The New Arcimboldo Archive

[The Fallen Angel]

Yes folks there is going to be a new and exciting Arcimboldo archive with contributions from his contempories and possibly original text and maybe one or two pics you haven't seen before. But first a little bit of history about the origins of this site. A few years ago I asked some long standing members what they could remember.

Wragg
Hi everyone.
Melissa was asking me in another pm for memories of Yahoo Crux, and how Crux
Forums got started.
It was a long time ago, I think I joined in 2002, having linked there from Oliver Hufkens
'crucified-women.com', which was the site one tended to land on when searching for
'crucified women', on my 'Lycos' search engine. I had a dial-up connection, pretty slow,
and it was awkward finding time when the Mrs wasn't about, but I managed to get on
fairly often.
Im ashamed to say that I was silent, or almost so, but I was trying to remember who the
big names were. I think the main Moderator was Master of Nails, still on Crux
foundation. Taryn had recently died in the Twin Towers, and that was still a terribly raw
wound, I remember Inge Tarant (also as 'Cobra', I think), De Mullotto, but I'm pretty
sure that Jedakk and Phlebas were there, too hence my including them in this convo.
Apostate, Arcimboldo, Maha Shiva, FF, Le Chat, Aedilis, Oberon, there must have been
others. I was trying to remember if Rotrex was about in those days?
Jedakk produced incredible images, when you consider the technology of the day:




I can't remember whether Helmut posted on Yahoo Crux, I think he probably did, didn't
you, Helmut?
So Yahoo Crux was our main meeting place, but I think there were other Yahoo Groups
as well, there was a separate 'Crucified Women' group, and a BDSM group, and I seem to
remember that there may have been a 'When in Rome' .
It must have kept going till about 2005, which seems to be the start of activity here and
on the Foundation.
I think Yahoo began to shut down the groups gradually, I recall aggrieved messages
about censorship, but the writing was on the wall
MoN set up the foundation separately.
Crux Forums, started by IM, attempted to reproduce the old Yahoo groups, so you still
see the old Yahoo groups reflected in the Forum names, but Helmut, Apostate, Admi,
and Inge Tarant were founder members in April 2005, and I joined in November 2005,
as plain 'Wragg'*, having initially followed MoN onto the Foundation.
But I was really just an onlooker, others must have better memories than me?

*Wragg later joined as Wragg134 but reverted to Wragg.

 

[phlebas]

I found that convo from 2017, this was my initial response

Basically this group and the Foundation got started because Yahell was wreaking absolute havoc in the adult groups that it controlled, and they faced limited prospects. Groups disappeared every week without warning.

The original Crux group predates the Yahoo days, it has it's roots in older bdsm related forums. When I joined around 1998/99 it was on a small forum platform that was then swallowed up by by another forum and then by Yahoo all within a short space of time. I created my current Yahoo email account just for this reason, to join Yahoo as they forced us all to have Yahoo membership to remain in the group. When I joined there were about 300-500 or so members, it was a cosy little club but things grew and grew and grew to thousands by the time Yahoo lowered the boom on us. We even had an IRC channel that members could drop into, chat and roleplay. Our brother group was Crucim, which specialised in male crux and had a strong gay flavour, although it always had a lot of straight members who kept their heads down under the tyrannical rule of Sejanus. He popped up here a while back under the name Myrelin until his general unplesantness and mysogyny saw him off. Crucim was succeeded by Male_Crux_Research, which is altogether more benign.

At the end Crux had a team of moderators which gloried in the name the Council of Crux (not many people know that).
We saw the writing on the wall, and plans were made to decamp to our own site if and when trouble finally hit. As Jedakk says, there was the possibility of going in with CruxDreams and Makar, but Olivier Huffkens had a long standing problem with those who ran Crux and so while a portion of the membership went to form the new Crux Forums group under the CruxDreams unbrella the original Crux carried on at Yahoo. The old group was finally killed by Yahoo in 2005 and we all moved to the Foundation. This is why my own membership here dates from 2006, I didn't have a huge incentive to join up in 2005 as I naturally followed from Crux to Foundation and other things were occupying my attention. This group was a little bit rough around the edges in those early days, I don't mean nasty but it had a bit of sorting out to do, I didn't visit here very often for a long time and only became a regular here around 2011 or so.

Bridgette and Dianne, yes, they kept setting up groups and Yahoo kept taking them down. I always wondered how Crux managed to last so long. It's hard to imagine now but it really was a very hostile environment for adult groups in those days.

