Grandeur

Remember last time I said I wished someone could keep the sensibility [of WoW gnomepunk] but ramp up the presentation a bit? Well, I think this image is an unqualified success:

This free high-res wallpaper *cough*advertisement*cough* shows some nice illustration chops on the part of the artist, and those obscure metal weapony things on his back drag it firmly into gnomepunk territory.

Well, those and the goggles.

This great gnome wallpaper is available from bestgamewallpapers.com.


This edition of gnomepunk was posted late because I have been under the weather. I wanted to finish out the theme week, but I may take a break for a few days.

World of borecraft

I gotta give World of Warcraft props for ladling out the gnomepunk - their whole gnome milieu and the emphasis on gnome engineers guarantees a boatload of goggles and gears and gizmos, as we have seen all this week and occasionally before on this blog. The only trouble is that WoW graphics are so uniformly dull - those computer-animation polyhedral constructs screen-capped from gameplay are not exactly Norman Rockwell illustrations. I wish there were some way to keep the sensibility but ramp up the presentation.

Well, I've got two entries that might pass muster. We'll start with the lesser of the pair, and finish off tomorrow with a grand finalé.

I had to enlarge this image a bit, so it lost some crispness, but I think it's a photoshopped version of a standard graphic. It has a little more texture, at any rate, and while we have lost goggles as such, there's enough gear hanging off this engineer to endear the heart of any gnomepunk fan.

This image came from the same place as the previous one: [Engineering] Reasons to be, specialization guide, and essential creations (Part 1) on the MMOwned WoW forum.

Overload!

WoW sure does ladle out a lot of the gnome love.

These guys have different styles, attitudes, and even color schemes, but the commonality of gnomepunk and goggles pulls them together. There's no way to mistake them for anything but WoW gnomes - and that's both a blessing and a curse. More on that tomorrow.

Illustrations from abhorsenjay's treatise [Engineering] Reasons to be, specialization guide, and essential creations (Part 1) from the MMOwned WoW forum.

Gnomish engineer

On his blog, a fellow named kurechii wondered about a friend's character choices in WoW:

Sometimes I wonder why Vincent don't play as Human. [...] And how come he choose to be come shorties Gnome? Why huh!?

Then kurechii saw this picture...

... and changed his tune:

I start to understand why he choose Gnome as his race and Gnomish Engineer as his Proffesional. I think this make him to take this path!!

Yes, another convert to the awesomeness of gnomepunk.

Experience kurechii's musings on WoW on his blog, n11nja.

More goggle-ness

Okay, so what is it with these WoW gnomes? This one has the same odd lenses in the goggles - even with extra side knobs on this version. Very steampunk.

And a bone, skulls, and bunny-crest motif on the armor? Very gnomepunk.

According to the wow insider, this Evil Gnome is wearing - ahem - gnomish goggles.

Al-kimia

Okay, so this WoW gnomepunk gets its punk from steampunk:


Finestkind, here: not only do we have a lab and beakers and retorts and stuff, but we've got some weird-ass goggles with mismatched lenses and a gnome who's glowing.

Yeah.

The Alchemist is a creation of ixobelle.com, a place where MMO stuff happens.

WoW - it's gnomestock!

As the picture above demonstrates, there's a lot of gnome action going on in World of Warcraft. We've seen gnomepunk from this online game (which I have never played) before. WoW includes in its universe Gnomeregan, a beleaguered gnomish city that is at the center of one of the adventures, and it seems the whole idea of gnomish engineering is an important component of any gameplay -- which opens the game up to all kinds of steampunk influence, including, of course, goggles.

So the happy crowd here kicks of what will be an all-goggles, all-WoW celebration of gnomish sedulity. Let the games begin!

The crowd above represents action from Gnomestock, a WoW all-gnome event from a couple of years ago.

Pozas week #7

Let's end this week of great art with some in-your-face, rock-'em-sock-'em over-the-top gnomepunk:

Badger-child
Gnome barbarian

We don't need no stinkin' wolverines!

I hope you enjoyed the work of Claudio Pozas; he' a great illustrator, and I think his gnomes are nonpareil.

Please check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design.

Pozas week #6

Piper
Gnome bard

Slave bracelet? Tribal tattoo? Doc Martens? This gal would be at home drinking PBR in any hipster hangout, and that's gnomepunk enough for me.

Really, check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design for great illustrations.

Pozas week #5

Marshwader
Gnome ranger

Quilted armor and studded gauntlets are cool enough, but the waders make this gnomepunk.

Waders!

Do yourself a favor and check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design for great illustrations.

