Palaeo Diet Inspiration

We've just been away for a few days in the Blue Mountains, staying at the lovely Hydro Majestic Hotel in Medlow Bath. One part of the hotel is a long lounge area called Cat's Alley:

This area is decorated by a series of paintings of hunting scenes, which just screamed 'Palaeo Diet' at me. So I took photos of them all to share here.

The paintings were by Arnold Zimmerman, a Swiss emigre. In the 1930s he oversaw the redesign of the hotel's ballroom, and was commissioned to do a series of artworks to hang around the area. Some time afterwards they were moved to Cat's Alley.

Unfortunately due to the lighting in the Alley they weren't easy to photograph; there were either awkward shadows or annoying reflections. However I hope you find them interesting. You can click on them to enlarge them

This first one shows that there's room in Palaeo Diet for some rules for mounted hunters.

But most of the scenes could be recreated using the rules as written.

This one might be fun with various cliffs which the beasts can cross but not the hunters.

This picture shows all three types of hunter.

More evidence that we need rules for mounted hunters.

And again.

One for Palaeo Diet: Pulp.

And one straight out of the game - two hunters with axe/club vs an Apex Predator.

This final picture was in a side-passage opposite a mirror, and was easier to photograph as a reflection

The hotel is well worth a look if you're passing through the Blue Mountains.

Yokai

A couple of weeks ago I did a post covering my visit to the Japan Supernatural exhibition in Sydney earlier this year. This was an exhibition covering depictions of yokai, or Japanese monsters, ghosts and goblins.

Today I stumbled across this website - Yokai.com - which is a beautiful illustrated database of yokai run by Japanese-based artist and folklorist Matthew Meyer.

The site is a lovely introduction to the yokai, and is chock-full of inspiration for games, miniature and RPG, whether you need giant monsters, or troublesome annoyances.

Here's a few I liked (all images and text are (c) Matthew Meyer) - the caption is a link to the article for each:

Bakekujira

Funayūrei

Isonade

Maneki neko

Tsuchigumo

And there's plenty more where those came from ...

Japan Supernatural

A few months ago the Art Gallery of NSW ran a major exhibition called 'Japan Supernatural'. This featured artwork covering depictions of  Japanese ghosts, goblins and other monsters (Yokai) from the 18th century to the present day. We went earlier this year, and it was definitely an exhibition worth the visit. I took a few photos, but contrived not to take much in the way of notes concerning them. But I thought I'd share what I had, since there's some great imagery.

The first part of the exhibition covered 18th/19th century art, and featured two lengthy scrolls depicting a whole range of Yokai.

There were masks.

We all know that this is a Kappa. Don't we?

The main exhibition gallery had a range of 19th and early 20th century art. There were heaps of prints, but I didn't take that many pictures of those. I did photograph some of the netsuke, though.

This was one of my favourites - a depiction of a Gashadokuro. These giant skeletons roam the countryside, ripping off people's heads and drinking blood. Giant skeletons were depicted in some 19th century art, but this form of the creature is relatively modern, dating from the 1960s/70s. I have a plastic Halloween skeleton waiting to be converted into one of these for giant monster gaming.

The last section of the exhibition were modern artworks, some commissioned especially for the exhibition. For example there were these two massive Oni:

And the highlight was this mural by Takashi Murakami, featuring monsters, samurai and a giant cat which looks like our Pandora. Maya and Catherine had their picture taken in front of it.

Obviously you've missed the exhibition (it finished at the start of March), but the guidebook is available to buy from a range of booksellers, and features hundreds of pictures which would make great reference material for anyone wanting to inspiration for fantasy RPG or wargames, as well as a number of essays on yokai and their depiction in art. I got a copy at the exhibition, and it's beautiful.

'Japan Supernatural - Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters 1700's to now' by Melanie Eastburn.

Anyway, I hope some of these pictures are of use to someone out there.

Galleries and Galliots

Today Catherine and I went up to Sydney in order to see and exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Entitle 'Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age : Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum', it's a collection of paintings from the main museum on Amsterdam, and illustrates the style of art influenced by the unique Dutch society of the 17th century. The centrepiece is a room devoted to Rembrandt, but this post is about the second room we encountered. This was the view as I came into it.

It covered the influence of Dutch overseas trade, specifically the Dutch East India Company, and it's naval power.

Needless to say I was like a kid in a sweetshop. Behind me is a picture of a Dutch warship in a storm; possibly a wreck off Gibraltar, although that is unclear.

There were about ten paintings in all, plus this - a model of a 1640s 44-gun warship, probably made for a guild or merchant company.

It's exquisite.

Did warships of the period really have all this carving and decoration? Repairs would have been fifty-percent art restoration.

Anyway, I know that some readers of this blog like ships, so I took a few pictures of bits of the paintings for both them and my own personal collection. This first set are from a couple of paintings of Dutch ships off Batavia. In the background you can see the port and castle of Batavia itself.

On the other side of the gallery was this; a painting of the Four Days Battle of 1666 by Willem van de Velde. Pure naval battle painting porn. Just look at the glorious detail!

A couple of ladies were looking at the picture and trying to puzzle out the flags. I couldn't help myself, and they ended up learning more about naval ensigns that I suspect they needed to know.

Anyway, if you want to see more, the exhibition runs until February 18th next year. The rest of it is almost as good as the pictures of ships, so it's well worth the trip.

(The title mentioned 'Galliots' I have no idea if there are any in the pictures.)

Spandau and Lewis - Proper Release

I first started writing the game which would be known as 'Spandau and Lewis' back in 2008. Ever since then it's been in what I've always described as a 'Draft' status, as I constantly tinkered with the mechanisms. Well, having had it back out on the table this week, I finally decided to stop messing around, tidy it up and call it a release.

You can find it here:

Spandau and Lewis v1.0

There's a lot missing that I was planning to include. I still have notes for attacking ground troops (and their shooting back), AA fire, balloons and bombing, as well as a few more oddities. But what's in that document should be enough to get you flying and shooting with the aircraft of your choice. The sample aircraft lists at the back represent those I have i my own collection, plus a few I've used in scenarios I've tried out. It should be easy enough to extrapolate your own designs, but I will post a more complete list one day, since I have a pile of aircraft stats derived from those in the old Aces High boardgame.

As a bonus, here's a link to a thread by an artist called Peter Hill, who seems to specialise in WW1 air-warfare paintings. There's some interesting pictures in it, including this one of Alphonse Pergoud, who features in my previous post.

'Random WW1 Subjects' by Peter Hill

Enjoy!