Image of a model ship Linus Napoleonic Shipyard's absolutely festooned with flags. I think there's like 24 on there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4-6rtA6rH8
"Nearly done these ships, I should look up where the flags go."
<twenty minutes later>
"Okay, nevermind. How about 'the top'. That should be fine."
Thanks! It was the sails on these that pushed me to finally get an airbrush. They sails are the most visible feature and there are tons of them, but there's zero texture or detail on them. They're either quite plain or need craploads of blending as washes and dry brushing have nothing to latch onto.
Everything about the arrangement is trying to get every newton of the wind's force along the ropes, into the masts, and down into the hull to slice the keel through the water. Either that or making it sturdy enough not to blow apart like match sticks, or to make the constant adjustments possible.
But as the standing rigging on my tiny models starts to stiffen my delicate little masts, I'm realizing.. that's what they were for. This whole thing is a huge arrangement of kites and prayers, forces barely counterbalanced.
Ships have a truly insane amount of rope on them, they look like they were rigged by funnel spiders. I bet you could just glue thread to every of corners it would look pretty good (to amateurs like me).
I'm used to arcade-level ship physics - the wind blows from somewhere, but the whole thing moves forward in whatever direction it's pointing like a slow motorboat. But the more I learn, the more I'm getting a visceral feel of the forces at play. This was very unexpected!
My friend Kit has introduced me to Oak & Iron, 1/600 scale 'age of sail' sea battles. I'm trying to really go big on my first squadron, so now I'm at the step of adding rigging to these tiny ships. When I started, I had no idea how rigging worked at all!
Did you miss this the first time? Only $9 for a precious few more hours.
I legit laughed at this one.
10 The Cuirass of the Forlorn protects against a wounded heart
05: a piece of paper appears to all as a sack of gold
06: a horse that can do math by stamping his hoof so long as his owner is standing right next to him.
07: A pair of small lenses that, when affixed to the nose, transform blurry, unreadable glyphs into perfectly legible writing
08 a shrill flute that that repels nearby mice, other rodents, and small children when played, instead of summoning them
03: The emperor's clothes are BEAUTIFUL but are visible only to those with pure hearts.
04: The fancy boots are just that. The cat’s a shapeshifter.
(Am I doing it right?)
d100 Actually Non-Magical Items
01-02 The King's sword is reputed to only do harm to those with evil in their hearts
Splurged on an airbrush and now it's glowing heat sinks for everyone! This lance is lit up like a Christmas tree!
One of my personal favorites is Litany in Scratches. It's not my best-looking map, but the gradual increase in tension, the sudden serious danger and punchline of the barricade has worked both times I ran it.
The Lost and the Damned chaos gods were extreme, of course, but had these lovely contrasting aspects. Nurgle was disease, but also the spark of living zeal in the face of mortality. It's great when there's enough for two adherents to have very different motives.
Slightly diminish a game:
Blame in the Dark
I'm not sure what it's like on the written page, but with Ray Porter actually doing Homer impressions for the dialogue, it has a huge influence on the tone. There's a lot of cool ideas in the story, but it feels as if it's the the novelization of a 4X video game on easy mode.
The way it depicts social challenges is especially child-like. Politicians are only capable of irrational squabbling or scowling until dad sorts them out. And no joke, the most worrying threat to the delicate emerging order is 'deliberately annoying' choices of VR avatar (e.g. Homer Simpson).
Cover of 'We Are Legion (We Are Bob)' by Dennis E. Taylor, showing a science fiction battle in an asteroid belt. pew pew
The audiobook of 'We are Legion (We are Bob)' really leans into the 'comic store guy' vibe of the narrator, highlighting the unintentional comedy that all you need to sort out humanity's problems is to put one former programmer (with some project management experience, let me tell you) in charge.
Two cast members pose for a promotional poster for Pu Songling.
Toronto folks looking for some zany live theatre featuring Chinese fables, head to Pu Songling at the Crow's Theatre. Minimal set brilliantly used, very physical performances. Tons of inspiring, weird tales. Cuddle up with a hopping corpse and get a facelift from one of the Ten Kings of Hell!
Dice where some numbers are blurred out or redacted. The Security Die.
Hi, I'm Justine! I like to draw beautiful and scary things, weird/ dark fantasy stuff, mostly in gaming. I've done work for Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Kobold Press, Old School Essentials and many others. #portfolioday
🐲insta: tean_witch
🐲web: JustineJonesIllustration.com
Sam Reid as the vampire Lestat
We watched the old Interview with the Vampire, then Prime decided to auto-play the TV show as a chaser. That's a hell of a contrast. Seeing TV Lestat made it all make sense, that guy totally kills that role. I thought we were going to get some Murdoch Mysteries villain, then he speaks.. jesus.
Cover of the book, 'There is no antimimetics division' by 'qntm'.
My gosh this is entertaining, right up my alley. Insane amounts of gaming fodder. Also kind of depressing, because the stakes to those involved are rendered so well. Bracing myself for a dismal ending.