To the names already mentioned I'd add Sweet (Child of Hungry) Heat, who was very kind to me in those early days in the group, Sam Bains who was another manip artist, Mistress Lady Catherine, Dr Mabuse who had an interest in saints and martyrs and would probably love Gabriel Knight, and I fondly remember those mentioned above. Aedilis, Arcimboldo, Le Chat, FF (there were two), Shiva another of our mods who disappeared for a time and is now posting very nice manips on Deviantart. Taryn, enough said - too many others to mention but it is a real pleasure to remember those days. Helmut was certainly on Crux, and Rotrex. And Amber, who was another "colourful" member with her own group, and her own "pose"

I came to Crux through the websites of Le Chat, Arcimboldo and (oddly enough) Huffkens. No, not Crucified Women, he had an even older site! I think one led to another to another and they all pointed in some way to Crux wherever it was in those days. I never looked back!



So . . . . . Arcimboldo and Huffkens both had old websites that inspired me and pointed me at the Crux group. Arcimboldo's Algolagnia website was visible for years, I don't think it's there any more. It included a page on how he put together his manips, very useful for anyone starting out. I will have all his work somewhere, but for some odd reason I don't have an Arcimboldo folder, I didn't create distinct folders in the early days. I'll have to have a hunt around for them. I'm so glad to see him back and working again, and here among us

 

[malins]

Arcimboldo's Algolagnia website was visible for years, I don't think it's there any more. It included a page on how he put together his manips, very useful for anyone starting out.

Arcimboldo's Algolagnia as well as @cypher 's photomanipulations (most of them back then in a series called "muhammad's point of view") were favorites of mine back in the day,

here is Arcimboldo's explanation of the "making of Morocco".

​

​

​

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian artist of late Manierism, living in Prague, who "composed" his portrait paintings by putting together the depictions of fruit, vegetables or other items. My digital photomontage technique is rather close to G. Arcimboldo's style of composing when I "sew" together many parts from different bodies to make new creatures like Dr. Frankenstein did.​

​

I'm not very skillful in drawing and painting. Traditional photomontage is rather time consuming. Therefore I was glad to find another way to depict my erotic fantasies. I started in 1995 with a low budget software; meanwhile I'm using Adobe Photoshop.​

​

I take the "raw material" (nude women, backgrounds...) from various sources like magazines, illustrated books, CD-ROMs, the web, newsgroups... Plain nudes are often better suited to my purpose than bondage pics with typical fetish items like red ball gags, garter belts and nylons. Mostly it all starts with the picture of a woman that is appealing to me with regard to the perfection of her body, the expression of her face or the "special" posture. Sometimes the central figure herself is put together from several parts from different "organ donors". Beautiful Jolanda, for example, is made from 10 single parts from 6 other girls (not to talk about all the other image elements). Then I compose the surrounding scenario, often with some digital "painting" in addition.​

​

As an illustration of the composing technique, here comes a "documentation" about the making of Morocco. It shows the seven "layers" and the main "sources" of the composition.​

​

​

and how it looked on page approximately, back then ...

 

[MahaShiva]

Thank you for this wonderful drive down memory lane, @melissa! First we got @jedakk back, and now we got @Arcimboldo as well...it really does feel a little like the olden days right now!

About the early history of the Crux group, as one of the old-timers through the days of Onelist, eGroups (thanks for setting that sequence straight for me a while ago, @phlebas!), Yahoo, and now CF (both the Foundation and the Forums) I guess I'm also obliged to squeeze every bit of ancient lore out of the dustiest corners of my brain. But really, I'm a relative new-comer among the old-timers, and by the time I joined in 1998, the group was very much in shape and well under sail. For the real pioneer tales from the frontier, we would have to get in touch with old legends like Crux Commissa, MLC (Lady Catherine), Steve Leuck, Dr. Mabuse and, of course, Master of Nails.

Although I wasn't along for the ride from the very beginning, I do recall the first words about the group's creation when Crux Commissa was making rounds on the BDSM-themed Usenet newsgroups and shouting "hear ye hear ye" all over the place. I was then hanging out in the alt.story.bondage (ASB) newsgroup and had recently changed my penname from Sir Kevin X (or simply Sir Kevin) to Maha Shiva to specialize in stories with a decidedly darker hue, including some involving our favorite wooden apparatus. However, the idea of the Crux group initially did not appeal to me all that much, as I figured at the time: Well, what's the fun of having a group that deals with nothing else but naked women (and occasionally men) hanging on crosses? (Don't answer that, please! )

So one day after I posted another story featuring a damsel and a cross, I got a note from a total stranger who called herself Lady Catherine. Based on the stories I was posting she thought I was already "one of us," so she started talking about people and postings that I did not have the slightest idea about. Naturally, my reply to MLC could be summarized as one big loud "huh?"

