Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition Patches

In 1930 an expedition from Miskatonic University arrived in the Antarctic. Shortly thereafter a remote survey camp began exploring a newly discovered chain of mountains and radioed back the details of an incredible discovery.

Hours later, every man in the camp was dead.

The controversy over what happened to the poor souls in that isolated outpost still rages today. Where they killed by a freakishly powerful storm, as the official inquiry ruled? Or were they the victims of a mass, homicidal rage induced by tainted food, as some have suggested? And what of the mysterious discovery they claimed to have made shortly before radio contact was lost?

Those questions may never be answered, but now you can own a small piece of that ill-fated expedition's history: the famed "Wings Over Antarctica" Miskatonic University Expedition Patch.



This is a limited-run fan project based on H. P. Lovecraft's classic horror story "At the Mountains of Madness". Based on feedback from the first run of patches the design was tweaked to bring it more in-line with what a period patch would actually look like, including the use of a contemporary font. The deco-influenced logo features a stylized depiction of Antarctica surmounted by the Dornier Wal amphibious aircraft that was flown to the Mountains of Madness...and beyond.



Each 4" (10cm) patch is embroidered on a tough cotton twill backing that will last for years of use, and the heat-sensitive adhesive makes it easy to iron it on to the garment of your choice.



With each patch purchase you'll also receive a 3" vinyl decal featuring the expedition logo, perfect for customizing your gear.



Your order will be sent out in a protective mailer within, at most, 24 hours of your purchase via First Class mail. You'll receive email confirmation that your package was shipped within minutes of it's posting. U.S. orders should arrive within five business days, while international orders will likely take longer.

If you're purchasing multiple patches you'll find there is a discount on every patch after the first. If you would like to order more than three patches even more significant discounts are available. If you have any questions, or encounter any problems, please don't hesitate to email me at propnomicon-atsymbolhere-gmail.com.

Update: Sold out as of 4/24/2009. Thanks to everyone that ordered.

You might also be interested in the "At the Mountains of Madness" Prop Photo Set.

Curious Goods?

A kind emailer sent me a message pointing out that the "Curious Goods" site seems to be down. Hopefully it's only a temporary glitch.

Miskatonic Research Kit On Ebay

In case you missed it, there's a Lovecraftian Miskatonic Research Kit up on Ebay. From the description:

For your consideration, found from the personal archives of the macabre, a weathered old box, contained within are some bizarre and somewhat mind boggling objects. Eerie smells assault your senses almost immediately, an acrid smokey odour woven with a mould from some ancient world. This dusty fabric covered box contains:

A statue of a bizarre toad/bat monster with a tag labeled 'Tsathoggua Cultist idol'
a jar with an unknown specimen from the Nameless city
a jar with lindworm teeth from Klagenfurt, Austria
a jar with werewolf potion from Glasgow, Scotland
a jar with soot from Bromwich, England
a jar with vegetable lamb from Central Asia
The Box's Dimensions are 10 3/4"x 7 3/4" x 8 3/4"

Here are some of the pictures from the auction:







This particular kit is from "Ickyfish", a seller who has offered items I've enjoyed in the past. Some of the features I like about this piece are the excellent design and aging on the bottle labels, the velvet lining inside the case, and the sculpting and overall quality of the "thing in a bottle". I think the asking price is a little high, but I'm from the "start low and see where it goes" school of Ebay auctions.

Elder Thing Photo

I finally had a chance to shoot the Elder Thing dissection scene today. Here's the final shot:



I'm particularly proud of the loathsome ichor leaking from the slowly thawing eye stalk. I whipped it together from some cornstarch, water, and instant tea. Yes, that's right- it's basically lumpy gravy.



We're on the cutting edge of special effects here at Manse Propnomicon. Heh.

Update: Based on feedback I re-shot a couple of different views focusing on the "gooey" bits of the prop:





Of the three black and white pictures I'm leaning towards the third one directly above, but I'm open to suggestions. Here's what the setup looked like while I was shooting it. Just click through to see the large version in "Gore-o-vision":



Ooey, gooey goodness. Heh.