Pozas week #4

Urbanist
Gnome druid

All I can say is that if you've got a gnome, who's a druid, and his idea of wild animals comprises rats, pigeons, and alley cats, that's gnomepunk (Brooklyn style).


Please check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design for more great illustrations.

Pozas week #3

Boltslinger
Gnome fighter

The pistol-style crossbows are cool enough, but those holsters and over-designed boots push this into definite gnomepunk territory.

Please check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design for all sorts of great illustrations.

Pozas week #2

Unseen
Gnome Monk

When you can look badass in a pair of slip-on keds, that's gnomepunk.

Please check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design, for more gnomes and other great illustrations.

Kicking off Pozas Week!

This week, gnomepunk (the blog) will take time out to celebrate the gnomepunk (art) of one of the finest illustrators working in the fantasy genre today - Claudio Pozas.

Pozas does work for most of the big RPG publishers when hes not an art director or creative director for Brazilian advertising agencies. His portfolio is impressive, but the particular slice of it we are interested in here is his Oddballs collection, in which he presents members of the various player "races"in roles atypical for them. Of course, we're going for the gnomes, and he has some pretty cool ones.

After the eclectic wonderment of last week, sit back, relax, and just take in the beautiful lines of the oddball gnomes of Claudio Pozas.

Spelunker - Gnome Rogue

Love it all - the boots, kneepads, pouches, and especially that little glowy lantern-thing on her belt.

Please check out Claudio Pozas Art & Design.

Jawa jive

We'll close out this week with an actual garden gnome, in a garden - but of course, it's still a bit punky. Still reeling from that trekkie jolt yesterday? Let's roll over to the other big pop-sci-fi franchise, and check out this Star Wars-inspired garden gnome:

Sublime. It is so exactly a gnome, and so totally not a gnome at the very same time. And if you're gnomepunk at all (and if you've read this far, you probably are), you want one.

Even if you don't have a garden.

I found out about Garden Jawas from Technabob.

Where gnome has gone before

Okay, we're going to swing back into pop culture for our gnomepunk as we round the clubhouse turn this week, but we're sticking with the garden gnome, so it's all cricket. The pop culture milieu is a bit surprising - Star Trek, or at least the comic book version thereof. That's right:
Star Trek + gnomes = gnomepunk.


The guy in the from is a fairly garden-variety garden gnome - maybe his boots are a little shiny and he has a vest instead of a smock, but the conical red cap and the big white beard seals it. Now take a look at his attacker: no beard, brown hair, furry hat, wristbands, wielding a wicked double-morningstar, and riding a freakin' bat! (A slavering vampire bat, from the looks of him.) That, my friends, is some true-blue, Hodgkin's-Law-of-Parallel-Planetary-Development-explained gnomepunk.

Star Trek #16 from Marvel Comics was apparently once owned by Ian Gonzalez at the Unwinnable blog.

Edu-gnome

As Donald Sutherland said to Gavin McLeod in Kelly's Heroes, "Enough with the negative waves, Moriarty." Let's get away from creepy-nasty garden gnomes and into some tech-head gnomepunk education.


This is a robot created by students at the Green Meadow Waldorf School in New York's Hudson River region. The team had to program the robot to navigate a gridded layout, collect a bunch of three-inch rings, and deliver them to goals. Oh, and the goals moved around. Oh, and do we understand these are high school students? Of course, they won.

They call themselves the Poly-Gnomes.

Polygnomepunks is more like it!

Here you can read about the Poly-Gnomes and the Snow Day Showdown.

Nazi gnomes?

This one may be a little more edgy than gnomepunk, but we're going to include it anyway:



That's right: a well-dressed golden garden gnome giving the Nazi salute while surrounded by other similarly dressed black garden gnomes.

WTF?

Well, apparently this was German artist Ottmar Hörl's expression of protest against "lingering fascist tendencies in German society." What started out as one gnome became an entire installation -- and a cause célèbre when Horl found his work potentially running afoul of Germany's strict anti-Nazi laws!

Actually, fighting fascism with art - yeah, let's call that gnomepunk.

Here's a TIME magazine story and a CBS News report on the incident.

Urban Gnomes

From 2D to 3D, garden gnomes go gnomepunk:


The all-black color scheme would be creepy enough, but the hockey masks just put it over the top. B-r-r-r-r-r. Creepy.

Urban Gnomes are just one sample of the work of Deadly the Gnome. You should really check out his Flickr photostream for all kinds of gnomepunky goodness.

Danger Gnome!

