It's 1984; Dad's in the Navy and receives his next orders after Antigua, and we fly to Orlando, arrange to drive to the Pacific coast in order to catch an international flight to Tokyo International, Japan. Our final destination: Yokota Air Force Base.
I'd yet to encounter roleplaying games of any kind, and the most sophisticated game I'd played up to then was probably Risk or Stratego.
Limited Run Games does physical copies of games typically released only digitally for a variety of consoles. Today, I have a few short notes about realMYST.
This is not a review. A review is journalism of a different sort; this is more of a personal retrospective.
April 10, 1987: a trip from Yokota Air Base, Japan to Osan Air Base, South Korea, headed for Itaewon.
At fifteen years of age I'd lived in three different countries (including the US), and I was now visiting a fifth (including a long drive through Canada), albeit only for four days. The prospect of seeing a bit of South Korea was thrilling.
My favorite Rust Monster. Circa 1970s toy chinasaur plastic figure which served as the inspiration for the D&D monster. I’d like to snag more of these someday.
The ugly, ugly Neo-Otyugh, a D&D monster toy from LJN toys. Bit of a bendy, actually, with wire embedded in the plastic for some posability (until the wire breaks).
I’m … fond of it. I suppose. It does look like it gives nice hugs.
This is the really deadly (and really ugly) Grell, another LJN-made D&D monster bendable toy which likely got little to no respect in the early 1980s.
There’s a lot going for it. Brains, tentacles, and … a beak. The Fiend Folio creature has these features, but the accompanying illustration is far better than the effect here, which is sort of brains-on-a-cracker with green extremities.
E is for Eye of the Deep, posted originally on 14 November 2011, the last watercolor I had in me for the series.
This watercolor entry, released 7th of November, 2011, abandons the notion of using toys as models. I don't think I even penciled it, and I think it shows (though there was a prior pencil sketch attempted). I still think it's cute, though.
So for D is for Displacer Beast, I had a little assistance from Mickelson, B., “Ecology of the Displacer Beast”, Dragon Magazine #109, TSR, 1986.
Third of that short-lived, incomplete series once attempted (back in 3 November 2011, a late entry) of Monster Manual monsters in watercolor: monsters of the alphabet. It's the carrion crawler, present in nigh every edition and iteration of the game.
Like the previous entry, this was also based on a toy, this time something officially licensed: LJN Toys' bendable rubber critter.
Second of that short-lived, incomplete series once attempted (back in 24 October 2011, this time) of Monster Manual monsters in watercolor: monsters of the alphabet. This is the bulette (pronounced boo'lay).
This was the first to use one of the old plastic chinasaur which served as the inspiration for the monster in D&D in the first place as a model for my watercolors. (I freehanded it from the attached specimen.)
Circa 1970s toy plastic figure (made in Hong Kong.)
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