Trawling for treasure on Ebay

I'm currently in the process of moving out of London (I've been here for 20 years and I think that's enough), hence the lack of blog activity. Anyway, despite the stresses and strains that moving house involves, I've recently been able to track down and acquire various RPG-related goodies on Ebay. This is something I do every once in a while when the idea pops into my head, as there's various things I used to own and would like to own again, or couldn't find at some earlier point in time.

So, here's the result of the latest trawl:

A few of these things were new to me, such as the Tunnels & Trolls books. These are UK reprints published by Corgi in 1986, one of which is a rulebook for the game itself and the other is Fighting Fantasy/Choose Your Own Adventure-type book. It was only recently that I found out that there was a range of miniatures for Star Frontiers, and it was great to actually find one of the box sets. Here are a few pics of what's inside:

The level of detail on these is rather good, and it's particularly nice to see a Sathar miniature. Of note is a detail on the back of the box:

For some reason, the Yazirian figures have been labelled as 'Yazarian' (along with a TM) which seems an odd little mistake and one wonders why TSR trademarked this typo.

As for the rest of the above haul, TMNT and CyberSpace were always fun games to referee, although I don't think that I got as much mileage out of them as RPGs as I wanted to. As for the Palladium Book of Contemporary Weapons, this seemed to be a little rare back in the late '80s when we played TMNT. Maybe that was just because of a lack of stockists at the time, but it was nice to finally acquire a copy. It's an interesting book as far as being a system for the Palladium RPGs (as it bases potential damage of any given weapon on the calibre and type of bullet fired) and I'd like to see how this would work in-game.

One very recent acquisition was this '80s-era Citadel Miniatures Dwarf fighter:

When I was first introduced to D&D (as detailed in an earlier blog post) I was slightly obsessed with acquiring miniatures, despite the fact that I lacked the necessary cash to fund that obsession. Nevertheless, the various dwarves made by Citadel stood out for me, and so the above example was the first one I bought. I then decided to create my first D&D character based on his gear, and thus was born Mystichi Argonshire. Seeing the miniature again was a real Proustian moment - it immediately transported me back to my 13-year old self, which was a rather strange but enjoyable experience.

Medieval & Renaissance Cartographic Sea Monsters

The always wonderful BiblioOdyssey site has an interesting review of Chet Van Duzer's book 'Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps'. Those of you who have cartographical leanings in your RPGs may find this a source of inspiration.

Artwork for Gygax Magazine #2

A month or so ago, a chance note on the Old School Gamers Facebook group put me in touch with Jayson Elliot, editor-in-chief for Gygax Magazine. After a very interesting 90-minute chat with him on Skype, I volunteered to create a full-page illustration for an adventure that appears in issue #2. This is for The One Ring RPG, entitled 'The Hare and the Hill Giant', and is written by Shane Ivey. 

The plot for this interested me and a couple of ideas for a composition immediately sprang to my mind, primarily because trolls feature strongly in the plot. Here's a scribble of an initial idea:

However, I was cutting things a little fine. I had around 3 days to create the image and get it signed off, as the deadline was fast approaching. That's a rather quick turnaround time. Not only that, but the weather here in London decided to take a turn for the worse - at least, as far as creating artwork is concerned. Temperatures were around the 33 degrees C mark (that's just over 90 degrees F), which isn't at all good if you're working with gouache and ink in a room that has no air conditioning. I wanted to get back into working with pen and wash, although the conditions weren't ideal, but your brave author indomitably slaved away regardless...

Anyway, once I'd had a few tries at the overall composition, things started to fall into place. I'd also managed to work up two other sketches more fully with the goache/ink treatment. So here is the final full-page piece:

And here are the two spot illustrations:

Everything came out okay in the end, I'm happy to say. It was an interesting challenge, to say the least. I wanted to keep the main image fairly neutral. Rather than depict a combat scene - as it's not a given in the adventure - I chose instead to have a troll surveying his new-found residence as dusk closes in. I had a variety of options for my depictions of the creatures, and this came out in the smaller drawings.

Hopefully the weather will be better when I work on my next piece! Oh, and for the record, everything was done on Bristol Board using Pilot DR and Unipin pens, Windsor & Newton inks and gouache, and a Faber Castell water-soluable pencil.

Even more Fortean stuff...

Further to my own dabblings in Forteana (via my timelines here and here), here are a few more places of interest online:

Passing Strangeness

Strange Company

Beachcombing's Bizzare History Blog 

Atlas Obscura

All contain a wealth of interesting articles on a variety of subjects with a Fortean angle: archaeology, the paranormal, history, science, folkore, etc and are very much worth a look!

Nice dice...

3D printing is rather cool, and seems to be improving all of the time. Some interesting dice designs can be seen here at Shapeways. Okay, some can be a bit pricey but there are a variety of cheaper options which are just as pleasing to the eye. Worth a look!

Sheep-eating plants and Medieval comic strips...

'It's coming straight for us...!'

According to this BBC report, a sort-of carnivorous plant called Puya chilensis is about to bloom. This is a rare thing for UK-based examples. The above image doesn't really do the plant justice - there's a better photo here. The idea of carnivorous plants has always been of interest to me, especially how they'd factor into a D&D setting. The way that Puya chilensis gets a meal could possibly work in D&D, although perhaps with some more active way attacking. Or maybe it's just very good at snaring the beards of passing dwarfs who've had a few too many drinks...

Meanwhile, over at the Medieval News blog there's an interesting 12th century 'comic' on show. By having a larger figure overlaid onto the text and smaller images, the page above looks almost modern in it's design.

How to make armour...

Further to my most recent post about Medieval armour, there's an interesting blog called How To Make Armour. This provides some insights into how various types of objects from the period can be made, which could come in quite handy when trying to draw such things. I've always found that it's much easier to draw something if you know how it's constructed - that includes the human body, armour, cars, etc.

Similar information can also be found at Age of Armour, which also includes a some great photos of compeleted commissions.

Medievalists.net may also slake your thirst for further knowledge about the Medieval world.