Artist Spotlight: Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan was one my favorite fantasy artists growing up. I remember loving his "Elric: Demonslayer" (right) before knowing who or what the picture was about.

Whelan is probably most famous for his Elric and John Carter of Mars covers. His cover for Burrough's A Princess of Mars is iconic, and a favorite Elric cover is for Sailor on the Sea of Fate. Whelan is also well known for a series of H.P. Lovecraft collections, which do a fantastic job of bringing the series together, as well as tying all the mythos items together.

Though I do love his work, I am a bit torn over his John Carter of Mars covers. On one hand, I love the landscapes and the drama of his work (the new logo is from Thuvia, Maid of Mars), but I think some of the creatures, particularly the green men, are off. The green men, while not imagined as they are described in the book, still carry off the spirit. Had not Burroughs described them so well (in most regards), Whelan's version would likely be the "official" version. Marvel did a better job of going by Burrough's blueprint, but they are less interesting than Whelan's, so doubts aside, I prefer Whelan's green men.

Click Image to Expand in a New Window/Tab


Cover of an H.P. Lovecraft collection.


Sailor on the Sea of Fate


A Princess of Mars


Thuvia, Maid of Mars

Big ups to Dark World for the hi-res John Carter images. See more here.

Na' Kaat, Painted

Remember that female dragonborn paladin I mentioned earlier? Yes? Well, here is an initial stab at the paint job. I could not find the bulk of my paints, so I made do with what was around. I plan to embellish a few minor things yet (I am a perfectionist, no matter how sloppy I appear).

I envisioned her as a bronze dragon (well, actually, the beloved Arden did so). I'll likely add some metallic highlights to the "hair" and maybe some scales.


The shield is not my favorite work. I do not have a steady line hand, so I tend to paint the whole shield the line's color, then paint what would be around the line.

The Night Visitor

There are many things one might want to know about me. Well, perhaps "many" is an overstatement? Just in case you are wondering, "what does Darius think of frogs and toads?" Fret not, for an answer is here. Darius loves frogs and toads.

Frogs, toads, spiders, bats... Anything that rids the world of a few more tiny flying nuisances is ay-okey in my book. Here is a toad that lives near our house. We shall call him "Timmy."



Nighttime, flash-free photography is a challenge when you have an impertinent tripod. Timmy is a tad fuzzed, yet his beauty remains evident. Huzzah, monsieur Timmy! Good hunting, mon ami!

Perhaps some changes?

Well, since reaching one year-old, I thought it might be time for a few changes. Some old (ir)regular features will be perhaps less frequent, and a few things I have previously avoided will rear their ugly heads. No nudity or pornographic talk, this is still a family place, but politics will make an occasional appearance. Don't worry, I don't watch the news, read the news, nor listen to the news, yet things come my way. Don't get me wrong. I still want to talk about D&D, Sci-Fi, movies, books, etc.

I must warn you that I am both a staunch Atheist and a Democrat. I am also interested in the equality of the sexes, and the right to same-sex marriage. I will not attempt to harangue on any of these topics, but if I do my ideal is to use my angst-powers sparingly.

If none of this has shocked you then we'll continue to get along swimmingly. Otherwise, take my comments with a grain of salt, and remember that I am a little cartoon wizard with remarkably little power to change anything more impressive than my socks (I do have some impressive socks, btw).

Dragonborn Miniatures

Since I have been playing D&D again, I have been getting into miniatures once more. Dragonborn are particularly hard to find. Reaper Miniatures has a few good ones.

03403: Na 'Kaat, Female Half Dragon Paladin: I have this mini, as it was the only one I could find at the time. It is a good miniature, and needed very little cleanup. The right hand is detached, and the mini comes with a sword and axe. The pieces fit together nicely with a hole and peg, so with a decent glue it is no problem to attach. I used Loctite® Super Glue Ultra Gel™, which is one of the better ones I have tried. The sculptor is Julie Guthrie.

03436: Dragonman Warrior: This one I have not seen up close. Reaper's previous dragonmen were more half-dragon, in the Dragonlance style, as they all had tails. I cannot tell if this one does, but it does not appear to. The sculptor is Bobby Jackson.


