"The Wild Hunt..." Topic

… somewhere in the Last Valley.

From
link

Main page with much more interesting little dioramas.
greywolf1066.blogspot.com

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Grey Wolf's vignettes and photos are astounding.

wow

Now that is just awesome!

Is the naked chick somebody that they captured, or is she just enjoying a day out in the countryside?

Are they hunting the fox or is it a pet?

It's the Last Valley… 'Gifted' women, nymphs, werewolves, wolves and foxes live in harmony. I suspect that vampires and sabertooths (and probably most of 'normal' human males), on the other hand…

As Canids, Foxes are the 'little brothers' of Wolves.
No need to explain why werewolves and wolves get along so well.

As for 'gifted' women, nymphs and feral beasts… Fée in old French simply meant 'magical', and there were Fay horses (Bayard), Fay swords (No, NOT Stormbringer!) and Fay people; but Fée as Fay people could be 'normal' human magicians (Morgan the Fay) as well as people from Faerie (heirs of the Gallo-Roman nymphs and other spirits of nature + Elves everywhere a Germanic cultural influence set in after the Invasions). 'Magic users' (Pagans) were mixed up with their minor deities. With time almost all Fées were female, male 'Elves' were mostly remembered in very old texts ('The Elvish Knight', and the 'King of Elves' re-written by Goethe). Probably because for the Church they were *evil*, and the Woman, Eve or Lilith, is a 'vase of impiousness', a lethal temptress, a potential agent of Satan. Also because some forms of 'magics' were specially associated with women: they were more seeresses (re the Pythia, the Sibyls…) than seers. This was specially marked in Germanic cultures, where the shamanic seidhr magic (probably of Finno-Ugric origin) was restricted to women, the voelvur en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva (males trying to practice it -Odin first- were blamed of 'feminization'; indeed Siberian male shamans often wear women's dresses).
And shamanic magic was deeply associated with shape-changing to animal form (re Loki, 'Thor's little sidekick' on Lapp drums, who got pregnant in female animal form, and the Kalevala). This may for a part explain the 'hybrid' nature of German / Scandinavian Holda / Huldra, (from the old Huld seeress en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huld ) a 'background' of shapeshifter making even easier to mix up a magician with a magical being.
But the misogyny of the Church certainly explains why, once deemed *evil*, most magical creatures -mermaids, the Marie-Morganes of Brittany, the Lorelei…- were female: the Temptation, the death of the Man or of his soul, is female.

Abdul

Why is she dressed like Nazi Stormtrooper?

Many thanks for your guidance Jean Marc!.

Amicalement
Armand

Why is she dressed like Nazi Stormtrooper?

Don't know, I'm just an ardent admirer and follower of Grey Wolf's outstanding work.
And she looks less Nazi than any Imperial Commissar And her dress is appropriate for hunting.

Possible explanation of her presence: as you can see perusing his blog, Grey Wolf concentrates on two genres: Fantasy and Interwars 'Pulp'.
The Last Valley seems to share many features with Tanelorn, the Eternal City, independent of space and time.
But I confess I'd prefer 'her' with a tricorne, being a 18th C. buff

Many thanks for your guidance Jean Marc!.

Jean-Louis – and, to be frank, the 'explanation of the picture' I posted is a personal flight of fancy, likely but by no means 'canonical'. Only Grey Wolf could provide such.

Mille excuses mon ami Jean-Louis!

Amicalement
Armand

>>And her dress is appropriate for hunting.<<

…ummm…really? I've never seen anyone hunt in a garter belt and black stockings before. Unless they were hunting for *me*. In which case they'd find me pretty damned fast. :-) I don't know about the boots and leather coat though. That gives me the impression that she's gonna hurt me in some way, and I *don't* like *pain*. I think the blonde chick way off in the background would be more my type.

I'm not knocking his work though. It's really quite impressive.

I tried to read it I really did but I kept thinking "but she's nude" and well the immature side took over and I just couldn't get past all of that. Good write up though and very cool vignette. I still think they should fox hunt.

