Monthly Archives: November 2018

“Who you callin’ a dummy?”

As Movember draws to a close, I have officially painted all of my pulp miniatures! For this last installment, I present some ventriloquists!

Technically, only ONE of these is a pulp miniature…yet when painting him, I was surprised to find that I had two more ventriloquists in 28mm! It’s an odd genre of miniature to own, after all. How many ventriloquist miniatures do YOU own? I’m betting not three.

First, straight from his tour performing for the crown heads of Europe, The Great Adamski! This miniature comes from Black Army Productions, a small company that makes some interesting miniatures. This guy came with a couple of hand options; he could have either had a second puppet or a gun behind his back. (I went all in on the dummies.) Adamski also satisfies my Movember requirement: check out that handlebar mustache! His Cossack dummy (the one behind his back) is sporting some impressive lipwear as well.

Next, a zombie ventriloquist from Horrorclix, because why not? I repainted him because as expected, the factory clix paint job was somewhat…sub-par.

Lastly, a relatively new-ish Batman villain, THE Ventriloquist (and Scarface). This miniature was repainted completely, but I forgot to take a “before” picture.

The Ventriloquist (and Scarface) is pretty dumb, even for Batman’s rogue’s gallery. The Ventriloquist himself is a mild-mannered milquetoast; it’s Scarface, the dummy, who is the real ruthless bad guy. From the DC wiki:

I find him annoying because Scarface can’t pronounce the letter “B” (on account of the Ventriloquist not moving his lips), so he substitutes a “G” sound. This gets old pretty fast, especially when you’re reading speech balloons. “Let’s rog the gank, boys! And watch out for the Gatman!” Ugh.
Anyway, that wraps up Movember…I’m still mulling over a project for December. Watch this space!

Insanity Pile Progress

Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 63

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +50

Weird Villains and Pulp Doctors

Movember continues with more pulp-themed miniatures. This time around, my last remaining Pulp Figures: some Weird Villains!

From L-R, as Bob Murch has named them: The Crimson Scorpion, Stahl Mask, Dr. Price, The Creeping Claw and Mr. X! Also, a random Nazi officer that Bob Murch included with my last order, for no other reason than he seems to be a swell guy. (I mean Bob, not the Nazi. To be clear: there isn’t a fucking Nazi in the world who I would consider to be a “swell guy”.)

You can barely see Dr. Price’s “John Waters” mustache; but fear not, I have painted a miniature with epic facial hair in honor of Movember! Stahl-Mask’s walrus mustache is legendary; it’s a shame you can’t see it under his, well, his stahl-mask. Stahl-Mask is one of only a few Pulp Figures with more than one sculpt (Dr. Koo is another). I’m pretty sure this is Bob’s original version of the dastardly German, but I could be wrong.

You may notice my Creeping Claw has a hook for a hand. This is my own addition. My miniature was missing his right hand, so I used the hook from the Heroclix Aquaman I cannibalized earlier this year to make my Aquarian submission for Forgotten Heroes (I never throw anything away). I like the way it looks; very pulp villain-ish. And now he has an actual claw!

Up next: some pulp doctors! These three are from RAFM‘s old Call of Cthulhu line, and I’m pretty sure they’re also sculpted by Bob Murch! (Small world, eh?) These guys were a lot of fun to paint. I’m glad I decided to bang out all my pulp models this month, otherwise these fellows were likely to remain pretty low on my priority list. I really like the guy in the middle, as he could easily work for an Old West sawbones just as well as a pulp-era physician.

This is a “before” shot of the surgeon, as in “before he applied serrated blade to his grisly work.” (Actually, I just like how this picture came out, so I figured I’d include it.) For the blood, I used Citadel’s Blood for the Blood God technical paint, which is awesome (IMHO).

Lastly, another “doctor” of sorts; this one a professor of Archaeology! Another RAFM miniature, this is “Drake Harrington”, from their new Call of Cthulhu line. His resemblance to a certain whip-wielding archaeologist isn’t accidental, I’m sure (even though there’s no whip to be seen). I like the miniature, but I would have liked some variety in his hand choices. I’m not wild about the lantern, mainly because I can’t paint object source lighting effects very well.

I added this rope to the model because I think it looks cool. Then I mounted him on a scenic base, which unfortunately contains a human skull with dimensions noticeably bigger than Drake Harrington’s own head. Oh well.

Next post: some real dummies!

 

Insanity Pile Progress

Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 62

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +49

Movember is Pulp Month!