Last, and yet to be released, is "Golanth" by Julie Guthrie. He appears to be very much in the dragonborn style, and joy-of-joys, has a mace. Hopefully he'll be released soon and grace the gaming table as my cleric Scorch, who is in terrible need of a representational mini.


I general, I like Reaper's minis a great deal. As mentioned before (in comments) the scale is a bit odd at times, and they are definitely larger than the official D&D miniatures, but for looks they are rarely beaten. My only real problem is the bases. Reaper used to put everyone on an oval base with the same general grass pattern. Obviously, this gets boring, but the miniatures would always stand up. Now, the bases are often different from mini to mini, and thin. They demand to be put on a seperate base. Frankly, I would prefer them to be slot based like their Warlord line, or Games Workshop. Then it is easier to either fill the slot and self-customize, or break off the slot and base the mini on a wooden disc, or other base.

D&D and Me, of late.

For the first time in my life, I am involved in two, count 'em two, D&D games. Both 4e, one of which I am DMing.

The game I play in is me, the wife, and three other PCs, and the DM, so it is a big group. I play "Scorch" - a dragonborn cleric of The Raven Queen. I have, for some reason, loved clerics in 4th edition, though hated them previously. Scorch is about to become the only "officially" Good aligned character we have. We have a shaddar-kai swordmage (Evil), a drow rogue (Chaotic Evil), a half-elf ranger and longtooth shifter druid (both Unaligned). I have always been a balance type player. If the party is organized, my character seeds confusion. If the party is very good, I lean towards mischievous. Now, the party is 40% evil, and 40% goes along with much of it, so I am getting to turn my normal tables and play good. Perhaps the dread Lawful Good?

As far as play goes, I am not a schemer, nor interested in building a church, or any long-term role play type things. I kinda like bashing heads and doing a little of the "I tell him I refuse" type role-playing, and this game lets me get away with that. Currently, I am the tank, or sorts. Everyone else is a striker or artillery. Scorch is hard to put down, and is the only guy with metal armor, so into the fray I go!

The second game is the one I DM. It includes the wife, the DM from the other game, and a guy who I have played with briefly in the past. We are playing in the Forgotten Realms, and I am having fun with it. At times it is hard to balance what I want to do versus slaughtering the party. I'm not a party killer. Last session was touch and go, as I through a couple of gnolls, a 1st level wizard, and a demon against them. I had an NPC cleric along with them, and he proved somewhat useful. This group may be more rounded for combat than the other. We have a fighter (human), barbarian (goliath) (both great-weapon, "what's a bow" types), a druid/shaman (dragonborn), and a warlock/bard (tiefling). I typically throw in a cleric, or another fighter in, just in case things get out of hand. Soon they will have (once my new minis show up) and NPC that is something I have wanted to play in the past. We'll see how it goes.

Speaking of miniatures, I have been started at that again. I did a female dragonborn from Reaper that came out pretty good for my first time back at it (I knocked it out in one sitting, almost. The shield needs work). I'll post a pic soon.

Chainmail

Sorry I have not been around much lately. Grad school is kicking the ol' buttocks, mixed with quitting smoking, mysterious leg pain, DMing a 4e game, and general malaise, I have been unbloggy.

Well, here are some old minis from WotC's Chainmail game. I thought of them since one of these guys will be making an appearance in my game...

Wordle Fun

This is kinda fun. Go to Wordle and enter a site with an RSS or Atom feed (a blog, for instance), and autogenerate art based on the commonality of words. You can modify the output. Requires Java Runtime Environment.

I had no idea I have mentioned Conan so much.

A Quick One

My coworker and I were talking about online gaming and how you wind up being a fantasy or sci-fi day laborer. "Whiteplume, bring me 25 logs!" and such.

Coworker: "A friend of mine plays Star Wars. He says he gets to be a moisture farmer, just like Luke Skywalker."

Whiteplume: "Didn't Luke leave Tatoine as quickly as he could?"

Coworker: "Exactly."

