Still focused on the trail.

 I received a pleasant surprise Monday night while in school. A quick buzz from my phone told me that I received an e-mail from Savage Studios owned by Gene Van Horne. This got me very excited, for those of you who do not know Gene is the sculptor who made the Cyclops, the Minotaur and Athena for the Greek Dominion of the gods box. I've been waiting on an update from him for Medusa. Now Gene told me a little bit ago that he had to scrap the first sculpt he was making for Medusa because he didn't feel it looked realistic enough in its movement. You have to respect this, when an artist is so critical of himself that he will throw away hours of work to do what is called in the business “killing the baby.” Artists will often become so invested in a piece that instead of starting over when there's a problem, there is a tendency to keep tinkering with something that may never work.

So he sent me two pictures of Medusa as the work in progress.

This looks awesome! Her motion looks very fluid, not forced at all. She is very pretty in the face, however there are a few camps of thought when it comes to Medusa. Some people prefer her to stay true to her original appearance which would require a beard, a gaunt face, sunken eyes and a long tongue. She would also need to have a completely human form. Then there are those who are affected by more modern images of Medusa from movies and shows. I have always been a huge fan of the Ray Harryhausen version of Medusa from the first clash of the titans. I love the idea of a serpentine body and not relying solely on her gaze as a weapon, the Harryhausen Medusa use the bow and arrows that she would poison with her own blood. Brilliant! The only problem with this type of Medusa is that many gamers want to see pretty girls and boobs. Unfortunately, I felt I had to tailor this Medusa more towards mass appeal, so we gave her pretty face and knockers. Nothing a good paint job could not change.

We also received pictures of the alternate arms for the Cyclops.

I really like how these came out. It gives players a choice of weapon configurations for their cyclops. Personally I'm a huge fan of the hammer that was made with the original cyclops, but if you're playing a game with two Cyclops this is a great way to differentiate the two models. And trust me, if you're playing the Greeks you're going to want to play two Cyclops!

 Tomorrow's Thanksgiving and I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. I'm hoping before the end of the week to have another blog post done here with some images of Spinespur art that is been in the making.