More Stuff Keeps Coming Out of My Garden

I swear that for as long as blood runs in my veins, I will garden. And for as long as I garden, it seems our topsoil will throw up ever more curious objects for my bemusement. Suburban archaeology – it’s the unravelling of a cardigan of past owners and residents, perchance to find the occasional button. No buttons this time, or yet indeed, but quite a bit of plumbing stuff from around the kickboards of the house, some terracotta and more ceramic discards (probably an old pipe or flower pot), a vintage Pepsi bottle cap circa late-1980s (when did Pespi arrive in NZ I wonder? 1987 or thereabouts?), a heart-shaped eraser long since perished to uselessness, and clothes pegs, lots of clothes pegs. I am rather taken by the Deco-like plastic thingy which incorporates some screws and brass strip on the reverse (a light housing, perhaps for a fluoro tube?) though, but in conclusion, not much here for the Bitz Box - but a bit more root space for our transforming garden.

Legends of RPG Art: An Artist Reponds

During a recent tidy up of the blog (ongoing, alas) I found to not a little embarrassment a comment on an earlier piece on Russ Nicholson by the great man himself. I remain humbled and not a little shamefaced for missing it.

Much of which is to say, it's great to see that not only is Mr Nicholson still working, but he also has a blog!

So you should go there. It's brilliant, believe me.

And just because I enjoy it, here's another shot of one my favourite Nicholson pieces, the title page for Ian Livingstone's guide to the RPG phenomenon, Dicing With Dragons. Great lines again, with some fine muscular rendering and those cool mountains in the background. I always fancied that this was perhaps in part a portrait of Ian himself, sans glasses and moustache!