Our latest Cthulhu idol comes to us from artist Camilo Aldana. I like how they reproduce the faceted look of chipped stone figure.
Propnomicon
Curious devices, forbidden artifacts, mysterious creatures, and intriguing documents.
Friday, May 10, 2024
Great Cthulhu
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Bronze Skull
Jason Soles of Gods Below returns to our pages with this fetal skull cast in bronze. The perfect macabre paperweight.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Fallout: New Vegas Transportalponder
After a too long absence, Chris from ChunkaNuke Props returns to our pages with his recreation of the transportalponder from the "Old World Blues" DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. I really appreciate his old school, trash-bashing approach to prop creation. Nothing wrong with 3D printing, of course, but there's something to be said for hand-crafting an item from found objects.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Barbarian Shark Armor
This barbarian shark armor from Arte sul Cuoio is just amazing. There's so much to like here. The layered elements, leather textured like real shark skin, shark's teeth adornments...the theming is perfect.
Monday, May 6, 2024
Flesh
Artist and propmaker Alexei Andreev brings us...uh...this fleshy thing. It looks like something that should be floating in a jar of formaldehyde.
Friday, May 3, 2024
The Zen of Aging
No, not the necessary acceptance that you're getting older and will
eventually die, but the thought process behind aging and distressing a
prop.
Professional designer George Ledo brings us this insightful discussion about antiquing props.
He's speaking to an audience of stage magicians, but his thoughts on
developing an aging treatment hand in hand with the item's backstory are
equally applicable to Lovecraftian artifacts.
Antiquing isn’t a formula; it’s a concept. That’s a phrase I learned a few years ago when Donna and I attended a class on how to make paella, which is a Spanish seafood dish. One of the first things the instructor said was that there’s no “classical authentic recipe” for paella. Paella is not a recipe: it’s a concept--a traditional way to use rice, and chicken, and chorizo, and locally available seafood, to make a one-course meal for several people.
An effective technique is to think of the object as having a history, and of each part of its history as being a “layer” that can be addressed separately. Although it’s impossible to create a “how to” list about antiquing props, I’m going to show a couple of hypothetical examples of how I would go about doing this, using standard theatrical techniques. This will of course delve into the actual design of the prop, but I’ll focus on the antiquing.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Feet First Into Hell
Vulture Productions showing off an amazing Halo ODST armor set, complete with a full load out of weapons.