Here's more evidence that gnomepunk extends beyond the boundaries of geekdom and into the mainstream culture:


Take one iconic garden gnome, display him in gritty black and white, shoot a bullet through his cap, and have him simply squint in response: instant gnomepunk.

Danger Gnome design by Grant Tucker available on t-shirts from Shirtoid.

Into the great wide open

Most of our gnomepunk examples so far have come from fantasy genres - ROGs, MMOs, fantastic literature, and so forth. In everyday life, gnomes usually only appear in the garden variety - common outdoor tchotchke emblematic of a mainstream aesthetic, certainly not gnomepunk at all. But this week, we will move out of fantasy and into the Real World (such as it is) to check out some subversion of the garden gnome sensibility, in ways that are all at least a little bit punky.

Let's start with this gal:


How awesomely sweet, sexy, and steampunk all at the same time! (Get a load of those goggles!) And, of course, the conical hat and pointy ears mean that it's gnomepunk all the way.

Adrainna is a DeviantArtist and self-professed gnome.

Goggles number 7: take us home, gnome

So, let us close out Goggles Week here at gnomepunk with some gnomefunk:

Nothing further need be said.

Next week: real-world gnomes.

This dancing gnome kiped from the typically overwrought MySpace page of Richie Nez.

Goggles number 6

Now here's a type that should be starting to become familiar:

Here's your classic gnomish engineer, a common, perhaps even garden-variety gnomepunk. (As if there is such a thing as garden-variety cool.) This one has boots, coveralls, a fancy monogoggle... and appears to be engaging in some kind of interpretative dance.

This fellow is a character in machinima films -- movies made from the engines that come with video games, in this case, World of Warcraft. WoW throws a lot of gnomepunk around, and we might even have a whole week of WoW gnomes in the future. In the meantime, enjoy this taste of gnomepunk, straight up.

This Gnomish Engineer is a product of Brandon at Oxhorn Brand Movies.

Goggles number 5

This guy is not just gnomepunk, he's freakin' unbelievable:

Words almost fail.

Gnomish: Split-toed shoes. Striped pants. Pointy ears. Short stocky stature.

Steampunk: Laced boots. Multiple belts. Riveted wristband and chronometer with guard. Big-ass wrench. Backpack-compressor unit. And, of course, world-class goggles.

gnomepunk: look at his face! This guy would wipe the floor with you, if he could be bothered walking across the room. But he's got better things to do; big, steamy, gnomey, punky things.

Yeah.

This member of the Goblin Mechanic's Guild created by Magdalena Dadela in Mocap. This image posted on the CGWhat forum; Dadela's portfolio here.

Goggles number 4

Okay, no cheating this time. This guy is gnomepunk of the thoroughbred gnome variety:

Okay, he's a little bit anime but he makes up for that with steampunk extraordinaire: gratuitous straps and buckles, a boss work apron, more than the minimum number of tools, and totally cool goggles, ones with the extra extending magnifier! The goatee and the weird... sidelocks... slide some gnomishness into the steampunk to make awesome gnomepunk!

Gnomish Engineer is some DeviantArt by herecomeswalshy, who does some nice doodles, too!

Goggles number 3

Today's dude brings us straight into steampunk:

This fellow is a DeviantArt image by Zubby that was inspired by The Engineer from the old Zork adventure, and he's loaded with plenty of steamtech: miscellaneous tools in miscellaneous pouches, a flamethrower or cutting tool (or both); bits and bobs of twisty pipe, and, of course, goggles. These particular goggles have an awesome nose guard which, unless it's hinged, will have a hard time sliding over this guy's honker.

Now, the Zork engineer was not a gnome per se, but this image is so pitch perfect that it was kiped to represent Wrenn "The Wrench" Gifooly, a gnome artificer character in a D&D 4.0 game recruited for online. That makes him gnomepunk enough for me.

Zubby's DeviantArt gallery has other great character designs as well. The Blackwing Brigade recruitment on MythWeavers featured Wrenn the Wrench.

Goggles number 2

Our next gnomepunk entry in Goggles Week comes courtesy of Aeternal Legends, that rarest of birds: a non-D&D tabletop RPG.

So, let's see: the big demon-devil guy has ripped abs, horns on his forehead, spikes on his shoulders, a bandolier for a belt, and a six-foot broadsword.

On the other hand, the little gnome has what looks to be a pneumatic fist.

And goggles.

Once again, gnomepunk FTW! That monster will have exes for eyes (or at least little birdies circling his head as they tweet) before you can say "brass fittings."

This steampunk gnome is part of the promotional art for Aeternal Legends at Mob United Media.