Lord Ludwig
Magistrate
The wheel of pain; from Hal Foster to JD
I was a year or six, maybe seven, when as a gift I received a volume of the Prince Valliant stories by Hal Foster. In it was this image.
Probably my passion for torture scenes would have developed anyway, but this sure helped me on the way. At that age I did not differentiate much between the male and the female body. A few years later I came to two realizations:
1) Hal Foster, a giant among comic artists, had taken inspiration from someone even greater;
2) More importantly, I now realized that I would enjoy the setup a lot more with a female figure at the center.
So I started looking. In comic stores, libraries... wherever. Without result.
Then came the internet. It's infinite possibilities, in 20 years of research, yielded... Just two results. Both somewhat disappointing.
Eric Stanton
Excellent drawing skill, of course. Realistic bodies, believable expressions... But something was missing. Or rather, something SHOULD have been missing: clothing.
And the other result: a lukewarm attempt by a young Milo Manara in a fumetto of the late sixties.
So that was it. I realized it was a setup almost impossible to replicate with live models due to the high risk of injury, but why had so few traditional drawings and no modern computer art scenes involved this device, perfect for the displaying of the human (preferably female, young and pretty) body?
Then JD came along and accepted the challenge. I will post here only the first of the jewels he made, several more can be found on his thread in this forum.
So what do I expect, opening this thread?
First of all, a discussion about the wheel as a form of torture. I suppose it was never used for real, as huge amounts of pain can be inflicted with much less effort. But how would it work? How long before the pain becomes intense, and how much before it becomes unbearable? If left upon it indefinitely, how would the victim perish? Suffocated? Hearth failure? How long before the damage to toes and fingertips would be irreparable? What effect would the turning of the wheel around the X, Y and Z axis respectively cause?
Secondly, in the unlikely hypothesis I missed something, I would like you to post images or even clips in which this device is used.
And last but not least: if you are an artist, of course I would like you to try reproducing it by pencil, photoshop, poser, DAZ or whatever. JD will forever be my hero, having provided me with ten times the amount of such images I could find in half a lifetime. I hope he won't mind if I am curious to see if other creative people could like and try the implement in turn.
I was a year or six, maybe seven, when as a gift I received a volume of the Prince Valliant stories by Hal Foster. In it was this image.
Probably my passion for torture scenes would have developed anyway, but this sure helped me on the way. At that age I did not differentiate much between the male and the female body. A few years later I came to two realizations:
1) Hal Foster, a giant among comic artists, had taken inspiration from someone even greater;
2) More importantly, I now realized that I would enjoy the setup a lot more with a female figure at the center.
So I started looking. In comic stores, libraries... wherever. Without result.
Then came the internet. It's infinite possibilities, in 20 years of research, yielded... Just two results. Both somewhat disappointing.
Eric Stanton
Excellent drawing skill, of course. Realistic bodies, believable expressions... But something was missing. Or rather, something SHOULD have been missing: clothing.
And the other result: a lukewarm attempt by a young Milo Manara in a fumetto of the late sixties.
So that was it. I realized it was a setup almost impossible to replicate with live models due to the high risk of injury, but why had so few traditional drawings and no modern computer art scenes involved this device, perfect for the displaying of the human (preferably female, young and pretty) body?
Then JD came along and accepted the challenge. I will post here only the first of the jewels he made, several more can be found on his thread in this forum.
So what do I expect, opening this thread?
First of all, a discussion about the wheel as a form of torture. I suppose it was never used for real, as huge amounts of pain can be inflicted with much less effort. But how would it work? How long before the pain becomes intense, and how much before it becomes unbearable? If left upon it indefinitely, how would the victim perish? Suffocated? Hearth failure? How long before the damage to toes and fingertips would be irreparable? What effect would the turning of the wheel around the X, Y and Z axis respectively cause?
Secondly, in the unlikely hypothesis I missed something, I would like you to post images or even clips in which this device is used.
And last but not least: if you are an artist, of course I would like you to try reproducing it by pencil, photoshop, poser, DAZ or whatever. JD will forever be my hero, having provided me with ten times the amount of such images I could find in half a lifetime. I hope he won't mind if I am curious to see if other creative people could like and try the implement in turn.
Last edited by a moderator: