Art

PARS FORTUNA Election ’10 Results

/ jstater / 2 Comments

A week ago I announced that I was going to commission a piece of monster art from Russ Nicholson. The question, of course, was which monster. I introduced these five candidates …

1. Fiend: A scaly demon carrying a barbed spear and sticking out a long, wavy tongue.

2. Meagle: Stunted piskie, looks like a cross between a hedgehog and gnome with bat wings; carry nets woven from human hair.

3. Nine: Humanoid otter with four beady eyes; carries a long knife and/or sling; quaff mystic beer; extremely quick.

4. Eight-Headed Creeper: Weird creatures with eight jabberwocky-ish heads on long necks, clawed feet, long arms with long, nimble fingers and large, bat-like wings.

5. Bounder: Giant bipedal grasshoppers wielding military forks and chakram.

And in the best democratic tradition put it up to a vote. It was a hard-fought contests, with two candidates, Eight-Headed Creeper and Meagle, leaping ahead in the polls and Bounder playing the role of third party spoiler. Well, the votes from comments and e-mails are in and tallied and the contest went to Eight-Headed Creeper. And to be honest, I’m kinda happy about that. The Creeper and me, we have a little history.

It had to be six or seven years ago. I was sitting in front of the computer, tapping away at the keys working on something RPG related, when my daughter scurried in to see what dad was up to. She had to be four or five at the time. I think at the time I was probably fooling around with converting lots of old monsters to a Castles and Crusades format (my system at the time), because she announced that she wanted to make up a monster. I suggested she start out with a drawing and she went to it, producing this little gem.

“Well, what is this monster called?”, I asked, and she thought about it for a minute and came back with “Eight Headed Creeper”.

“What does it do?”, I asked.

“It sneaks around and steals gold from people”

“What is is like? How does it behave?”

“It is scary, but it usually runs away from fights.”

So, I kept asking questions, and did my best to translate her Creeper into a monster, which is now going to show up in my own little RPG and is going to be illustrated by my favorite monster artist. Neat how things work out, isn’t it?

Oh, and my daughter thanks those who voted for her Creeper. If PARS FORTUNA sells well enough, the Meagle is next on my list for a monster commission.

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Today I’m putting a little more work into Western Venatia, but I’m mostly working on the PARS FORTUNA dungeon I’m going to play test next weekend with friends. I’m about 50 magic items away from finishing the PAR-FOR rules, and I also just realized that I need to make a PAR-FOR character sheet. The Mystery Men! project has achieved funding (!!!) and I’ll post an update about that tomorrow.

PARS FORTUNA Monster Vote!

/ jstater / 10 Comments

I’m going to commission a monster piece from Russ Nicholson, my favorite monster illustrator ever (yeah, I’m one of those Fiend Folio fans – I even like the flumph). The question is – what monster should I request? I’ve decided to let the readers of this blog make the decision for me. You will see below a description of five monsters – just leave a comment on this post with your choice or shoot me an email and in a week I’ll tally the results and see about making the commission.

1. Fiend: A scaly demon carrying a barbed spear and sticking out a long, wavy tongue.

2. Meagle: Stunted piskie, looks like a cross between a hedgehog and gnome with bat wings; carry nets woven from human hair.

3. Nine: Humanoid otter with four beady eyes; carries a long knife and/or sling; quaff mystic beer; extremely quick.

4. Eight-Headed Creeper: Weird creatures with eight jabberwocky-ish heads on long necks, clawed feet, long arms with long, nimble fingers and large, bat-like wings.

5. Bounder: Giant bipedal grasshoppers wielding military forks and chakram.

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UPDATE – Interesting! After a day of voting, people have pretty much divided into the Meagle party and the 8-Headed Creeper party, with the Bounder showing up in the roll of the Libertarians. Keep the votes coming – I’ll collect them until next Sunday and then reveal the winner and request the commission.

Deviant Friday – Benito Gallego Edition

/ jstater

Yes indeed, 15 images again, because choosing my favorites from the work of today’s Deviant, Benito Gallego, was tough. Gallego‘s style is reminiscent of Buscema and Chan’s work on the old Marvel Conan comics. I’m leaving for Ottumwa, IA today to visit family, so no posts this weekend. See you next week!

 

 

Love this one – gives Star Trek a pulp feel

Flail Snail!

/ jstater / 5 Comments

I had to share this drawing I saw on DeviantArt today …

I don’t know who she is or where she is, but I know in my heart that somewhere in NOD, this adventurer is cruising into a sleepy village  (probably with a cult of purple worm worshiping ghouls living beneath a field of mauve turnips) on her trusty steed, on her way to seek fame and fortune.

Artist is Pachycrocuta, who some may remember illustrated my PARS FORTUNA races. This piece is exactly why I commissioned him – fun, interesting and with wonderful bits of detail. Check out this guys entire portfolio and then explain to me why he hasn’t illustrated a monster book yet! Trust me – if I had the money, he would have.

Excellent Castle Resource

/ jstater / 4 Comments

This is a site I found years ago that I just re-googled today because its existence popped into my brain. Essentially, Bob Carney builds castles out of Lego and posts photos of his creations and – best of all for RPGers – floor plans! The plans are often drawn by Bob specifically for Lego construction, meaning they are a bit squared off and therefore easier to transcribe to graph paper*.

Bob has an impressive collection of castles from throughout Europe, including most of the standard castle plans (tower keep, concentric, etc). The image to the right is Neuschwanstein.

If you need a castle floor plan, take a look.

Bob Carney – The Land of Nod salutes you!

* Man, I love graph paper.

Deviant Friday – Mahmud A. Asrar Edition

/ jstater / 3 Comments

Today we wander back into pin-up land with Mahmud A. Asrar, Anjum on DeviantArt. Most of Anjum’s work is in the superhero genre and Star Wars. Enjoy five of my faves …

 

Dejah Thoris – because showing pin-up art without showing Dejah is just a crime. By the by – how many people think she’ll end up looking like this in the new Disney-produced Mars movie?
Wonder Woman – nice redesign on the costume – better than the official redesign in my opinion.
Valkyrie – always one of my favorite comic book heroines.
Red Sonja – again, pin-ups without Red is just wrong.

 

 

Rom – One of these days I’ll post my monster stats for “Astral Knights”, based on this guy.

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Note: This has become the second most popular post I ever made on this blog – far outstripping other Deviant Friday posts. My question to those to continue to visit – what brought you here? I suspect it was Dejah Thoris, but I’d love to know if it’s something else. Thanks!