I ordered my second ever antique sword recently, and it finally arrived! It’s a Model 1855 French Infantry Officer’s Sword. Here’s an album: This is a very light sword, weighing only 1 pound 9 ounces. The center of gravity is about five inches out, as you can see by the stand I have it balanced…
…wait, is that a spider? Arm of the Sphinx is the second, much more firmly steampunk installment in Josiah Bancroft’s brilliant Books of Babel series, and represents a kind of inflection point in Thomas Senlin’s journey. What began as a quest to find his lost wife Marya among the vast, labyrinthine Tower of Babel has wrought…
So I decided I wasn’t satisfied with the maps I made for The Heron Kings with the free version of Inkarnate. After some research, I decided to buy Wonderdraft ($30), another map tool. Here’s my first attempt at drawing Argovan and Bergovny, and the greater world around it. I think it looks much better, but…
I put off writing my review of Josiah Bancroft’s Senlin Ascends, partly because no words would accurately describe how unique this book is. I suppose I will fall back on quantitative analysis: On day one I read to page 8. On day two I read to page 26. On day three I read to…
This is my first attempt at making a custom grip wrap for a sword. I always wanted a dark blue grip like Glamdring from PJ’s LOTR, but not on a fantasy sword. For this project I picked a less expensive subject that I had really wanted a long time ago and saw back in stock…
This beer’s got so much head I wonder if Walker’s warging into it… I recently finished Cameron Johnston’s The Traitor God just in time for the second installment, God of Broken Things, to come out. I broke my personal rule not to pre-order things, though that’s mainly for games (looking at you Thi4f!) but…
I previously posted my attempt at recreating the Addermire Solution mana potion from Dishonored. Here’s another little project I did awhile back making another prop. The Runes bearing the Mark of the Outsider granted powers that were useful in the game. They were supposedly made from whale bone. In reality, trading in whale bones is…
Had to pull back to get the whole bottle in the shot. Also bought new ale glasses to drink it from! It’s easy to extol the virtues of a technically well-written book with a well-crafted story. A bit harder is to put into words one that’s all that and just plain, viscerally enjoyable to…
I know RJ likes taxidermy and antlers…I don’t have antlers but I have this bird skeleton and horn. RJ Barker’s entrancing fantasy-mystery Age of Assassins is a bit of an odd duck—there aren’t many actual assassinations in it, but it’s easy to forget that as the story of young apprentice assassin Girton unfolds. Apparently the age…
Update: Don’t look at these anymore, I’ve made much better ones using Wonderdraft. I’ve drawn several maps of the world of The Heron Kings in the past, all freehand and all terrible. Recently my wonderful agent Nathan asked me for a map in order to keep all the locations straight. When I went and dug…