Modern FBI Documents

If you're running a Delta Green game and need some modern paperwork from the FBI you should pay a visit to Prop Docs,a company that specializes in manufacturing documents for motion pictures and television. They've posted some examples of their work on their webpage that cover nearly every imaginable bit of paperwork you might need. The PDF's aren't intended for use as-is (since making documents is, you know, how the company makes a living), but they're valuable references none the less.

Wonderland Expedition Kit

I found an email in my inbox this morning drawing my attention to the amazingly well-done Wonderland Expedition Kit, a whimsical "Alice in Wonderland" flavored take on the gaffe-style vampire hunting kits I mentioned last week. What makes it all the more delightful is that it was created out of love:

My lovely girlfriend's birthday is on Sunday, and since she's so fantastic, I wanted to make her something very special. She's a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, and we were awe-struck by the incredibly well-crafted and detailed creations of AlexCF, so I combined the two.

"Artifacts, Specimen, and Ephemera salvaged from the Wonderlands"

When Alice fell through the rabbit hole, she tore a rift between our two universes. Through this open rift, "nonsense" began leaking out of Wonderland. With a decreasing amount of nonsense, Wonderland became a more logical place, and since vanishing cats and singing flowers cannot exist in a logical universe, Wonderland began to die.

Professor Jonathan Lake, of Miskatonic University, traveled to Wonderland in attempt to catalog and archive the remaining flora and fauna so that Wonderland would not disappear into the forgotten depths of history. This is his collection of specimens, artifacts, and ephemera salvaged from the Wonderlands.

Even better, I was immensely pleased to discover I had a small, small part in it's creation:



That's my Miskatonic University seal in the background! How cool is that? The kind emailer thought I might be upset that someone used it, but my reaction was quite the opposite. I'm overjoyed that the artist made it a part of his amazing project. That's the whole intent behind making everything here available under the Creative Commons license- it's yours for the taking. If you like it, use it. Just spread da love by following the share alike rule.

Speaking of which, I should have an improved version of the Miskatonic seal up sometime next week. The original version was bashed together in Paint Shop Pro, but now that I'm using Adobe Illustrator I'm redoing it to get rid of the pixellation when you blow it up.

Elder Thing Dissection Photo

I can finally show a preview of the project I've been working on for the last week.


This is a rough take of a photo I'm going to be adding to the ATMOM set once everything is finished. I've been using a lot of retouching techniques for the other shots, but for this one I decided I wanted to physically reproduce a conjectural picture of Lake's Elder Thing dissection. Although I'd ultimately like to tackle creating a full-scale ET down the road this particular project required a relatively small piece of the creature's anatomy. After taking the size limitations of a table-top dissection scene into consideration I decided that one of the five eye stalks would be ideal.

Constructing the stalk was pretty straight forward. The foundation of the body was a fast-food drink cup while the eyeball started life as a black plastic christmas ball. After cutting away the bottom of the cup and dropping the ball into the resulting hole I used a layer of paper mache to provide the grooved, worm-skin texture of the stalk. While that was drying I drilled out the eyeball and added an iris made out of an eye from a teddy bear. Once the paper mache "skin" was dry I stuffed the stalk with aluminum foil and gave everything a basic coat of paint before applying multiple layers of colored liquid latex to provide some depth to the skin and create the fleshy bits at the base of the stalk.

This shot gives a better view of the results if you ignore the ridiculous dayglo color scheme. I just used whatever colors were handy since the final image will be in black and white . Click to view the full sized version.



I still need to add the final weathering to the stalk, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far. A light wash of dark-colored ink followed by some drybrushing will help bring out the texture, while a few more gooey bits on the damaged end will make it look more like torn and crushed tissue. Once that's done I'll get the other props needed for the shot together, like a dissection tray and some more scientific gear.