Nicole Vega and Jason Soles: The New Dark Age

Jason Soles Co-Creator and Writer Jason Soles is a tireless creator driven to pursue his passions beyond health or reason. A ten-year veteran of the game industry, Mr. Soles has a keen interest in history, apocalyptic folk, and rare spirits. By day, Soles is the lead developer of Privateer Press' award-winning WARMACHINE™ miniature combat game. His nights are spent between sculpting and defining the New Dark Age. A founding member of the Seattle-based dark art collective Catalyst Studios, Mr. Soles is adept at shaping both bone and clay. The ambitious, if misguided, enterprise that would become Unhallowed Metropolis™ sprang from Soles' deep love of Victoriana, antiquated science, and the outré. Forged in the crucible of countless failed experiments and sleepless nights, he struck upon a rich alchemical formula in early 2005. Armed with a vision of undeniable virtue, he was able to entice the brilliant Ms. Vega to join him on his path of hell-bent glory. Her keen scientific mind and cruel sense of humor proved invaluable in shaping the Neo-Victorian world. Jason Soles may be found living in magnificent squalor in a decaying warehouse loft in Seattle, WA. The products of his other labors can be found at: www.privateerpress.com www.moritorium.com/soles WARMACHINE™ is a registered trademark of Privateer Press, Inc. Nicole Vega Co-Creator and Writer Nicci Vega was graded as Normal during her decanting. Intelligence enhancement modifications made to the unit in vitro resulted in the emergence of erratic behavior later in life. As ordinary corrective measures proved largely ineffective, the unit was remanded to a reeducation facility in Massachusetts. Following processing at this facility, intellectual performance was considerably improved, but psychological profiles remained discouraging. Unit was transferred to a facility in the Pacific Northwest over the objections of the local staff. Progress since the transfer has been encouraging; intellectual capability continues to advance, and incidences of schizotypal behavior have increased markedly. Unit's scientific skill set and unique psychopathological makeup indicated a good fit to project codenamed: New Dark Age. George Higham Cover Artist After graduating New York's School of Visual Arts, George spent some years doing freelance special-effects work and traveling the world. Somehow or other, he ended up back in NYC x-raying corpses for the morgue. As he describes it, "It's not as glamorous as it sounds." The artwork that he creates has always been somewhat tricky to classify, and it's summed up best by "I make monsters." Sculpture and photography represents the core of it, but he also utilizes puppets, automatons, films and literature; recently he has discovered the joys of waxworks, and has created full-scale figures in order to populate new and twisted vistas. George often favors intensely-colored theatrical gels when he lights his works-a visual style that he refers to as "Neon Gothic," a style that sets the tone (both literal and figurative) for the weird environments that he wishes to portray. He doesn't consider a piece to be complete until he has photographed it. The photography is, to him, an integral part of the creative process. Though he has embraced the digital age, he also has learned to exploit archaic (but effective) "smoke and mirror" ghost illusions from the 19th century with no digital manipulations to be found. You can see this work in his 80-image Wormweird TarotTM series, published by Eos Press this year. George Higham's UnMet Gallery www.poepuppet.com Melanie Strong Contributor and Historical Consultant Melanie grew up in the countryside of England. She moved to Seattle to go to college and stayed for the following ten years. She has recently moved back to the UK to pursue a MA in Asian history at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. Her academic research focuses on Imperial Chinese history and religion. Much of her spare time involves studying Chinese. When not confined to her books Melanie and her husband are slowly working their way through all the museums, libraries and graveyards to be found in the city. She also works part-time in the National Art Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Melanie has always been interested in English history and the past few years has developed a growing love of Victorian literature. As the consultant resident Brit she has tried to help with politics, history and society whenever she can, writing, doing research and making suggestions. Ann S. Koi Contributor, Technical Consultant Ann S. Koi is one of the founders of Pacific Northwest arts collective, Catalyst Studios. She currently owns and runs the operation