Forlorn Foundry

I'm proud to welcome Forlorn Foundry, our latest sponsor. It's the brainchild of Josef Von Stauffenburg, an artist and metalworker who brings to life some amazing occult and gothic items in bronze.

This bronze skull is available as-is or with custom features like horns. It's an impressive piece of work in terms of both the quality of the sculpt and its sheer size.

Mr. Stauffenburg offers a variety of smaller items, ranging from candlesticks to offering bowls. While their visual appeal is obvious one thing I can't reproduce here is the physical presence of these pieces. A "bronze finish" is one thing, but nothing compares to the heft and feel of real metal.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to have Forlorn Foundry on board as a sponsor. These are exactly the kind of unique items I love, and I think you'll share that enthusiasm. If you browse the website you'll find some interesting features, including a blog that has details about Mr. Stauffenburg's upcoming appearance on the television show "Oddities".

Cthulhu Dagger

The talented Brandon Zimmerman brings us this unusual artifact.

This ceremonial dagger was uncovered in 2009 outside the small town of Santa Margalida, on the island of Majorca, Spain. This area, known as the Son Real Necropolis, is an 800-square-foot mass gravesite that dates from the 7th to the 4th century BC. It is located on the small rocky coastal headland of Punta Fenicis and served as a mass burial site where the remains of over three hundred people, including woman and children, were found.

The dead were discovered along with over a thousand strange and unknown weapons, jewelry, and everyday objects, all themed around an apparent octopus-headed creature or god. The origin of the people buried in the necropolis is not clear. Scholars believe it to be a remote settlement of Ancient Romans, or an isolated Pagan cult who worshiped a god of the sea.

Sculpting Foam

Professional propmaker Eric Hart brings us this video covering the basics of sculpting foam. There's one incredibly useful tip in here that he glosses over, no doubt because it's such an ingrained part of his workflow. Calipers. They're invaluable for making sure sculpted features are properly aligned and have equal measurements. Even a cheap little school compass will do.

The Propnomicon Curse

This weekend yet another movie I was peripherally involved with fell through.

I'm starting to think there's an actual curse involved. I've provided some small props or faux documents to over a dozen filmmakers working on Lovecraftian projects of varying size. After four years of doing this not a single one of them has actually produced a final product. Not one. I know the film business can be tough, but this is ridiculous.

Mind you, not all of these efforts were shoestring budget affairs. I expect a high failure rate from the "Hey, lets make a movie" crowd. It's possible to produce a good short film with sheer enthusiasm and effort, but I understand when people get discouraged by the amount of work involved. It's the projects that spend tens of thousands of dollars shooting hours of footage that boggle my mind. How can you spend all of that money and then let the whole thing crumble into dust when post-production and editing begins? Sweet fancy Moses, at that point most of the difficult work is done. Once you have a hard drive filled with video you should at least be able to put together a rough edit using just a laptop.

Not to get all "get off my lawn you damn kids", but one of the reasons I'm so disappointed with the failure of these projects is my own history. I did my first "film" on 3/4" U-Matic videotape using in-camera edits. I nearly wept with joy the first time I was able to get a real editing suite with A/B roll capability and a character generator powered by an Apple II. One of my first assignments out of college was building a state of the art production suite that allowed the editor to use a mouse to set up his edit log. A mouse! We spent almost $100K on that suite, and my smartphone now has more image capture and processing capability.

I have just one piece of advice for aspiring filmmakers. Make the damn movie. Even a film that sucks is better than a movie that never gets made.

Arkham Imports

VonMeer brings us this letterhead for Arkham Imports and Exports. This is the kind of document dressing that has a plethora of potential uses.

The Thing, Redux

Phil Bolton brings us this set of props based on the original 1951 production of "The Thing From Another World". The collection of papers from Dr. Carrington is a perfect companion piece to one of the surviving alien pods.

Cthulhu Necklace

The talented Stuart Williams brings us these well done Cthulhu necklaces. I quite like the black and green finish.