An Ultima-themed calendar
Girly calendars aren’t the sort of thing I’d normally cover here at Aiera, but this one merits an exception to the rule. Ergonpandilus Dragon brought to my attention this offering from Italian photographer Enrico Ricciardi:
Entitled Mystik, it’s a calendar of photographs of European models posed with props and backdrops that represent the virtues and principles of the Ultima universe, as well as the associated character classes. Ricciardi put a fair bit of thought into understanding and conveying these aspects of Ultima’s backstory, and is offering the calendar in support of Village for All (V4A), which appears (I cannot read Italian) to be a charity devoted to helping those with disabilities travel.
Just for fun, I’ve created a project entry for Mystik, although there’s nothing to download from it. The calendar can be purchased by contacting V4A.
Utterly horrible and corny.
What grates on me, concerning the calendar, is that Ricciardi obviously understands Ultima lore to a fairly decent extent; he explores the virtues and principles through the lens of their associated character classes, and where appropriate also conveys the associated symbols.
So there’s obviously been thought put in to the work, to some extent.
But at the same time, it’s basically one cleavage shot after another. I’d be more inclined to post pictures of the models if they were attired in an “Ultima-appropriate” way.
That is to say, I’d have put the picture of Emanuela Postacchini on this article in a heartbeat if she had been attired in something like this.
Not a bad effort, then…though I think Ricciardi maybe got a bit too caught up in doing things as he might usually do in his professional work when it came to attiring and posing the girls.