Movie Weekend

I made it through two classics this weekend.

First: Citizen Kane

No, I had never seen it before. Yes, it is a really great movie. You can see lots of bits that have been "borrowed" from it over the years. If you have not seen it, give it a try.

Second: The Way We Were

I have seen this a few times. I will watch it anytime I am passing TCM/AMC/FMC and see it on. Sappy? Yes, but it is a beautiful movie. Visually it is very nice. The story is solid, if a bit rushed. The end is a dull knife between the 7th and 8th ribs, with a sharp twist. If you do not cry at this movie, you had better be "Three Laws" compliant, 'cause you're a robot, baby!

Here there be monsters...

Here are some monsters.

I forget what this guy is called. Lets call him "uglyface" - he was some kind of wolf with a foreskin face. Rather than just baring his teeth, he bared his whole skull. This is a WotC miniature. (Update: It is a Krenshar)


This was an old DM's favorite. He always used the balrog as the monstre du jour. It's a Ral-Partha official D&D miniature. I am not in love with the paint job, but he is one of my first. I sealed him with polyurethane, and he has held up incredibly well.


This guy is my favorite. A WotC Ogre. The best part, in my opinion, is the club. We have a lot of oaks here in NC, and I tried to make it look like one. Just-brown trees get to be overdone, I think.

What is best in life? Miniatures?

Okey, officially, none of these are Conan, but really. Come on. Aren't all barbarians Conan deep down? Here is a collection of Conan-y minis. You can also see a couple of Red Sonja minis at the Red Sonja blog, here.

This one is by Reaper. They made a science out of doing Conan.


Another Reaper Conan, now with redonkulus sword!


Say it with him: "CRO-O-O-O-O-O-O-M!" - Also by Reaper, now with rune sword.


This one is from Australia. Ground Zero Games maybe? My least favorite paint job, but my favorite Conan. Very Frazetta strut-y, and ginormous. The way I painted his mouth, he looks like he could be a real douche. Kinda like Chet from Weird Science.

A Shotgun Blast of Tiny Babes

No real rhyme or reason to this post, or most of the minis contained.

First, the "Thief of Hearts" by either Ral-Partha or RAFM. And that really was the name on the box. I thought she was so cheesey looking that she demanded an anime styled paint job, thus the pink leathers. Kinda Sailor Moon, if you ask me.


Just some sorceress. I alway have trouble getting blonde right Being blonde that may be ironic?). What I loved though was the dress. It was so simple/plain. I painted a Dodgers blue base coat, then a coat of Tamiya clear blue over it. Acts as a wash, and makes it kinda silky looking.


I have no idea where this nun came from. I think it is from an Australian company. I ordered a bunch of minis for something like UA$25, and is came out to be something like US$8. Yeah!


This was a Mage Knight sorceress. I thought she looked like a drow and painted her that was. So now she is a Drow Matron, with some ugly looking staff.


I love this one. It is by Copplestone Castings in the UK (Future Wars minis). They do some awesome stuff. I have ordered a few times from them, and there stuff is great and shipping to the US is not too steep. I dubbed her the "Biker Hoochie" and made her base look like old crappy road. The beer bottle was made with a piece of clear acrylic rod which I heated, stretched, and cut to length. Then I drilled a hole on the bottom and painted the inside with some clear yellow to make it look like beer. Nothing difficult, but the effect is great. Now that I look at it, that is one big-ass beer!


Another Copplestone mini. I modified her slightly (forget how) to make her look like Abbey Chase from Danger Girl. I don't know why, but I remember being very into toadstools as base design for a while.

Pinky and Your Brain

Once upon a time, Reaper Minis had the license to produce Doom miniatures, based on the 3-D First Person Shooter. You remember Doom, right? Well, I got a set of three imps, and one of the big pink demon.


Obviously, the main thing about Pinky is that ridiculous maw. He is all mouth, and it was enough to make you crap your Space Marine tighty-whiteys! I always found it funny that he was Pepto-pink. Such a calming color for so deadly a monster.