And that's how I ended up here eventually.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

Hi. I would like to finish the recollections bit today. Before that a few words from Helmut,

Helmut

Yes I posted a few pix on Yahoo that's where I met Inge she asked if I would moderate

and I indicated I would rather not. I wasn't in on the move to the Forums but found it

after the fact since the CW site on Yahoo was up and down at least twice before they

gave up; I think that's probably how I discovered this site.

When I started my thread Apostate took me under his wing and Inga once more asked

me to become a moderator and this time I said yes.

My very first work was done in Poser 3 then when P4 came along and became a bench

mark in 3D software I stayed with it as long as possible.

I started working in Poser about 1997 or 1998 since I'd begun to have difficulty drawing

and painting I started fooling around with Poser. It has been a remarkable journey

these past 20 years; in Poser 3 I thought I was lucky if I could get 20 females in a

render and the render itself took hours; literally.

Now I can make images with over a hundred people in them without problems.

I'm 80* now don't know when this trip is going to end but at least I can get my eyes

fixed. it's been fun and hope everyone has enjoyed the ride as much as I have.

Many thanks,

Helmut

*(That was in 2017)

 

[The Fallen Angel]

I joined on June 25th 2008 as member 4123. A few years ago Eulalia put together a list of the original members as follows

#1 ?
#2 ImageMaker
#3 Makar
#4 Inge
#5 robinhood_666de
#6?
#7 Hufkens
#8 Apostate

We reckoned that numbers 1 and 6 never existed but simply put there as test members by Xenforo.
I'm still working on Jedakk's recollections so do feel free to post.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

I'm just transferring The Witch to this thread to keep things in one place. As you will notice it's only about 130KB which was very typical of Mr A.'s pics. Perhaps it was to save space on web sites. Hopefully Arcimboldo still has some higher resolution originals.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

I need help already! Has anyone got "Dawn" as shown in this screenshot from Malins?

I'm also struggling with the text. At the moment this is the best I can do..

Dawn

They had already hung there in misery for endless hours - two naked
slaves, nailed to wooden poles, surrounded by blackened stumps ris-
ing above charred grass and grey ashes, in an area that was called
the Field of Terror. They had been mocked and teased by a merciless
crowd. Many spectators had joined the group of soldiers in mistreating
the helpless victims by fondling their naked flesh, pricking their most
sensible parts with sharpened sticks and using switches to add even
more whip-marks to the already bleeding skin.

At nightfall most of the spectators had lost their interest in the grue-
some spectacle and left the crucifixion site. Varina and her companion
were hopeful that they might find some peace for a while. But the
soldiers were in need of an entertainment highlight before the change
of shift. They found fault that the traditional inscription plate was
missing on Varina's cross. So they decided to write the verdict of guilt
onto the fugitive's skin with a branding iron. A brazier was brought in-
stantly, filled with glowing coals. Every single letter of the text was
drawn with devotion onto the woman's skin, while she was roaring
with pain. Her voice cracked on every touch of the rod. The inscription
consisted of just one word, but the soldiers took their time writing it,
nearly one hour. Varina fainted before they reached the letter 'A’.

The victim regained consciousness. In slow motion she opened her
bloodshot eyes. Dawn! The ground fog was illuminated by weak
beams of light. The branding wound hurt badly, and for a short while
Varina was convinced it had been the constant pain on her belly skin
that had fetched her back. But there was another sensation yet. It
seemed to come from beneath her. It was warm somehow. But Varina
was too dazed to recognize it immediately.

From a distance she noticed some voices. Obviously some earlybirds
who had decided to start their day with a stroll to an interesting and
edifying viewpoint. It seemed they talked to the lone duty soldier who
had to keep watch on the crucified offenders. Varina had the vague
impression hearing some coins jingling.

"Great, man! I'm sure that will revive her quickly!" giggled a female
voice.

The strange feeling forced its way to the front and into Varina's con-
sciousness. It was not warmth. It was heat. Burning heat. It came
from beneath her soles.

In uncomprehending amazement she stared down at her nailed feet. She saw
red and yellow flames licking at her toes. For a moment her glance wandered
across the charred landscape around her. Her body tensed up in a panic. But

nailed, stretched as she was, there was no way to lift her feet away from the

flickering tongues of fire. She struggled, but no movement was possible

Varina screamed, begging, promising
the soldier anything if he would just
save her from being slowly roasted.
He did not react, but the small group
of spectators came closer, the giggling
girl among them.

