A recent article on the Paizo site discusses Adam’s work in several of the Pathfinder Society scenarios. I’ve blogged about Adam Vehige’s work before, but for those who don’t know, Adam’s the talented artist behind the EpicTable dragon.

I first saw Adam’s work when I was shopping for someone to create an iconic persona for EpicTable. Since then, I’ve followed his work on Orc Wars and now, Pathfinder. I’m looking forward to seeing more from Adam in the future. Meanwhile, you can see more at Adam Vehige’s deviantArt page.

I recently saw the third of the Brendan Fraser mummy movies, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which had a scene involving yetis, and well…at least it got me thinking about yetis….

I can’t say that I’d recommend The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I won’t argue that the first two were great, but the combination of mummies, Egypt, and Rachel Weisz destroys my objectivity in a way that China and Maria Bello cannot.

The best thing about this movie, for me, was the yetis. Here we see one making his intimidate check against a villainous goon. The yetis do a nice job of leaping about and throwing bad guys this way and that. (I’m steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that the yetis play American rules football—don’t ruin them for me, they’re all I’ve taken away from that 112 minutes.) Also, the concept of a Tibetan girl who can call the yetis in times of need is an awesome one. Very much a summon nature’s ally kind of trick and one that I’d love to use in a game.

So, fresh from the movie and full of enthusiasm for all things yetian, I collected some yeti lore for you, the kind readers of the EpicTable blog.

• The Yeti entry in occultopedia has an interesting timeline of yeti reports and searches that may be of use to people crafting a yeti-focused adventure
• There’s a recent (August 12, 2008) ABC article about the yeti, if you can believe that: “Losing the Yeti in Forgotten Nation of Bhutan“
• Also from August 2008, it seems that Japanese Explorers are searching the Himalayas for yeti
• The Cryptid Zoo article on the yeti has some info about yeti subtypes and lots of links to other material on them.
• I dug up some D20 yeti stats. These are available in print in the D20 Menace Manual.
• As of the time of this writing, you can learn all about one man’s search for the yeti for approximately 28 cents plus shipping (which is kind of sad, really…)
• Late breaking update: 23-Jan-2009, I found this page with tons of yeti links.

Yeti Artwork

At considerable risk to my own sense of self-worth, I have slogged through thousands of yeti pics to bring you the very best yeti art the web has to offer. (No warranty express or implied is made by Realityforge LLC regarding the extent to which these are, indeed, the best yeti pictures available, nor as to the number of yeti pics actually perused in pursuit of those shown here.)

Hover for a quick blurb about each.

I stumbled into Adam’s gallery on a site called deviantArt (about which I’ve blogged before). There’s a lot of variability between artists on these online communities, but the moment I saw Cyclops Scene (a small crop of which is at the start of this article), I knew I’d found the guy to create my mascot.

Orcs…

I was thrilled to have Adam create the EpicTable dragon—and lucky that the timing worked out. He’s since been heavily involved in a card game from TableStar Games, called “Orc Wars“. I love the work he’s done there. He does a great job with monsters and monstrous humanoids. His orcs are clearly inspired by Warcraft orcs, and he’s got some great taurens as well. But while Adam’s orcs and taurens are similar to Warcraft art, they’re different as well. Sadly, I don’t have the artistic wherewithal to tell you why, so you’ll have to go to his gallery at deviantArt and look for yourself.

…And More Than Orcs

If orcs and taurens aren’t your thing, there’s plenty more to look at. My favorites are:

• “Cyclops Scene”, the image that originally pulled me in
• Untitled – grey haired orc
• Back to the Noose, a skeletal pirate done for a band called Swashbuckle.
• Bio-Mech Merman, which reminds me of my friend Jeremy.
• Attack of the Kraken, a great pulp work
• Leap of Faith, which seems to be his signature piece

Avatars!

If you like what you see out there, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve not left you EpicTable readers out in the cold. Adam has agreed to let me use some of his work as avatars in the EpicTable forum. So, if you don’t have an avatar for the EpicTable forum yet, head over there and pick one out!

One more thing…

Ah—one more thing: If you find that you have a need to say Adam’s last name someday, you can take advantage of the fact I finally got around to asking. Straight from Adam himself: “My last name is pronounced (Vay-gee) with the “gee” like McGee”.

]]> http://www.epictable.com/blog/artist-spotlight-adam-vehige/feed/ 0 http://www.epictable.com/blog/welcome-to-the-sideshow-the-dark-art-of-david-hartman/ http://www.epictable.com/blog/welcome-to-the-sideshow-the-dark-art-of-david-hartman/#comments Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:24:31 +0000 John Lammers http://www.epictable.com/?p=83 I don’t recall how I stumbled upon David Hartman’s site: http://www.sideshowmonkey.com/. Maybe I don’t remember how I got there because I spent the next couple hours lost in this dark little world he’s created.

Did I mention it’s dark? Yeah, a lot of David’s work is pretty dark, and it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (which is an oddly inappropriate expression to use when talking about monsters, zombies, and the like), but there’s a comic/pulp feel his work that I really like.

More than just the style, though, there’s a sense of anticipation in a lot of Hartman’s work that I think gamers will find inspiring. There’s almost always something just about to happen. It’s often something not very nice. But the people in these scenes aren’t passively awaiting their fate. As often as not, they’ve got a gun or a knife or an axe, and they’re poised to confront the awful thing that’s closing on them.

My favorites are:

• Revere – Paul Revere (one imagines) fighting off werewolves.
• Space Man – a classic sci-fi work with humans and hostile aliens (or, I don’t know, aliens and hostile humans)
• Sea Killer – Vikings having a rough day

David’s done quite a bit of commercial work for folks like Rob Zombie, MTV, and Warner Brothers. His work includes the Bruce Campbell movie, Bubba Ho-tep, several animated TV series, comic books, and even some work for game industry folks like Green Ronin Press. The biggest surprise to me though, after spending some time on his site, was learning that he directed “My Friends Tigger & Pooh”. I can only hope that the creatures from SideshowMonkey.com live far from The Hundred Acre Wood (or that Pooh is a lot more fierce than he lets on).

The fact that I stumbled upon David’s site only by accident, even though he’s obviously well-known in some circles, led me to point other gamers in his direction. I’ll go one better though–I got David’s permission to use some of his work as avatars for the EpicTable site. By the time you’ve read this, there will likely be a nice, shiny, new batch of avatars in the EpicTable forum, courtesy of David Hartman. So, if you don’t have an avatar of your own for the EpicTable forum yet, make your way over there and pick one out!

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