Thursday, October 17, 2013

Limehouse Blues

I stumbled upon a movie set in the same place and time as our upcoming GURPS noir horror game - Limehoume Chinatown, London, circa 1933.  The movie was called Limehouse Blues, but renamed East End Chant.  Yay for the Internet Archive!

The film has introduced me to the lovely Anna May Wong, who apparently was the first Chinese-American movie star.  Judging from the way that Hollywood treated any non-white person at the time, that was some accomplishment.  Go look her up. She's got a fascinating biography.

On the RPG front, I'm really proud of the gang.  They've really come up with some interesting characters.  I worried everyone would end up being . . . well, I'm not sure.  Boring.  But no - they come up with some great stuff.  So, we've got one a British detective that knows all of the detective stuff and a Chinese policeman from Hong Kong who doesn't know how to police, but knows how to Kung Fu the bad guys.  We've also got an Arab-American demon hunter who might be the son of Iblis.  We've also got a Mata Hari type secret agent seductress from Brazil, and daughter of a South African rancher who hunts monsters for science.  And it looks like we will have a film actress who plays a vampire in the movies, and actually happens to be one in real life - or at least she will when she finally gets bitten.

So it looks like great fun.  I hope they all don't die right away. :)



- Ark

Limehouse Chinatown

Our upcoming GURPS noir horror game - The Directorate of Esoteric Affairs - will kick off in 1933 in London's old Chinatown.  The first installment will be 50 point characters, followed by 100 point characters two years later in 1935.  Then, the characters will move to 150 pointers in 1937, where we will progress at a more normal time/xp flow.  I'm trying to ease the characters into GURPS, and give them a tour of the possibilities.

London’s original Chinatown was located in the East End, in an area known as Limehouse near the River Thames.  Primarily inhabited by Chinese sailors and those who serviced them, records indicate that there were never more than several hundred inhabitants at any given time.  Despite that, legend populated Chinatown with an ocean of Yellow Peril, wall-to-wall opium dens, and the nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu - bent on world domination.  

My Limehouse Chinatown is a mix of both - a real neighborhood full of hard working immigrants - plus a dark underbelly of unknown terrors.  And heck, yeah, some Big Trouble in Little China too.  


But I'm ditching the whole Yellow Peril thing.  Besides, I'm sure the Directorate of Esoteric Affairs will have a lot more trouble on their hands, what with werewolf invasions, Aleister Crowley, and Cthullu's return to deal with. 

Below are some period images to help set the mood . . .









- Ark

Thursday, October 10, 2013

I'm Like A Million Years Old Today


Erin Palette was razzing me about not posting in like, forever.  So in an effort to make her wrong, here is a post!

The above was taken during my 44th birthday dinner tonight at Saltgrass Steakhouse.  I kilt a cow and eated it.  But before that, I got presentses, my precious.  Whatever could that be, clutched in my hand?  No, wrong hand.  That is The Boy.  Other hand.  Yes.  Could be . . . an RPG book?

Duh.

I'm not a big fan of bloggers posting apologies for not keeping up with blogging, so no apologies here.  It will happen when it happens.  Meanwhile, I've been drawing up a storm, I'm running a Kids Star Wars bounty hunter campaign, I'm playing a psychotic assassin the Tephra steampunk game, and I just wrapped up an epic Big Kids Star Wars game that went on for almost half a year where they murdered the hell out of Darth Vader yesterday, minutes before the credits rolled.

So what's it's got in its grubby little hands, precious?  Well, yet another GURPS book.  Yup.  I'm about to run a mega epic campaign called Esoteric Affairs - which I see as something like Men In Black, but done in the black and white London of the 1930s with monsters replacing aliens.  A Noir Horror Mystery Thriller kinda thing.

Should be fun.

Now please excuse me as I waddle to a place I can lie down on and moan for a while.  Eating a whole cow can be painful . . .

- Ark

Friday, September 20, 2013

Art Improvement Meme

Here is an old art improvement meme that I finally decided to fill out . . .

-Ark


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Barbarella - Queen of the Galaxy


Okay - the colors are done.  Funny - for months now I've been almost exclusively working on figure drawing fundamentals - and somehow my coloring seems to have gotten better.  Odd. I'll never figure out this art thing. :)

- Ark

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Fear Her, Doctor Durand Durand



Now I just need to color her.  Barbarella, Barbarella with her hair all colored yella. :)

- Ark

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Accidental Art


I still am confused as to why most of the things I intend to draw end up as beg nasty meses, while the mindless sketches I make tend to be the ones I like.  Probably says something aboout my psychological make-up. :)

- Ark