Have a Merry Mythos

The jingling of sleigh bells, the sweet songs of carolers, the croaking, inhuman chants of your Deep One neighbors...these are the joys of the holidays. Jason McKittrick has a number of new items available. They include some miniature Cthulhu idols prefect for adorning your Department 56 holiday village, Cthulhu ornaments, and a stylish scarf. You'll find them all at Cryptocurium.

Cthulhu Art Figure

The Cthulhu Project returns to our sponsorship roll with his latest Kickstarter project- a Cthulhu Art figure.  They've been involved in a number of previous Mythos-related efforts, including the well received Cthulhu Ouija Board from earlier this year.  More importantly, he's carried them off successfully.  That's reassuring given the increasing attention to failed or long-delayed Kickstarters.

The fund drive runs through December 17th and includes both pre-finished and blank, customizable castings.

Dagon Rises

This impressive Dagon statuette comes to us via Polish miniatures blogger Incubus.  Google's translation isn't entirely clear, but it's apparently a prestige casting from Black Thunder Studio.  Based on the pictures in the original post it measures around 7" in height. I suspect there are more gems like this in Eastern Europe, but the language barrier makes finding them difficult.

Case Nightmare Green

It's been far too long since the talented Florian Mellies graced our pages.  He returns with a cool modern Mythos tableau featuring a captured sacrificial dagger.  Get a look at the details of the sculpt, and the text of the computer display, by clicking through to the high resolution picture.

Cthulhu Comes Forth

Traditional animator Richard Svensson has an interesting writeup on crafting a stop motion Cthulhu puppet.  He includes a great technique for creating eyes that I want to try with a shoggoth figure.

 I am a frequent user of pearly plastic scrapbooking beads to simulate glowing eyes. The thing is, these half-beads reflect light shone at them right back into the camera at all angles, so you'll always get a sinisterly glowing red dot (or whatever colour you're using) staring back at you from the centre of the “Eye”, even if your puppet isn't lighted very well. Much simpler and cheaper than using small electric lights.

Atlantean Font

Disney's animated film "Atlantis" is a mixed bag, with some amazing imagery trumped by a weak third act.  While the House of Mouse might skimp on script development, they never fail to impress with the quality of their design work.  That extends to hiring the same linguist responsible for Klingon to create an entirely new language, both spoken and written, for the inhabitants of the sunken city.  The resulting font is obscure enough to be suitable for prop use, and  you always have the option of actually using the faux language.

Masks of Nyarlathotep Prop Set

It's a real pleasure to welcome our latest sponsor- The Masks of Nyarlathotep Prop Set.

Ben Patey has put together a complete re-imagining of the original prop handouts and documents from the classic "Masks of Nyarlathotep" campaign from Chaosium.  It's easily one of, if not the, greatest tabletop RPG adventure every produced.  At the time of it's initial publication the extensive use of props was revolutionary, but the presentation quality of those items isn't up to modern standards.  Mr. Patey's Kickstarter aims to change that.



High quality props will make "Masks" more immersive, taking an already great experience and turning the dial up to 11. And there's just so much stuff.  Maps.  Matchbooks.  Telegrams.  Newspaper clippings.  Handwritten notes.  Not to mention the very cool stretch and bonus material, like postcards, passports, and physical specimens.

This is the bread and butter of Propnomicon, and it's worthy of your support.

The Skin Trade

Grim Stitch Factory produces some incredibly creepy masks.  Most of their work is burlap scarecrows, but they also produce a line of real skin masks that I thought were interesting.  The skin in question is dried goatskin, the stuff normally used for drum heads. 

What's really impressive is that they openly share their materials and techniques.  That's something all too rare, and I'm happy there are so many artists that embrace that openness in our particular niche. 

Elder Scrolls Orc Helmet

Folkenstal recreated the orc helm from "Elder Scrolls Online" and brings us a detailed build log of the process.  It's a great introduction to using Worbla moldable sheets to create complex curved shapes.

Vintage Family Trees

One of the quirks of Lovecraft's work is how often genealogy comes up. Stories like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Dunwich Horror" feature the frequently repeated theme of bloodlines tainted by Mythos influence, and "The Thing at the Doorstep" is a particularly icky take. That's why I was happy to discover some excellent vintage family tree certificates at the "Oh So Nifty Vintage Graphics" crafting site. This one is available over here...

...or try this calligraphic example. 

They're an ideal way to introduce clues involving family relationships into a tabletop or live action game.

Anatomia Humani Corporis

I like to think I'm a connoisseur of bookbinding.  I love the craftsmanship of the process, and have just enough experience doing it myself to appreciate some of the finer details.  Just take a look at this magnificent tome from AlexLibris- the Anatomia Humani Corporis.  There's a lot to like here, but it's the tooling of the leather cover that really stands out.  Click through and take a look at the high resolution image to get a closer look.

Back in Action

My apologies for the lack of updates over the weekend.  My home computer wouldn't boot when I turned it on Saturday morning, so I was out of action until I arrived at work this morning.  Everything should be back to normal now.

Belt of the Shapeshifter

Oskar Hejll brings us a this curious occult artifact from Scandinavia- a magical belt used to transform between animal and human form.   An absolutely beautiful piece of work crafted from brass, leather, and silver.