alone, having been abandoned by the other two founders for a cushy game design career and a hot young lady from Great Britain, respectively. An artist, writer, and metaphysical scholar, Ann S. Koi found her way into the game industry by complete accident after moving back to her childhood home of western Washington State. She is still quite resistant to the idea of being a member of this elite professional subculture and prefers to refer to her career as being in "fine art." Despite this resistance, her artwork has appeared in several game products. It is not, however, in this one. While her involvement in Unhallowed Metropolis™ is largely a mystery save to the privileged few, Ms. Koi describes herself as a "firm believer" in the project. She also occasionally has been heard to describe herself as an "elven space pirate," so we are dubious as to what any of this means. See her paintings at http://www.moritorium.com/koi/ and the rest of her life's work (minus 20 unfinished writing projects) at http://www.moritorium.com/ The photo of Ms. Koi and her charming assistant Simon was mistakenly attributed to page 193 of Unhallowed Metropolis™. Ms. Koi's photo is actually on page 168. Please accept our humblest apologies for this most grievous of errors. Eliza Gauger Artist and Contributor Her name is Eliza, and she's a mercenary and a whore. The flesh she peddles is clamped in her stifling skull; you pay her for her brain-squeezings. Illustration, writing, backup harmonics, wardrobe critique. These are the platforms and pasties of her trade. Her weapons are the mechanical pencil and the Intuous; the MacBook Pro and the Alienware. Aside from UnMet, current projects include: editing the science fiction novel "Charon's Ark" for re-release with its formerly unpublished sequels several comic books, among them WORSE, ROBOT FINDS KITTEN and SPACE AND/OR THE FUTURE Moving far away from her city of residence, mostly out of a keen sense of masochism Completing and assembling THE BEE COMMISSION, a work of staggering simplicity that has gotten severely out of hand making the Monkey Island series of adventure games work on her Treo Angel Ceballos Unhallowed Photographer Angel has been photographing every little detail endlessly for the last 10 years. She is rooted in 35mm and medium format manual film photography. Her passion is film, but she enjoys the smooth crisp easy-going digital SLR, especially for studio shoots. She currently resides in Seattle, in a little house sheltered within a verdant bamboo-shaded garden with her husband, 2 cats and a minute little bat piglet of a dog. Check out Angel's photography at: Angel's UnMet Gallery http://http://www.robotangel.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotangel http://modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=287970 Marc17 Unhallowed Photographer, Playtester & Narrator Marc17 began a hobby in photography by taking photos for his 'zine in the early 90's. Bands such as the Cramps, Flipper, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult were the centerpiece along with those of local bands. The local punk rock and industrial girls also made appearances. Seems that the part of such 'zines that most kids liked the most was not interviews or even articles, but photos. Thus the primary focus of the 'zines became the photography. He would continue to take photos of bands for magazines such as Doublethink in OKC and Voltage in Seattle. He prefers color existing light photography and eschewing flash. Subject matters are bands, art, and the bizarre. He continues to take many photos of bands you've probably never heard of, including trips to European music festivals to do so. Check out Marc17's photography at: Marc17's UnMet Gallery http://modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=701 Jennifer Shaiman Editor Jennifer Shaiman has a Ph.D. in English, and she's not afraid to use it. By day, she teaches literature and writing to college students; by night, she does battle with hordes of undead split infinitives. She dreams of buying an old, run-down Victorian manor, where she, her husband, and her three cats can live in a manner to which they are not yet accustomed. Jennifer is a Seattle native but has been living the nomadic life of an untenured academic. She is currently working on a book examining the intersections of architecture, literature, and national, gendered, and sexual identity in early twentieth-century America. Photo of Mr. Soles and Ms. Vega by Marc17. Photo of Mr. Soles by Angel Ceballos. Photo of Ms. Koi by Jason Soles. Photo of Ms. Gauger by Chancre Scolex. Photo of Marc17 by Ms. Gauger. Photo manipulations by George Higham, Jason Soles, and Karina Hart. Hydrocephalic cadaverous material courtesy of Steven Bard.