My first Forgotten Heroes submission this year is none other than:
I was going through my comics the other day and was surprised to find this, as I don’t remember buying it. I’m a sucker for kung-fu comics, so I guess I’m not surprised after all. This is the only Judomaster comic I own and I’ve never heard of the character, so that’s “Forgotten Heroes” enough for me.
I looked up his story: Judomaster was a sergeant in WWII in the Pacific theatre. At some point, he saved a girl. The father of the girl he saved taught him judo as thanks. That’s it.
The character was originally a Charlton comics character, and most of those ended up owned by DC comics. DC never did very much with Judomaster before killing him off in the Infinite Crisis storyline by having Bane break his back. Judomaster is no Batman, so he died.
You figure he’d be tougher, since he’s apparently REALLY good at judo:
They don’t give costumes like that to just anyone, after all.
To make Judomaster I used Iron Fist as a base miniature. Can’t really do better than this.
Rebased and repainted, he looks like this.
I somehow overlooked the fact that Judomaster wears a black belt (of course he does), and I didn’t want to sculpt one after I painted him, so I just painted the belt on.
I hope to do at least one more miniature this year, possibly two. I do so love this challenge!
Great work on Judomaster Keith, Iron Fist was a perfect donor for this one. Not a character I have ever heard of before but the comic titles available when I was a kid was limited ! LOL Look forward to seeing what else you do.
Like I said, he wasn’t a comic character I’d ever heard of, either, and I owned one of his comics! LOL! Thanks, Dave!
OK I have to admit I’ve never heard of “Judo Master”, but as you say martial artists were very much in “Vogue” in the seventies. Great bit of p[paintwork on his costume though mate, that emblem on his chest looks a bit of a nightmare to be honest!
Looking forward to seeing your other two obscure heroes mate. You never disappoint and so often surprise and educate my superhero knowledge with you figures!
Cheers Roger.
I also assumed the emblem was going to be a pain in the ass, Roger, as my initial plan was to paint him red and work from there. Of course, yellow is a notoriously weak pigment, so painting over red would have been a disaster. Instead, I painted him yellow first, and then painted all the red parts. So I pretty much painted the emblem from the outside, if that makes sense.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Oh nice! I’ve never actually seen the original comic version of Judomaster before, only the version that appeared in a few episodes of Peacemaker (I really liked the character!) Nicely done!
Thanks! It seems I forgot to add the yellow dot on his forehead. I’ll have to fix that…
Nice work, Keith. As I’ve been a little bit of a beer odyssey of late – trip to Cambridge, in which I sampled many beers (including a Peanut Butter Milk stout, which was amazing), not progressed very far with my mini. Currently sitting in the sun at a microbrewery sampling their Mango beer. I do intend to complete my figure before the end of the month, as would be very remiss of me to NOT do so. And I HAVE heard of Judomaster…
Everyone knows beer odysseys take precedence over painting challenges, Jez. You’re covered. Although I’m I’m a big fan of beer, peanut butter flavored stout makes me reflexively gag. And while I like certain fruit beers (there’s a great blueberry pilzner I enjoy, as well as an apricot beer; and of course, pumpkin ale in the fall); I’m not a big fan of mango. Still, I’m pretty sure you and I could find a glass of something we both enjoy to raise together, should we ever meet!