Tools

This is where it starts:

OK, here's an obscure request for information. I'm putting together an archaeological toolkit circa 1927-1935 for a hands on demonstration I am preparing. Since I'll actually be using this stuff, I need tools that still look the same as they did in the Golden Age. I have the big stuff, like my transit, tripod, and stadia rod, and the more specialized equipment, like chaining pins, steel tape, plumb bob, etc.

 What follows is a long discussion thread on the Fedora Lounge forum.  It's filled with useful information, both from a historical and recreation perspective.  Surprisingly, putting together a basic classic era archeologists kit is relatively inexpensive.  Modern equivalents for many of the tools are nearly, if not exactly, identical to ones that were used in the 20s and 30s.

 Of course, not everything is quite so affordable.  Vintage surveying tools cost an arm and a leg, and if you really want to be authentic there are some things that require even more of an investment...

Vintage Labels

Cathe Holden at "Just Something I Made" brings us a collection of blank vintage labels.  Just click through to her site to download the full-sized JPG.   These would be ideal for dressing out all sorts of specimens and documents.

The Watcher

Artist Brian Poor brings us this fantastic bit of mad science.  He specializes in animatronic art and his gallery is filled with beautiful pieces.

The Great List of Links

Propmaker Eric Hart has gathered together "The 100 Best Sites for the Prop Maker".  Despite his protestations otherwise it's a pretty comprehensive look at the state of propmaking on the internet, both amateur and professional.

When I began my blog back in 2009, it felt like only a handful of sites for the prop maker were out there. Since then, the field has practically exploded and you can find information everywhere. I post links to sites regularly, but I wanted to make a list of the sites you should be checking out regularly. So I’ve collected and categorized what I consider to be the 100 best sites for a prop maker.

I'll warn you ahead of time that you can spend hours following the links.  One of the nice things about a list like this is the potential for cross pollination.  I'm not into modeling or dioramas, but David Neat's site for professional model makers has some great techniques for foam texturing that I plan on using for the kind of prop making I do enjoy.

Atlantean Journal

Benjamin Castro brings us this detailed recreation of the Atlantean journal from Disney's "Atlantis: The Lost Empire".  It's parchment bound in leather with genuine metal hardware.

The Shining Trapezohedron

Gage Prentiss brings us this absolutely stunning recreation of the Shining Trapezohedron.  You really need to click through to the high resolution picture to appreciate the craftsmanship.  It's a wonderful piece of work.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Centipede Edition.

Copper Centipede brings us another of his carved Cthulhu idols, this time with an Egyptian theme.

Down in the Dirt

Stacey Ransom returns to our pages after a too long absence.  For a photo shoot requiring an underground scene she came up with an excellent technique for creating faux roots.  It's perfect for someone looking to create a mandrake root.  Browse around the site and you'll find some excellent prop and set-making advice.

Vintage Expedition Medicine Chests

Phil Obermarck was kind enough to send over a link to an article in Slate on expedition medical chests.  The Burroughs Wellcome company manufactured them for a number of expeditions, providing explorers with state of the art supplies while reaping a bonanza of positive advertising.  The article links to the Wellcome archives, where you can find some glorious history porn on the subject.

Pictured below is the chest used on the 1933 assault on Mt. Everest, made from rolled and cast aluminum.  It's a beautiful piece of industrial design that could probably survive a fall from the summit unscathed.

From Innsmouth

Jason McKittrick returns with this curious artifact seized during the government raid on Innsmouth.  It's available for only 72 hours starting today.

Quick and Dirty Tomecraft

Layers of Learning has a handy tutorial on crafting a quick and dirty medieval book.  Given the easy directions and limited materials required the results are pretty impressive. 

Loot

Meliadhor brings us this fun little prop tableaux. The gemstones and coins are authentic, while the scroll is a LARP prop.

Teeth

Morgan W. Loebel brings us these well done human teeth made from polymer clay.  Translucent Sculpey can produce some amazingly realistic looking teeth. 

The Haunter of Chaos

The prolific Jason McKittrick brings us The Haunter of Chaos, an idol of Nyarlathotep of unknown origin.  It's another of his limited edition pieces and goes on sale at noon today.

