Temple Of R'lyeh Cookie Jar

Let's get this out of the way right now. If someone were to say "Hey, here's a cool Cthulhu-themed cookie jar!" my reaction would normally be "Er...that's nice." Just not my cup of tea. Or crock o' crumpets, as the case may be.

But this? This is different. Ceramic artist Andrew Tarrant brings us this absolutely spectacular Temple of R'lyeh Cookie Jar. The sculpted details are perfectly themed and the craftsmanship speaks for itself. I just wish he'd called it something like a "funerary urn" so I didn't feel a twinge of guilt for liking it.

Deep One Fetish

Work on the Viking Mythos project continues.  One of the nice things about a suitably vague concept like this is that I can break it into a lot of smaller pieces and work on them as I have time.

Last night I started sculpting a Viking-style Deep One fetish.  Conceptually, it's a magical artifact used for summoning and protection from the Deep Ones.  Given the close relationship between 10th century Norse culture and seafaring it would be a handy item to have.

The stylistic inspiration is this statuette of the Norse god Freyr recovered near Rällinge in Sweden and currently residing in the Swedish State History Museum.  The second photograph is by Christer Åhlin at The Museum of National Antiquities.

The rampant penis removes any doubt about this being a fertility idol.  I did find it interesting that the beard pulling depicted is also sexual.  Depending on the expert talking it's symbolic of sexual wantonness, masturbation, or homosexuality.  I'm sure there's a wag out there ready to suggest that on a good night it's all three.  Heh.  Given the Deep One propensity for inter-breeding with humans, sometimes willingly and sometimes not, it would be a waste not to incorporate some of that beard imagery.

Here's the first pass at taking the statue, more particularly it's head, and translating it into a Deep One.  I just wanted to get the general look down, so this is very rough and totally asymmetrical.  Now it's a matter of refining this basic shape into a final form.

There are two tools that are going to be really important heading into the next stage- calipers and silicone shapers.  For a hack sculptor like me calipers make spotting asymmetrical details a lot easier.  Once I've identified two symmetrical points I can go in with metal tools and refine each side into a mirror image of the other.  That step will leave tool marks, something silicone shapers are ideal at removing.  Their soft, flexible heads are perfect for removing imperfections and creating smooth, flowing curves.

Necronomicon Pages

Hatter10-7 brings us a selection of pages from the Necronomicon...er, I mean "Naturom Demonto", from the recent "Evil Dead" reboot.  It fills in some of the gaps in Juan Carlos Porcel's collection at "Elder Props", and comes with his recommendation.

Ægishjálmr, the Helm of Awe

Another runic sigil- Ægishjálmr, the Helm of Awe.  I'm trying to combine the look of the traditional Norse symbols with some of the design cues from later magical traditions.

Vegvísir

The Vegvísir magical stave, for the Viking Mythos project. I was going for something clearly Norse in origin, but slightly twisted in interpretation.  As we all know, evil is spiky so...yeah.  You can download the full sized version by right clicking on the image and opening the link in a new tab.

This is a clean version since I was too lazy to roughen it up in Illustrator.  For some reason the program determines the level of distortion based on the size of an element, which means long lines and large symbols get jagged while smaller details are barely touched.  When I have time I'll go through and give it the appropriate level of distressing.

The staves, or runic sigils, are the most visually striking elements of Norse magical practice.  I plan on working up a small library of re-interpreted versions for use on items and documents.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Centipede Edition.

Copper Centipede returns to our pages with this pewter finish Cthulhu idol.  The craquelure surface finish is a cool effect.

That Ol' Time Religion

Here's the start of the Viking-age Mythos project.  Conceptually, I'm aiming for a collection of items that a 10th century Norse cultist would have on hand.  The centerpiece is Fox Henderson's excellent Norse Cthulhu idol. Frankly, the pictures don't do it justice. It's a beautiful sculpt and the piece has a really nice heft to it.

The coins are hand-struck reproductions of period examples ranging from Middle Eastern Dirhems to Viking silver pennies. They're based on documented examples recovered from buried Viking hoards.  A black wash will bring out the details of the coin faces.

The amber Elder Sign is the polymer clay test piece I mentioned last week.  It does a good job of replicating the look of the real stuff and I plan on doing a number of small faux-amber items.  The Elder Sign is just a stand-in at this point, since it obviously makes no sense for a cultist to have one. 

The flint and steel are, well, flint and steel.  C-shaped strikers are period, but I'm going to try and track down one with some interesting ornamentation.