>>I tried to read it I really did but I kept thinking "but she's nude" and well the immature side took over and I just couldn't get past all of that.<<

You're not necessarilly immature. When a vignette like this is obviously meant to appeal to our prurient interests it has succeeded in your case and has done it's job. It worked! No need to worry about that. Congratulate to the artist. Now as for myself, i'm still trying understand the art of this vignette. I'm impressed with the paint job on the minis, and i'm impressed with the terrain, and i'm impressed with the lighting and photography, but the story of what's going on still leaves me wondering. Who is this person and why is she leading a hunting party while naked under a leather coat? Why is the blonde chick naked? It looks to me that some of us are accepting a fantasy situation that makes no sense only because there are naked chicks wearing fetish gear. Is this for geeky fan boys?

After looking at his dioramas, while the painting, scene work and photography are amazing, there is little or no sense of story in any of the photos I saw, just static poses. There are no elements of conflict, caution, tragedy, humor, mystery, pathos, love, hate, revenge, justice or injustice… indeed, no emotion or context at all. There are just painted figures standing around looking in the same direction. Thet might as well be posing for family portraits at a K-mart.

All that is needed would be a little more separation between the figures with them being oriented to face each other to establish conflict, or the addition of another figure that is distinctly different from the primary group to create that missing sense of story. For example, with The Wild Hunt, imagine if a young man in 1940s/1950s style clothing, either armed or not, were placed just forward of the grouping, with a tree, bush or large boulder intervening… then you have potential for story. Who is he? Who are they? Why are they hunting him? Why do they seem to be predominantly female, whereas he is, obviously, a he?

Or take the same setting and make the object of the hunt a young woman in normal attire. Do they want to force her to join their cult? Feed her to the wolf creature? Sacrifice her? And so on.

Story; the real key to a great diorama.

Parzival

I agree with you 100%. Here's another pic from the web site that shows an even more obvious attempt at a sadomasochistic theme, but with no real purpose. It seems like such a waste of talent to create a diorama that appears to be nothing more than an excuse to show woman in fetish gear.

link

an excuse to show woman in fetish gear

*So what*? Of course one may prefer 'dressed to kill' realistic military miniatures, but… This kind of fetish is not my cup of tea, but if the paintjob, the background and the photo are great, the topic worries me no more (even slightly less) than that of a 'finishing a helpless wounded foe' vignette more 'typical of military miniatures'.

And about imagining a story behind the scene, well, read above what the photo inspired me: very few 'military' vignettes would have titillated as much my imagination !
And nothing 'erotic' in what I built from the image, if you bother to notice.
To start dreaming / fantasying I don't need to have the back of the work broken for me, just a beautiful and intriguing image.

Abdul

We were shown a diorama and linked to a web site showing other dioramas. Some make sense and some don't. In the one that I linked to I see two women with their hands tied behind their backs and ball gags in their mouths. Why? What's going on? Is there a story? If so, what is it? What's the purpose of the diorama? Without some sort of theme it just looks like soft core S&M porn. Not that i'm against that. To each his own. But as Parzival said, there is "no emotion or context at all". So it's not even *good* soft core S&M porn.

"no emotion or context at all"

¿? A werewolf, a modern woman, a nymph, wolves… And you feel no 'emotion' -not even intrigued surprise? And your imagination is not going wild to build a possible 'context'?
And, sorry, for me I see no soft porn, S&M or otherwise, in this image.Is there any trace of eroticism in what the image inspired me? So it's not surprising you find "not even *good* soft core S&M porn", since there is no porn at all.

Some of the best paintings, photos, movies, poems, melodies, don't provide pre-digested explanation, background or even *type* of emotion: they are moving, stimulating and it's up to each viewer /reader / listener to build his / her own 'universe' from the elements furnished -like in the Rorschach test.

And actually it's what you are doing as well as me. You merely see gratuitous bad softcore S&M porn where I see references to the Eddas, to centuries of folk tales from the Somi Kalevala to the Matters of Britain and France, to Tanelorn and possibly to the underworld eternal war between vampires and werewolves… I'm glad (and conforted in my 'interpretation') the three 'human' figures are female, female characters *have* to go by three: the Moirai, the Furies, the Gorgons, the Graces, the Goddesses of the Judgment of Paris, the Nornes, the Somi Saaraahka, Juoksahka and Oksaahka, the 3 Morrigan, Ériu and her 2 sisters, Morgan and her 2 sisters, the pre-Coranic '3 cranes'… down to Shakespeare's (and Pratchett's) 3 witches and Disney's 3 good fairies.