"Anything? More precisely, please! Tell
us what you would do for him in de-
tail."

Breathlessly the despairing woman
went into detail...

"Most interesting offerings, dear! But
I'm afraid that respectable soldier is
much more interested in silver than in
crucified slaves."

With keen interest the young woman

watched the victim's toes reddening.

She used a branch to poke around in

the fire. The carefully stacked pile of

wood toppled towards the base of the
cross.

"Hopefully he is attentive and not di-
verted by the money we gave him.
Imagine how dreadful it would be, if
the pole inadvertently caught on

fire ..."



I am most grateful to MahaShiva for his persistent help to turn my
humble English wording into comprehensible text. Best regards

Arcimboldo


​

 

[bound_mel]

This is a timely thread, I recently found some of my old email exchanges with Arcimboldo and was having wistful memories and wondering what happened to his works and if he ever got back into creating images again..

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

I still have my email archives from about 2000 on that contain all the conversations we had on the Crux Yahoo group. Lots of memories there.

 

[Crux-Emperor Baracus X]

I need help already! Has anyone got "Dawn" as shown in this screenshot from Malins?
View attachment 953888
I'm also struggling with the text. At the moment this is the best I can do..

Dawn

They had already hung there in misery for endless hours - two naked
slaves, nailed to wooden poles, surrounded by blackened stumps ris-
ing above charred grass and grey ashes, in an area that was called
the Field of Terror. They had been mocked and teased by a merciless
crowd. Many spectators had joined the group of soldiers in mistreating
the helpless victims by fondling their naked flesh, pricking their most
sensible parts with sharpened sticks and using switches to add even
more whip-marks to the already bleeding skin.

At nightfall most of the spectators had lost their interest in the grue-
some spectacle and left the crucifixion site. Varina and her companion
were hopeful that they might find some peace for a while. But the
soldiers were in need of an entertainment highlight before the change
of shift. They found fault that the traditional inscription plate was
missing on Varina's cross. So they decided to write the verdict of guilt
onto the fugitive's skin with a branding iron. A brazier was brought in-
stantly, filled with glowing coals. Every single letter of the text was
drawn with devotion onto the woman's skin, while she was roaring
with pain. Her voice cracked on every touch of the rod. The inscription
consisted of just one word, but the soldiers took their time writing it,
nearly one hour. Varina fainted before they reached the letter 'A’.

The victim regained consciousness. In slow motion she opened her
bloodshot eyes. Dawn! The ground fog was illuminated by weak
beams of light. The branding wound hurt badly, and for a short while
Varina was convinced it had been the constant pain on her belly skin
that had fetched her back. But there was another sensation yet. It
seemed to come from beneath her. It was warm somehow. But Varina
was too dazed to recognize it immediately.

From a distance she noticed some voices. Obviously some earlybirds
who had decided to start their day with a stroll to an interesting and
edifying viewpoint. It seemed they talked to the lone duty soldier who
had to keep watch on the crucified offenders. Varina had the vague
impression hearing some coins jingling.

"Great, man! I'm sure that will revive her quickly!" giggled a female
voice.

The strange feeling forced its way to the front and into Varina's con-
sciousness. It was not warmth. It was heat. Burning heat. It came
from beneath her soles.

In uncomprehending amazement she stared down at her nailed feet. She saw
red and yellow flames licking at her toes. For a moment her glance wandered
across the charred landscape around her. Her body tensed up in a panic. But

nailed, stretched as she was, there was no way to lift her feet away from the

flickering tongues of fire. She struggled, but no movement was possible

Varina screamed, begging, promising
the soldier anything if he would just
save her from being slowly roasted.
He did not react, but the small group
of spectators came closer, the giggling
girl among them.

"Anything? More precisely, please! Tell
us what you would do for him in de-
tail."

Breathlessly the despairing woman
went into detail...

"Most interesting offerings, dear! But
I'm afraid that respectable soldier is
much more interested in silver than in
crucified slaves."

With keen interest the young woman

watched the victim's toes reddening.

She used a branch to poke around in

the fire. The carefully stacked pile of

wood toppled towards the base of the
cross.

"Hopefully he is attentive and not di-
verted by the money we gave him.
Imagine how dreadful it would be, if
the pole inadvertently caught on

fire ..."