As an aside, I really like what Jason has done with Cryptocurium over the last year.  He's admittedly a friend, as well as a sponsor of the site, but I think his business model really hits the sweet spot.  His short-run projects help keep costs reasonable while providing a steady stream of interesting items for collectors.  It's an ideal approach for a niche market like Lovecraftian prop collectors.

Skinned

This fantastic sculpt comes to us from Michel Cazayous.  I always feel a little guilty featuring true art pieces, but I'd love to have this as a cultist mask.

They Bite

Casey Rosa brings us this great tutorial on creating an impressive set of zombie teeth from a soda bottle and some fake nails.  I never would have thought of re-purposing acrylic nails as teeth, but it's a brilliant idea.

The Parasite

Eamon Winkle brings us this fun little beastie.  I'm really impressed by the tentacles.  It may seem like a small detail, but they're devilishly hard to do.  Getting a smooth, natural curve can be a maddening experience.

The Braddock Expedition

Stefan Askernäs brings us the start of a complete display regarding the infamous Braddock Expedition.

"Haphazardly patched up by Doctor Vincent Beardsley, the next day Juha oversaw the excavation of the fissure which produced a generous amount of specimens of strange algae, unidentified glyph carvings, some heavily oxidized artifacts considered to be ritual blades, various coin, strangely shaped pieces of gold, human bones and a spectacular 9.4" marble idol portraying some nameless god of the sea."

The Dagon sculpt is nice, but I'm in love with the design and execution of the faux journals. 

Shub-Niggurath

Britta Miller brings us The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.  She's done some really nice work on the various skin textures.  Shub-Niggurath is one of the more useful Mythos deities when it comes to props.  The goat and fertility themes makes it possible to re-purpose a lot of conventional occult imagery

Doc Savage Machine Pistol

Dan Thompson brings us this recreation of Doc Savage's Superfirer Machine Pistol. The Man of Bronze used his nearly superhuman engineering skills to produce a rapid fire weapon that would rarely overheat and was capable of firing a variety of specialized ammunition.  Mr. Thompson used a commercial airsoft gun as the base for the project, customizing it to match the depiction in various cover illustrations.  Follow the link for a detailed build album.

Artifacts from Known Space

I'm a huge fan of Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe.  Thanks to collaborations and the popular "Man-Kzin Wars" collections there are now hundreds of stories and over a dozen novels that take advantage of the setting.  They vary wildly in quality, but even the lesser entries are usually entertaining, if not thought provoking.  If nothing else, the creation of the Ringworld and the "Kzinti Lesson" ensures their place in science fiction's hall of fame. 

Given my fanboyism, you can imagine how much I enjoyed discovering that someone was producing props drawn from the stories.  As part of her Industrial Design classes, Lauren Gail Anderson has been making recreations of Niven's tasp, a Puppeteer disintegrator, and a Kzinti variable sword.

The tasp is a device that directly stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain.  At first thought it's a wonderfully humane non-lethal weapon, but it's actually one of the most horrific technologies ever created.  Anderson's prop is a handheld model, designed for human pranksters. 

Her disintegrator rifle is the Puppeteer-manufactured model from "Ringworld". Which would actually make it an "excavator", since only Humans and Kzin see harmless tools as weapons. Heh.

Finally, she brings us one of my dream props- a variable sword. This is an oversized Kzinti model and features a light-up blade and marker ball. In the early stories the field reinforced monomolecular blade was invisible, hence the glowing red ball at the tip so the user didn't slice their own arm off. Later iterations used light to make the danger space of the blade visible.

If you head over to her blog she has a gallery of pictures capturing the design and build process for each item.

Dagon

Jonas Insinga brings us this excellent Dagon sculpt in unfired clay.  Take a look at the textures on the obelisk in the high resolution picture.  He really captures the look of ancient worn stone and then makes a smooth transition into the coral encrustation on the base. 

Cthulhu Fhtagn! McKittrick Edition.

Jason McKittrick kicks off the new year with the Kingsport Cthulhu idol. I really like how the wings of the idol flow around the figure.

It's one of the premiums available to members of his Inner Sanctum for 2014. There are some very nice goodies included in the packages.

From the Depths

We start off the new year with some new work from one of the longest running projects featured here.  Wesley Remory brings us another page in his massive tome project, this time featuring Dagon and the Deep Ones.