Now I have to confess something DOES bother me in the picture: clearly the werewolf does not abide to the Law of Conservation of Mass. Any of us has his own prejudices

>>I tried to read it I really did but I kept thinking "but she's nude" and well the immature side took over and I just couldn't get past all of that.<<
You're not necessarily immature. When a vignette like this is obviously meant to appeal to our prurient interests it has succeeded in your case and has done it's job.

Maybe because both of you are American? In Old Europe (seemingly 'Grey Wolf' is Australian, so a British of a kind) we are far less disturbed by such details. And it's a very old tradition:

Agnes Sorel, 'The Lady of Beauty', Charles V's mistress -according to King Francis 1st, as important as Joan of Arc in the 'resurrection' of France at the end of the HYW;

'La Liberté guidant le Peuple'
Nobody in France ever criticized her bare breast -only her unshaven armpit!

>>Maybe because both of you are American? In Old Europe (seemingly 'Grey Wolf' is Australian, so a British of a kind) we are far less disturbed by such details.<<

Actually i'm not disturbed by the idea of nudity or an S&M theme at all. After all, I read pulp magazines and you've seen some of *those* covers. What i'm saing saying is that the photo that I linked to doesn't offer any sort of story. Just a dominatrix, a couple of werewolves and two chicks in ball gags.

Actually that could be the opening line of a joke!

"A dominatrix, two slaves and two werewolves walk into a bar…"

>>And your imagination is not going wild to build a possible 'context'?<<

In the case of the photo that I linked to…no. I can't come with any sort of story that makes sense. Unless the dominatrix just fed her slaves some dog food and now she's taking them out for a walk. I can't come up with any reason for why the werewolves are howling in the background. Unless it was *their* dog food and now they're really p*ssed off! :-)

What i'm saing saying is that the photo that I linked to doesn't offer any sort of story. Just a dominatrix, a couple of werewolves and two chicks in ball gags.

This one:

???

Well, these two obviously failed their sanity roll…
Hence:
'Cthulhu called
while the wolfsbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.'
Sorry, my limited mastery of English does not allow me to try a haiku.

(If you prefer: 'Constitutional night walk in the Arkham Lunatic Asylum courtyard': you can recognize the building in the background .
And the one in the middle is NOT a 'dominatrix': actually she wears the uniform of the Salvation Army, Miskatonic Valley Division )

Facing two equally beautiful images or texts, I'm more interested in that without obvious meaning: I *have* to provide an 'explanation', my imagination is spurred, I'm more 'active', more involved personally.

>>And the one in the middle is NOT a 'dominatrix': actually she wears the uniform of the Salvation Army, Miskatonic Valley Division<<

LOL!!! Good one man! Really very funny!

>>Facing two equally beautiful images or texts, I'm more interested in that without obvious meaning: I *have* to provide an 'explanation', my imagination is spurred, I'm more 'active', more involved personally.<<

Yes. I see your point of view and I agree that it's a valid way to enjoy a piece of art. That is, of course, if that's the artist's intention. In this case i'm not convinced that it is.

Oh, I do agree, of course many other interpretations are possible

For instance, with reference to the eternal vampires-werewolves war popularized by White Wolf and then so pleasantly illustrated by Kate Beckinsale:
'POW camp, Lycan Territory, 1929'.

Vampires bite, hence the ball gags; the wereshewolf directly escorting the prisoners stays in human form, according to the 1729 agreement on 'fair treatment of POW' link.
Of course in 1929 she is not yet dressed as:

but more as:

( link).
Again, nothing erotic, nothing 'porn' -soft or hard, bad or good- in the interpretation

>>Vampires bite, hence the ball gags<<

LOL. You make a very good case. Of course Kate Beckinsale can bite me anytime. :-)

The first picture,'the Wild Hunt' was created for LPL5 painting comp., last year. As for a narrative Abdul has hit the nail on the head,the viewer provides the narrative,you either like it or not. In this age of computer games et cetera,it would seem that everything needs to be spelt out…A sorry state of affairs.
As for the second pic,it's just an example of painted miniatures from What the ??!! Miniatures.
Chaps, they are just toy soldiers and I am no artist (or even a very good toy soldier painter),I just do what I like,it's my hobby after all.
Cheers
Guy

Yes , sme all a bit over interlectualised rsponses here

>>As for a narrative Abdul has hit the nail on the head,the viewer provides the narrative.<<

OK. As I said to Abdul, "I see your point of view and I agree that it's a valid way to enjoy a piece of art".

