Monday, September 12, 2011

A Round-Up of Cool -- and Very Hot -- Links


Things have been a little busy in Obscureland, so today's Mythopoeic Monday will round up a passel of great links that I wouldn't want folks to miss.

Someone reminded me of one of my favorite Dragon covers of all time.  Am I the only person who thinks we did not get enough Daniel Horne illustrations in D&D products?  I sure hope that brunette survived the undead frost giant attack.  That last arrow doesn't fill me with confidence, but for the magical aura.

Check out Belched from the Depths for some really fabulously painted old school looking miniatures.  For some reason, I've been unable to leave comments there, but I want to spread the love for those beauts that are getting shown off over there.

Can we hear too much about Dave Gross or Master of Devils?  You know my answer.  For that matter, we can never have enough Black Gate, either.  If you missed these Gross posts over at BG, I recommend you catch up:
http://www.blackgate.com/2011/07/23/black-gate-interviews-dave-gross-part-one/
http://www.blackgate.com/2011/07/30/black-gate-interviews-dave-gross-part-two/
http://www.blackgate.com/2011/08/19/a-review-of-master-of-devils/
If you are done with Gross' latest Pathfinder Tale, you can be entertained by the series he has going on the Paizo blog, A Passage to Absalom.  Those can also tide you over if you are waiting for his blog to fire back up again...but that's assuming that you are caught up on all his Asian fantasy film recommendations.

My Pet Arts
A blog with cool old images of architecture and dress/costumes that you might miss because of the name.  A great source for setting inspirations.

Appreciators of fine photography ought to take a look at the amazing images by Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs. Almost every update to his photoblog causes injury to my jaw.

The latest from Siren's Call reviews a fascinating-looking book about a Venetian legend (or did it happen?) by di Robilant, as well as a history of the aquarium (although, I strongly question the statement that the Victorian imagination viewed the ocean as "a cursed, dark world where terrifying monsters lurked, devouring anything in sight."  That certainly sounds like the prevailing view from ancient times into the early 19th century, which then would have been destroyed by the dominance of two very different Victorian currents -- Romanticism and the Scientific Revolution.)

If you like to learn from history and are looking for something to listen to, check out this audio interview of a classicist who has written on the battle of Cannae.

I've also fallen behind on my Clockwork Gnome Publishing updates.  The latest announcement is a book of swarms for Pathfinder by Mike Welham.  I'm not sure if I've given up on a campaign to add one more "o" to the title of the book or not.

Check out Butterfrog's Gallery at DeviantArt by clicking the unholy symbol above!

HELL YEAH!
Give me a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, Ed Greenwood's articles on Hell in Dragon, and the original Monster Manual, and you have got Theodric out for the day, doodling (don't ask: when I give them to artists to be translated, they seem to find them illegible) and taking notes happily.  Thus I have been mighty-satisfied to see a hellish upsurge in the blogosphere of late.  J. Matt Stater started a series (1 and 2) on Hell which spurred Tim Brannan to look back at some of his past re-imaginings (1 and 2) and make further reflections.  In a case of felicitous timing, Talysman of The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms recently started a series on Our Infernal Neighbors (1, 2, 3, and 4).  I love the smell of brimstone in the morning.  Happy rambling (and surfing!) until next time.

Book of the Damned 2, cover by Eva Widermann