[Artwork & Stuff] July 2024

[jordangreywolf]

Steak and Potatoes
A generic dimly-lit tavern serves as the backdrop since I didn't have a specific "culture" or location to tie the food item with this time. (I just get the word on what the item is going to be, but I typically don't get to see the recipe article with the specifics until the day it's due.)



Darnassian Vegetarian Curry
Not that Darnassians are known for being vegetarian, but if anyone was, it would make sense that it was them, I figure. Okay, maybe it would have made sense for Pandaren (exclusively eating bamboo and drinking beer perhaps).



Spicy Shoyu Ramen
This was a fun assignment, because around this time I started to get plenty of visual references. Gwendel and I used to have "anime night" on Wednesdays, especially back in the day when we might have friends over (especially Koogrr) to join us. Now that we're pretty much on our own for such things, I've tried to keep this going, and one way was the idea that we'd go out to "Naroodle" (a local brazenly Naruto-themed noodle restaurant near the college campus) for ramen and then watch some anime afterward. Alas, Naroodle has closed down. I started to embark on a quest to check out all the local ramen shops. Two of them ("Soupa Saiyan" and "Dragon Bowl") turned out to be Dragon-Z themed, and surprisingly among the best in the area. The Publix deli ramen turned out to be pretty sad (the egg was just half a solidly-boiled egg -- no marinating, no nothing, and the whole dish was incredibly bland). Gwendel's favorite so far is a bit of a drive away. We've had a few that we haven't bothered going back to for various reasons, but rarely because of poor food quality. (More often it's just that it's a REALLY long drive, really pricey, and/or really obnoxious background music. One high-end place was playing music that was dropping the F-bomb periodically, and ... I mean, seriously?)

Anyway, I was able to draw upon some of Gwendel's photos for some visual refs to help fill out this bowl.



Ironforge Hackenslash Potato
A Hackenslash baked potato at the famous Hackenslashen Tavern in Ironforge, drawn for another recipe article. (That is, it's an Azerothized version of Hasselback potatoes, but there's no Hasselbacken Restaurant in Azeroth, so it needed a name change.)



Midsummer Fire Festival Worg Plush
Another seasonal plush doll of a worg mascot, this time riding on a surfboard emblazoned with the symbol of the Midsummer Fire Festival, with some vrykul knotwork thrown in for good measure.



The Mad Twins
A pair of unusually fashionably-dressed post-apocalyptic survivors dressed in a "matching mismatched" style, checking out the old Radiation King Discount Appliance Outlet store at an off-the-highway outlet store center.

The figures were 3D-printed at around 25-28mm scale from a model based on Mad Moxxi from the Borderlands games, but painted according to the specs for a player character from my friend's Fallout 2d20 campaign. The "outlet store" is an old O-scale Plasticville "5 and Dime Store" given a floor, foam-board counter, and a few papercraft boxes and "appliances" to represent some semblance of a remaining stock. The sidewalk is a 12"x12"foundation board from a Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes "Urban Streets" set.



Around this time, I finally started to crystalize some thoughts about my own Fallout campaign, and I bounced ideas off of the players in the DCC campaign, as they seem to be more open to considering what we might be doing next. The idea that got the most traction was one of having it take place in a retrofuturistic post-apocalyptic FLORIDA, drawing ideas from tourist traps/attractions from the 1950s to 1960s, before the advent of Disney World, EPCOT, etc. As it turns out, there are some interesting places that could "ironically" tie in with some post-apocalyptic horrors, and some old touristy attractions that were definitely influenced by elements of the futuristic optimism of the "Atomic Age." Miami had big plans for "Interama," which, the more I read about it, sounds an awful lot like EPCOT. In fact, I even found scans of an old brochure for it on the site of University of Miami:

https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/asm0738/id/1912/

I found an old tourist highlight map from ... I'm not sure what year. In the 1950s? 1940s? 1930s? I've been digitally zipping it together and editing it; it has some "amusing" little cartoon depictions here and there to show some of the "attractions," but it also had a few character depictions that ... ah ... do not age well. I've been modifying it based on things I've read online, trying to add in hints of alt-universe attractions that I might build upon for a sandboxy campaign premised around exploring a post-apocalyptic Florida. In this alt-universe, the plans to dig a canal across Florida using ATOMIC BOMBS actually happened. There's no Disney World or EPCOT, but there are plenty of other theme parks where animatronics and costumed robots could be found ... and which might still be "in operation" to varying degrees, though visiting them might be hazardous to one's health. Some of the most urban areas would presumably be off-limits to anyone not immune to radiation, but that still leaves plenty of the countryside to explore. In my vision of Clermont and the Citrus Tower, you'd still actually be able to see orange groves on the surrounding hillsides -- though here the oranges are likely mutated, and they're being tended to by robots.

Weeki Wachee Springs? You might still be able to find "mermaids" there. ;)

Silver Springs? Definitely still there, and it can claim a few more movies (or holo-movies or whatever) being filmed there. Still has monkeys. They aren't likely to be friendly.

Mutant alligators and flamingos are a must.

Instead of the Kennedy Space Center, it's the Cape Canaveral Space Center, though by the time the bombs dropped, it was just a space museum, and site for research centers. (Kennedy didn't get assassinated in this timeline, and the space program didn't peak with landing on the moon. Thanks to advances in rocket tech through Repconn, etc., space flight no longer required an equatorial or near-equatorial launch point -- rockets could take off into space from practically anywhere! -- so there was no longer any need for the Cape Canaveral Space Center to be essential to the main space program, though I've got plenty of OTHER ideas for what can be found there....)

I'm still working my way through things, finding inspiration now and again in IRL relics of Florida attractions long gone. Alas, most of the artwork I've been cobbling together from the game consists of altering old pamphlets, maps, etc., so posting it might be problematic, and I don't have much to show for it here.

Comments

[tuftears]

Mmm, ramen. There's a Udon place near here that just added an interesting dish I wanna try sometimes, tempura gyoza. Yep, gyoza covered in what looks like panko bread crumbs, then deep fried.

Glad to hear your Fallout campaign is moving forward, I know you've been wanting to make it happen for a while!

[jordangreywolf]

Re: Fallout Campaign: I think the advent of the TV show helped. Digital_Rampage wasn't much of a Fallout fan at all, but when the TV show came out, he liked it, so I think that gave him a little more "investment" in the idea. Once I settled on the idea of "Fallout Florida," then a couple of players in the group who aren't into Fallout per se, but are Florida natives were interested in the idea of throwing in "old Florida" touchpoints -- and we had a big brainstorming session on various things that I could work in there in some fashion.

[rowyn]

That ramen looks so good. :9

I love the Fallout-inspired minis, too. So cute!