>>Chaps, they are just toy soldiers<<

Really!!?? Which division? Basic Training must be a b*tch! LOL

hmm, bad spelling day.. my excuse is there was a thunderstorm brewing
all very post modern.. narrative, and the lack thereof.. etc..

>>Yes , sme all a bit over interlectualised rsponses here<<

Not really. I just wondered what was going on in the dioramas and that's what got the discussion started. Nothing wrong with a civil discussion is there? Not only that, but Abdul had a chance to say some funny stuff. He really cracked me up with: "And the one in the middle is NOT a 'dominatrix': actually she wears the uniform of the Salvation Army, Miskatonic Valley Division". That line was worth the whole discussion as far as i'm concerned. :-) It's been a good humored intercourse. No children or animals were harmed. I wouldn't mind having more exchanges of views like this one.

On the *most general* level -nothing specially in relation with this thread- I agree with 'Blackwolf1066' that he abundance of ready-made images (TV, video games) definitively *kills* imagination in children; having observed it too often on my students and, unfortunately, my own daughter.
When you had to *read* the description of a scene, how detailed this description could be, to 'visualize' it you had to *imagine* a lot to fill the blanks. And of course to 'imagine' you combine many parts of images in your memory to 'create' something new.

One of the best, most stimulating sentences of a novel I ever read is that of Flaubert's "Salammbô": 'It was in Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in Hamilcar's gardens'. I wish anybody reads it before seeing a possible illustration: what one can 'build' from all the images from history and mythology books, 'peplum' movies, pre-raphaelite paintings…in his memory is so larger, so richer than any ready-made illustration. While if you see such illustration before reading, you are imprisoned in it.
Even when I do like a movie taken from texts I've read before (Conan the barbarian, the 13th warrior, LotR…) I'm always disappointed by some visual details.

>>I agree with 'Blackwolf1066' that he abundance of ready-made images (TV, video games) definitively *kills* imagination in children; having observed it too often on my students and, unfortunately, my own daughter.<<

and

>>if you see such illustration before reading, you are imprisoned in it.<<

It's true. One of the worst offenders is MTV that shows music videos. When I was a teenager we carried transistor radios that could fit in a shirt pocket and everywhere that we went we had music, so, as corny as it sounds, our lives had a soundtrack. Now, when I listen to music from the late 50's and 60's I recall situations that I was in at the time in a nostalgic way. When MTV was first shown I watched a few of the videos and found that *those* images were what came to mind when I later heard the music on the radio. So I stopped watching right away! I'm not prepared to substitute someone elses images for my own images and memories when I listen to music.

Television changed our imagination as well. Radio dramas were still being broadcast when I was very young and I never lost the desire to listen to them. Radio drama as "the theater of the mind" is a very good description. Television as a "boob tube" is also a very good description.

>>'peplum' movies<<

I'm familiar with the description as they were pretty much usurped by "spaghetti westerns", but most Americans don't know the term. "Peplum" movies were films made in Europe in the late 1950's and early to mid 1960's involving mythical characters like "Hercules Unchained" and "Ulysses".

"Peplum" movies were films made in Europe in the late 1950's and early to mid 1960's involving mythical characters like "Hercules Unchained" and "Ulysses".

In Europe the term has a wider sense, including 'biblical' movies: Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, The Tunic, the Ten Commandments, Solomon and Sheba… are deemed archetypal 'peplum movies' here.
'Historical' movies -Cleopatra, The Fall of the Roman Empire… are often included, though the point is heartily debated.
link

Indeed, when comparing the link Wiki French link and English (American?) link 'Peplum' pages, it becomes obvious that the term has very different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic. Basically, in the USA 'biblical' movies are not included in the genre.

Indeed, when comparing the link Wiki French link and >>English (American?) link 'Peplum' pages, it becomes obvious that the term has very different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic. Basically, in the USA 'biblical' movies are not included in the genre.<<

Right. As a matter of fact we generally call these kinds of flicks "swords and sandals", not "peplum". Like spaghetti westerns (more accurately called euro westerns) the movies with actors like Dan Vadis and Gordon Scott in the "Hercules" and "Maciste" series of films usually ended up on the "grind house" circuit and didn't play at "first run" theaters. Many Americans wouldn't even know that some of the more famous movies that you might call "peplum" like "The Fall of the Roman Empire" were actually filmed in europe to save money.