Movember, as everyone knows, is the month men everywhere grow facial hair to raise awareness of male health issues. Every year, Bob Murch over at Pulp Figures encourages this practice by offering a special, Movember-only miniature (with serious facial accessories) to those who donate to Bob’s Movember Campaign.

I love beards, on dwarfs. On me, not so much. In fact, I absolutely loathe my own facial hair. Several years ago I grew my beard throughout the entire month of November. Two weeks in I was scratching like a mange-ridden mongrel. Three weeks and I was begging for relief. At 12 AM on December 1st I finally shaved off my whiskers and almost wept with joy.

Despite this, I am male, and I certainly support raising awareness of male health issues. It’s been a while since I placed an order with Bob, so I’m painting all my remaining Pulp Figures this month in honor of his Movember efforts. (Also, I promised Dick Garrison I would paint some miniatures with facial hair. Anything, as long as I don’t have to grow it myself.) Although Bob’s figures feature prominently, I’m also painting some other pulp-themed miniatures by other manufacturers. It’s a pulp-themed month-long extravaganza!

Here are my first couple of miniatures for Movember: two masked avengers. (Sorry for the blurry top picture. I can’t seem to get a better one.) These two are part of a set that includes a “Not” Green Hornet and Kato. The guy looks like he could be a “Not” Spider or “Not” Eisner’s Spirit, but the Spirit never wore a cape, to my knowledge, and Pulp Figures already has a “Not” Spider (although I like this one better). I have no idea who the masked lady is supposed to not be, if anyone. No facial hair in this batch.

Up next: some Hooded Minions! Check out the Van Buren whiskers on the guy second from the left! What’s that, you can’t see his masculine beard beneath his hood? Well trust me, it’s there. Honest.

 

Finally, enjoy this video, which is the perfect distillation of Movember, put to song.

 

Neil Patrick Harris is the Tree of Masculinity. Seek his fruit.

 

Coming soon, more Pulp Figures!

 

Insanity Pile Progress

Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 52

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +39

Gaslands 7: The Piranha Brothers and Spiny Norman!

Earlier this year, I had a bad bout of Gaslands Fever (not to be confused with Pac Man Fever, which is a different thing altogether). I converted 7 cars, 2 buggies, an armored bus, a monster truck and a war rig, but I didn’t have a chance to make any performance cars. I still haven’t played the game, but I’ve read enough After Action Reports and watched enough game videos to know that performance cars are pretty damn effective!

Nonetheless, despite my hiatus from Gaslands conversions, I never stopped looking in the Matchbox and Hot Wheels aisles in every store I went. I gave into temptation a couple of times and bought more cars, knowing I would soon be back to converting them.

Here are my first two performance cars: The Piranha Brothers, Doug and Dinsdale! Astute readers my realize that these are based off of the same car: the Hot Wheels “Crescendo” racer.  I wanted them to stand in contrast to the rusty death machines I’ve converted so far. In my world, performance cars are sleek and elegant, and drivers of performance cars actually care about their vehicles. Thus, I didn’t do much to these cars other than repaint them. I didn’t notice the “Tron” colors until just now. I  made some thematically-appropriate circular buzzsaw blades out of plasticard and stuck them to the bumpers, and stuck the obligatory machine gun on the roof. I painted the piranha emblems on the hood freehand.

Dinsdale lives in constant fear, convinced he is pursued by a giant, hedgehog-like car called Spiny Norman. Know what? He’s right!

 

“DINSDALE!”

Spiny Norman was inspired by the Buzzard Clan in the PS4 Mad Max videogame. Their cars are all rust and spikes, and I was responsible for blowing up many dozens of them in my recent playthrough of the game.

Spiny Norman started out as a Matchbox 1968 Ford Mustang with an off-road chassis. I clipped off the ends of toothpicks and pushed them through the patterned craft foam to make the spikes on the doors and sides. I trimmed bits from a needlepoint screen and used them as long strips of spikes to line the roof. I snipped some spear-pointed cocktail sticks for hood spikes. Finally, I used some old bolter bayonets from some Rogue Trader beakie marine sprues for the bumper blades. Then, as usual, I layered the car in metallics, washes and good old-fashioned rust dust.

Although I’m fond of Grond, the War Rig, Spiny Norman is my favorite Gaslands conversion that I’ve done so far.

(Apologies to my friend Dick Garrison for the late Gaslands posting, as I told him I’d work on some cars during October. I did, I just didn’t get around to posting them until now.)