Frazetta-Style Barsoomian Cities

Those of you who followed the progress of the late, great Lost Worlds Mod know that King Arthur, Blue Monkey & I had planned a version of Barsoom to be included in the Mod. After asking everyone we could find to tackle the challenge of making cities for Barsoom (and getting no takers), we decided to try it ourselves, and began looking for images of Barsoom to draw ideas from. Hands down, the most beautiful of the illustrations we found were by an artist named Frank Frazetta, who did some covers for paperback versions of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series (Barsoom is what ERB's Martian characters call the planet in the books). The image above, from a Cover illustration that Frazetta did for the book "John Carter and the Savage Apes of Mars", particularly caught our eye, and we set about to make a city that looked like that, and I think it came out pretty well, if I say so myself. You can read a complete description of how it was made in the READMe I put in the RAR (if you like that sort of minutia), but the short version is that Blue Monkey modeled it and I finished it. I added a wall from one of Kyriakos' cities for the walled version (thanks Kyriakos!) and domes for the domed cities.

Here are some screen shots:

Dusar


Marentina


Ptarth



For a great place to put these (and to see more of that gorgeous Martian terrain) see my Mars Terrain Thread.

You can download the files here: Download

Nice set Balthasar! If only I had a use for it.

I might actually use them. They might go for my current mod. Cities for my martian faction.

Pretty cool

BARSOOM LIVES!

-z

Ozymandias said:

BARSOOM LIVES!

-z

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Of course is does. I am just surprised that Harold Shea has not visited there as yet.

timerover51 said:

Of course is does. I am just surprised that Harold Shea has not visited there as yet.

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Wow! An L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt reference!

If you haven't read it yet, check out In The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S. M. Stirling. All sorts of oblique references to other literary Marses.

Blue Monkey said:

If you haven't read it yet, check out In The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S. M. Stirling. All sorts of oblique references to other literary Marses.

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...and the title of an album by my favorite group!

I'm sure that was intentional on Stirling's part. I've got a list somewhere of city names I collected from the book which would be useful in composing lists for a scenario.

timerover51 said:

Of course is does. I am just surprised that Harold Shea has not visited there as yet.

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Just thinking that the reason Harold Shea would not get there is the lack of Magic. After all, he was the "Incomplete Enchanter". I am not sure if Gully Foyle could cross-universe jaunt, but Commodore John Grimes might make it, especially if on Kinsolving's Planet.

Balthasar said:

...and the title of an album by my favorite group!

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Oh, my, does THAT take me back ...
-z

So, not precisely OT since it's not about the cities, but something I have in my steampunk playlist for when I'm working on scenarios ....
"H G Wells" by The League of Gentlemen from God Save The King. This was one of Fripp's side projects in 1980. Sort of KC in a minimalist progressive style (like Phillip Glass). Also on the list is "Bicycling to Afghanistan" by The League of Crafty Guitarists - a Fripp acoustic side project. Some of the Frippertronics stuff reminds me of - maybe not Barsoom, but Leigh Brackett's Kushat, Shandakor & the rest of that dying Mars - "The Cathedral of Tears" sort of makes me think of cities abandoned to the encroaching desert & fading atmosphere.