Alistair Smith

@alistairsmith.bsky.social

429 Followers 442 Following

Mid-life crisis: return to OSRPGs, painting and general escape from the mundane. Happiness through imagination and camaraderie. He/him. #grognard

Toy squirrel has fallen prey to a xenomorph. After making a strange squeaking noise it finally burst out and made for the trees, curiously confused by its desire for acorns.
A savage orc shaman dances on his right leg. He wears a horned skull on his head and waves a bone fetish in his right hand. His body is painted with blue and yellow squiggles. His magic is powerful and crazy.
Yeti scalp. Reddish brown fur, with a parting. Stored in a locked box with a glass front.
Pictures of blue staple-less staplers.
Cover of pamphlet for The Girl They Would Burn. A woodcut scene in which the sky burns above a city , people look up in horror.
Three fighting ducks. Left duck wears a blue gimp mask and carries an axe and a blue and red shield. The one on the right has crested helmet. The central duck, the wonderfully named Drake Pliskin, has a vicious looking sword and a bandage over one eye.
Children with turnip lanterns, Halloween ca 1981. A small blond girl is dressed as a nurse. A taller boy as a very camp pirate. 🏴‍☠️
Beynac castle, made of pale sandstone, towers above the village I Beynac as it defends the frontier with the perfidious English.
Johnny Walker hoarding at Edinburgh airport ‘welcome to the home of the world’s number 1 Scotch whisky’.
Black cocker spaniel looks straight at you.
Promotional email from Caledonian Sleeper showing a train crossing a Scottish moor. The train features a vinyl wrap of Outlander stars.
The Cairngorms in the sun. In the foreground a road and the sign form outdoor shop. Trees on the other side of the road and then the mountains, some still with snow.
Five samurai step forward agains a backdrop of trees. Left to right: a female samurai in a blue kimono with a sheathed katana, a hammer wielding samurai in black and blue armour, an armour less samurai with wild hair and a ready sword, a bowman in green armour and a daimyo resplendent in blue and purple armour and crested helmet. .
Bottle of Vita Cola, red label and cap, label has lemon on it.
Pictures of Highland Cows in Rangers and Celtic football kit with trophies (yes really, I haven’t been on the drugs). They’re AI generated and in a souvenir shop in Aviemore.
Empress Zenobia makes a point to her subjects. She wears a blue dress by Timon of Thebes and a purple throw by Zabdas of Palmyra. Her jewellery is of gold and her staff of authority may have been an ancestral Heirloom.
A full English breakfast (in Wales) featuring egg, bacon, sausages, beans, toast and (sadly) tinned tomatoes. Tasty tho.
Goblin queen Borga the Cruel with three of her axe wielding minions. Borga has a helmet with red feathers and a lot of bling on her armour. The boys have axes and Bronze Age/Iron Age style helmets.
A ghoulish figure in a yellow cloak, its face masked and its skin green its staff is a leech.
Little black spaniel puppy looks at camera directly.
The movie poster for Miller’s Crossing. A man in a dark coat and hat holding a gun stands over another man in his shirt, kneeling on the ground. They are in an autumnal forest with leaves all over the ground.
Miniature priest wearing a grey vestment with white bib raising his finger and exhorting the people to mend their sinful ways.
The horde of Minas Morghul rides out. Orc warriors surround the Witch King, while in the background the tower rises, circled by Na Nazgûl on a Fell Beast. Looming in the background is a Baleog. It’s the cover of the Middle Earth Role Playing Game.
The Destiny Angels, a little known female Space Marine chapter whose brave deeds are little more than rumours among far flung systems.
A map of India showing its oilfields, in Assam in the east and around Mumbai and Rajasthan in the west.
Three ‘orrible Gretchin, looking to rob you. From left to right the first is bald and wields a club and a pistol. The second has a red bandana and is sniping with a Rooney looking rifle. The third has a metal helmet with horns and two pistols. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Samurai helmet with goblin face, wings and a tuft of horsehair.
Samurai metal helmet with an aubergine leaf at the crown.
Padded surcoat decorated with a bullseye.
The cover of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel Poor Things. A drawing of a large lumpy man with a smaller woman and man hugging on his lap.
Black cocker spaniel standing on a log.
The Surrey Puma awaits prey somewhere in N E Surrey.
South Western Railway train ‘King Athelstan’.
Little Bilbo Baggins, in his nightgown and cap confronts a gigantic, troll-like Gollum in an underground cave with a pool and stalagmites all around. Gollum wears a crown of leaves.
The cover of Syd Barrett’s album The Madcap Laughs. A barefoot man with curly hair (Syd) crouches on a striped parquet floor. Next to him is a small vase of daffodils.
A bottle of whisky, a single malt called ‘Catalan, if you can’ and a glass of the amber nectar.
Pink eel thing on black background.
Black cat and orange and white cat sit on a table.
Johnny Depp advertises Sausage, the new fragrance from Dior while gazing at a sausage on a fork.
Perhaps the most dominant cat Tottenham has ever known, Oscar adopted Charlie and Suki, moving into their home and living out his life with their owners. Ragged eared and by the end neutered and three-legged, his line runs on in the may tabbies of Tottenham.
The cover of the novel What a Carve Up. A picture of a stately home is torn to show a map of the world behind it.
A skeleton landsknecht wields his zweihander. He wears pink, blue and white, with a yellow feather in his bonnet.
Orc shaman stands on one leg and points. He wears a skull hat and is covered in yellow and blue tattoos.
Tintin, a blond boy with a tuft of hair, wearing a blue sweater and brown plus fours, plays with a small white dog, Snowy.
The River Tay. Wide deep blue river reflecting town buildings including a church, all in local sandstone. A bridge spans the river.
Beautiful book and art for Terminus, a system agnostic TTRPG horror set in modern London. The book looks like mosaic tiles, there is a map of Tottenham Court Road station and postcards of tube style art.
Tank Girl, a girl with a tuft of blond hair on an otherwise bald head is dressed like a post-apocalyptic baseball player in stripy trousers with the number 6 on them. Her T-shirt has 40 watt club written on it and she carries a baseball bat. A catchers mitt is attached to her belt. Behind her are rudimentary wooden windmills. A baseball lies on the ground.
Edinburgh Playhouse, a theatre frontage, lit at night.
Young fox on a snowy roof.
Actors Olivia Coleman and David Tennant standing looking moody on a beach.
Black cocker spaniel standing on a log.
A Christmas decoration resembling an elder sign on Christmas tree among other decorations.
Two zombie warriors, one with a scythe, the other with an axe. Both with foul diseases.
Low winter sun through trees on a frosty morning.
Miniature figure of Viking warrior with sword and shield on his back
The singer Sandy Denny. A white woman with long brown/fair hair part covering her face. She wears a red, black and yellow top. The picture doesn’t capture her transcendent singing.
A topless woman in a flamenco skirt poses by a wall.
Wood elf with bow and sword and man of Gondor with sword and shield.