Goo Be Gone

If you're doing any moldmaking, propmaker Bill Doran has a handy writeup on what to do with your extra silicone. 

If you’ve done any silicone mold making, you know to treat the material like liquid gold. Silicone ain’t cheap. That’s a fact of life. If you end up mixing too much of the goop for your current mold making project, you could be scrambling for some way to use it that doesn’t waste the dollars you’ve just poured into a cup.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Der Alchemist Edition.

This primitive Cthulhu idol is brought to us by Der Alchemist.  It started life as a lump of clay scooped out of the ground.  Now that's authenticity.

 

Dagon

The gifted John Cherevka is no stranger to these pages.  His latest piece is this well done bust of Dagon.

Cyberpunk Mask

Brian Cargile of "Two Horns United" brings us this nicely done cybernetic mask.   The cabled neck piece is a cool touch.

Out of the Shadows

I was very surprised to discover that makeup legend Dick Smith was attached to an attempt to bring "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" to the big screen back in the 90s.  These are two of his test sculpts from the failed project, apparently taken from a writeup in an issue of "Fangoria".  Later today I'll try and track down a copy of the article.

Update:  A kind reader sent over a scan of the article in question.  The "Fangoria" story seems to be the only notable press coverage the project received, other than some teaser posters and a color ad in "Variety".  Instead of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" Dick Smith ended up working on "The Godfather III".  Now that's a horror story.

Just right click and open the image in another tab to see the full sized page.

Comes the Titan

Professional propmaker Mark Cordory created this stunning Bronze Titan for the Mythlore LARP in the UK.  The suit was crafted from latex and plastazote foam, which makes the metallic finish all the more impressive.  Browse the linked gallery for some amazing shots from the event by photographer Roy Smallpage.

I'm continually impressed by the high production values of Euro-LARPs in comparison to what's found here in the US.  The only American live action events with this level of immersiveness are paintball and airsoft event games.  I'm not sure if you can read anything into that in terms of differences in culture, but it certainly is odd.  The only explanation I can think of is that our domestic LARPs haven't broken through the perception of being "kids with boffers".  That's a real turnoff to a lot of adults who might be interested in live action games, but end up going into things like historical re-enacting and the SCA as a somewhat more respectable alternative.

Sculpting Insect Legs

Xenite at "Little Green Monsters" has a tutorial on sculpting insect legs using paper clips and greenstuff modeling putty.   While it's aimed at creating custom gaming miniatures the technique is just as helpful for anyone sculpting legs, palps, and antennae for gaff specimens. 

A Perfect Organism

"Alien" is my favorite movie, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Jason McKittrick's first non-Mythos project under the Cryptocurium banner is a set of designs based on the xenomorph life cycle.  I've been a collector of Alien memorabilia since the move was originally released, but only started to appreciate it's Lovecraftian themes well after its debut.  Dan O'Bannon's original script was even more overtly inspired by the Mythos.  A lot of that material was lost during the project's re-writes and would later be bastardized in "Heavy Metal", "Alien vs. Predator", and "Prometheus".

Would You Kindly?

Nerfenstein brings us this recreation of the retro-tech audio diary from "Bioshock".  It's yet another digital design made real with 3D printing.

Cassilda and the King

This piece inspired by "The King in Yellow" is brought to us by the talented Joe Broers.  It was originally a decorative topper for a wedding cake.  No, really. 

A Mythos of Cthulhus

A gaggle of geese, a pod of whales, a mythos of Cthulhus.  In the discussion about yesterday's piece David Kirkby was kind enough to provide a link to a gallery of his work.  It features dozens of his Cthulhu idols in multiple finishes, from polished metal to clay and stone.  It's not only a showcase of his considerable skills, but a fantastic guide to various finish options. 

Casting Call

This is the test pull from my first silicone mold.  I've used silicone putty to duplicate small items before, but haven't fiddled around with pouring a mold from a master until now.  The process was surprisingly easy.  One issue I did run into was a minor blowout in the foamboard mold walls.  I sealed up the seams with hot glue, but missed a small spot.  Luckily, I was using a fast-set silicone and there was only some minor leakage before the rubber started to set up.

The casting measures about 3.5" by 1.5".  The finish is a quick and dirty paintjob using a green basecoat drybrushed with antique copper.  I'll probably go with a more stone-like finish for the final version. 

Update:  I was genuinely surprised to find so much interest in this.  Here's a shot of the token that gives a better look at it's dimensionality.  I envisioned it as a fetish used in a summoning, so the general shape is designed to fit inside the curve of the hand.  The original sculpt only had three tentacles, but that looked so much like "Man-Thing" from Marvel Comics that it made me laugh out loud.

The mold, the first pull, and a second copy made using impressed polymer clay.  I thinned out the Sculpey with some diluent so it would pick up the mold details.  I rather like the flat, matte finish of the clay.

The mold was poured with PlatSil 73-20 Low Viscosity RTV Silicone Rubber.

Horned Wyvern

Brian Richardson brings us this amazingly detailed wyvern skeleton.  It's another example of a fantastic prop designed digitally and then given physical form with 3d printing.

From the Black Book

Artist Daniel Govar brings us this page from the infamous Necronomicon.  It's a premium for a Kickstarter looking to fund a Lovecraft comic book.