I do love the job Reaper did on this sculpt. It is more horrific than the game (granted, the game was 16-bit), and they really exaggerated the maw. I decided to give him pupiled eyes, rather than the yellow shark-eyes from the game. I think it's scarier that he is looking at you. More malicious.

Oh, and here is an Imp. Not so hot, and he's the best of the three :-)

Happy Blogiversary to me!

It was a year ago today that I started this blog. Not sure where the name came from. Not sure what I was going to do. Not sure I would stick with it. My first post was about a Star Trek episode.


Well, things grew by leaps and bounds for me. I have met a lot of great people, and had a lot of fun. Since then I have expanded to several blogs, two Tumblrs and Twitter... I am actually enjoying the intertubes again.

So, in celebration, here are a few of my favorite posts. There is some design in the listing to show the progress of the blog too.

• In the Belly of the Beast!
  
• World of Warcraft?
  
• Nerd Girl of Note #1
  
• Embarrassing Confession...
  
• How big is Sade's love?
  
• Roll Call, 6:53AM
  
• What have we learned about the fair sex?
  
• Fiction's Finest Nerds #10 - Lisa Simpson
  
• My appologies to Cobra Commander
  
• "I once had sex with an Australian girl..."
  
• My new favorite show! (April Fool's post)
  
• I am going to be controversial
  
• Digital Diarrhea (this is where the Kat Dennings feud started)
  
• My zombie fighting dream team
  
• Virtual Mountains of Madness! (probably my favorite post)

Oh, there are more, but I don't want to bore you. Glad you all have been around, as it has been a lot of fun!

And the horse you rode in on!

Mounted, sort of, miniatures.

Here is a Warhammer Bretonian Knight. I was getting into heraldry, and decided to do Hogwarts house colors. Never got past this Slytherin Knight, IIRC. I have a version of him on foot too (by Reaper).



My favorite airplane of all time is the Mk V Supermarine Spitfire. I always thought a motorcycle would look cool done up as one. Maybe I was wrong? This is, I believe, from Ground Zero Games.



This little lady is a Reaper Minis centaur druid. I don't know much about horses, but I always loved the dappled grays. Her coat is darker than I intended. I was going for the Pale Rider horse. Ah well. (pardon the boobs)

More Miniatures!

Okey, thought I'd post a few more. There might be a flood of them over the comming weeks. Tell me if it gets annoying. I won't be offended.

First up, Varkaok Elfslayer, also from my History of Impiltur. The mouth is the whole paint job. The mouth, to me, is what makes Varkaok so ugly. This a a Reaper Minis Dark Heaven miniature.


This one I may have bought for the nudity, but I am posting because it is one of my better skin tone jobs. I forget who makes this mini.


Last, an old Basic Dungeons & Dragons mini. He is some sort of plastic resin like the D&D minis we are all getting used to. I tried painting him to match the one on the box. It was pretty close.


That's it for now. More minis to come.

Look Who I Found!

Monsieur le Pew!

Some D&D Miniatures

Well, I am gaming again, and then Atomic Kid got me thinking about minis again. Here are two that were easily available.

First, a grey elf rogue, or eladrin for we 4e players. I believe he was by Reaper Mini's Warlord line. His armor looks a little worn, but I hate doing just black. Like most minis, it looks better in person.


Next, another eladrin. This time it's my wife's old 3e fighter, Brynn Willowfeather (you may have heard of her in the History of Impiltur). She was a grey elf, and in 4e she will be an eladrin Shiere Knight.

Brynn had a Frostbrand Bastard Sword, so for the mini I hacked off the old plain sword and added a big-honkin Games Workshop sword. A little crafty snow, and viola!


Last, we have a big-daddy, old skool manticore. He is a big mini, big and ugly, mini-zilla ita be!

I used a two-inch Games Workshop base (IIRC) and scattered a few Warhammer skeleton parts around.


I almost always hacked the bases off minis and made my own with either standard mini discs or one-inch wooden rounds from the hobby store. Ground-cover and rocks seals the deal.

That's it for today. I took some more pics, but why not spread things out? [I'm a tease]