"Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestials: Useful?" Topic

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Have sculptors used these images for inspiration or reference?

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It is a great book. Anyone interested in SF probably should have a copy.

If you can pick it up cheap, go ahead. I was given a copy and like it, but would not cross the street for it.

I WISH someone would use it for inspiration for some miniatures… instead of retreading the same damn humanoid stuff.

I love the aliens in Barlowe's. I got a copy in 6th grade and had it on my shelf up until a couple of years ago, when I think it got lost in a move. I'd sure give my right… leg… to see someone make some of those aliens in 15mm!

If you like that book, I highly recommend "Expedition" by him as well.

Some of the old TSR aliens resemble Barlowe designs:

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I think nobelknight.com still has them.

barlowe's guide to fantasy is pretty good as well
(Although fully half of entries are humans, some of which are very nsfw)

Nanite,
Because all the creatures in the book were pulled from famous scifi novels, It's possible that the tsr figures were inspired by the same sources

I think it would be great if someone did Dirdir, Phung, and other Vancian races. Don't worry about copyright either, people. Just claim independent inspiration and call them "Derder", everything will be cool.

I just saw this book at a "Half-Price Book Gallery" store in Nashville. So it may still be available from distributors, even if it's technically OOP.

The art is terrific, and I agree that many of the aliens would be a refreshing change from typical minis stuff.

Barlowe's own alien designs as seen in the paintings and sketches in Expedition and Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe would be the ones that really should get the miniatures treatment. They are quite different from the "Star Trek standard" commonly used yet plausible. Or at least more plausible than the TSR weird aliens, for example.

The same for the demons in Barlowe's Inferno and Brushfire, only for fantasy of course.

Hi Guys,

I like Barlow's books… they're allw ell done. although some of them are expensive these days.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Actually, a lot of other illustrators now use Barlow's versions of particular aliens as models for reprint covers of the books featuring the races in question; His take on the creatures has become a standard. Don't know what copyright would say about that, but it's a big compliment to him.

I believe any sculptor doing SF in any scale should have Barlowes Guide as one of their references, as well as any other of his books, or the works of Jim Burns.

Burns is bigger on tech and architecture than on aliens IMHO. But very good at what he does best, of course.

I had seen Burns' work before, but had never taken note of the name.

Did he also do an "aliens guide" of some sort?

This is one site I was able to pull up on his book covers:
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Can't recall a mention of Burns doing such a book. IIRC he collaborated with Harry Harrison on an illustrated space opera spoof "Planet Story" and did a "future history" type of thingy as well as a "tour of the universe" series of paintings, but I'm fairly sure the latter two never appeared as books (some of the illustrations can be seen in the Lightships and Transluminal books tho). One of those might be the project you are thinking of.

I guess someone used some of his visual concepts here:

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Here is a very interesting TMP discussion on general alien race design:

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Alien Planet is officially Barlowe (unlike Pitch Black for example, which had strongly Barlowe influenced designs, but didn't involve the man himself). He worked on it in an official capacity (including being one of the producers IIRC), and it's essentially Expedition the Movie.

I wonder if Balowe influenced or participated in National Geographic's "Extraterrestrial":

TMP link

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Not that I know of. He worked on the Alien Planet show of course as it's really "Wayne Barlowe's Expedition – the movie".

It's a good book, but there are some rather odd choices. I always got the impression it was a selection of aliens from stuff he'd read rather than any authoratative effort to visualise stuff from the books held in best regard, not to say it doesn't cover classic books, but some of the choices are odd as are the omissions.

I think he has the Dirdir and the Pnum in there right?
I've intended to buy a copy and try my hand at sculpting them.
Or am I confusing this with another book?

OK, sorry. Checked the link and those two where right up there :-) Well, no need to buy the book then ;-)

In case anyone still needs Barlowe's book, there it is:

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Make sure to click on "compare prices" to get the best deals.

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This is interesting:

frostjedi.com/vex

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Check these out:

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I have the EXPEDITION and GUIDE books by Barlowe and also the TWO 'Alien Planet' shows on VHS…(one of which was defiately BARLOW-ish only they sent UNMANNED 'probe' vs Terrans catching 'ride' on alien ship to 'Darwin IV'…

Great ideas/inspiration in all of those references for 'wanna be sculptors' or just looking for alien races. A lot of the GURPS's stuff/Steve Jackson sourcebooks also have ideas…'Planet of Adventure/Jack Vance/Phume?', 'Warehouse 23', 'Mars', 'Khrishna' and several others!!!

and DON'T forget all the STAR WARS guides to ALIENS or TREK!!!

and the list goes 'on'….

*slish…slish*

Seen Delgo?

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