I am most grateful to MahaShiva for his persistent help to turn my
humble English wording into comprehensible text. Best regards

Arcimboldo


​

 

[The Fallen Angel]

Hi Baracus. It's only 18 KB. Do you have anything bigger?

 

[Crux-Emperor Baracus X]

Hi Baracus. It's only 18 KB. Do you have anything bigger?

Sadly not.....it's all I have.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

Sadly not.....it's all I have.

Not to worry! One of our members came to the rescue with this..

 

[The Fallen Angel]

Destruction by R.Cimboldo (Hosted externally)

The latest manip by R.Cimboldo (The artist formely known as Arcimboldo)
He must make mighty big kebabs when he's BBQing.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

This is the pdf that goes with the previous pic showing the stages in the construction of the image.

 

[helmut]

Yes folks there is going to be a new and exciting Arcimboldo archive with contributions from his contempories and possibly original text and maybe one or two pics you haven't seen before. But first a little bit of history about the origins of this site. A few years ago I asked some long standing members what they could remember.

Wragg
Hi everyone.
Melissa was asking me in another pm for memories of Yahoo Crux, and how Crux
Forums got started.
It was a long time ago, I think I joined in 2002, having linked there from Oliver Hufkens
'crucified-women.com', which was the site one tended to land on when searching for
'crucified women', on my 'Lycos' search engine. I had a dial-up connection, pretty slow,
and it was awkward finding time when the Mrs wasn't about, but I managed to get on
fairly often.
Im ashamed to say that I was silent, or almost so, but I was trying to remember who the
big names were. I think the main Moderator was Master of Nails, still on Crux
foundation. Taryn had recently died in the Twin Towers, and that was still a terribly raw
wound, I remember Inge Tarant (also as 'Cobra', I think), De Mullotto, but I'm pretty
sure that Jedakk and Phlebas were there, too hence my including them in this convo.
Apostate, Arcimboldo, Maha Shiva, FF, Le Chat, Aedilis, Oberon, there must have been
others. I was trying to remember if Rotrex was about in those days?
Jedakk produced incredible images, when you consider the technology of the day:




I can't remember whether Helmut posted on Yahoo Crux, I think he probably did, didn't
you, Helmut?
So Yahoo Crux was our main meeting place, but I think there were other Yahoo Groups
as well, there was a separate 'Crucified Women' group, and a BDSM group, and I seem to
remember that there may have been a 'When in Rome' .
It must have kept going till about 2005, which seems to be the start of activity here and
on the Foundation.
I think Yahoo began to shut down the groups gradually, I recall aggrieved messages
about censorship, but the writing was on the wall
MoN set up the foundation separately.
Crux Forums, started by IM, attempted to reproduce the old Yahoo groups, so you still
see the old Yahoo groups reflected in the Forum names, but Helmut, Apostate, Admi,
and Inge Tarant were founder members in April 2005, and I joined in November 2005,
as plain 'Wragg'*, having initially followed MoN onto the Foundation.
But I was really just an onlooker, others must have better memories than me?

*Wragg later joined as Wragg134 but reverted to Wragg.

I was in the Yahoo group, had pictures there, worked with Inge from early on. My first exposure to Poser was when I purchased Poser 3 from Meta Creations back in the 90s. My work first appeared in "Whipping Scenes in the Movies" then later on Yahoo and after that on Hufkens "Crucified Women" then finally when Yahoo shut us down I came here.
Helmut

 

[MahaShiva]

Destruction by R.Cimboldo (Hosted externally)

The latest manip by R.Cimboldo (The artist formely known as Arcimboldo)
He must make mighty big kebabs when he's BBQing.

Heh! Just noticed Arcimboldo's new name. I guess you can go one step even further and become R.C. Mboldo without sacrificing the pronunciation much, @Arcimboldo. That way you can leave old Giuseppe completely alone and establish residency in Botswana or somewhere around there instead.

 

[malins]

R.Cimboldo

The "R." is certanly for "Rex" ...

 

[The Fallen Angel]

The "R." is certanly for "Rex" ...

Or Rampant! He's all over this site! Anyway here's another new one headed for our new archive. Mr. A. said

"Ok, here comes another manip I finished last year.
It has some similarity with the former one, but is less destructive and contains most of my fetishes:
- public display and humiliation
- the pillar of the scourging
- fire and hot iron tools
- a ragged loincloth that hardly sheets what it should cover
- whipmarks, blood, sweat and sperm on formerly flawless skin
- lesbianism and lesbian domination
- anticipation, martyrdom, crucifixions"

(Pic hosted externally)

If that list was most of his fetishes then what on earth are the rest of 'em?