Cowboys

Back in the old West, men were men, whiskey was whiskey and squinting menacingly was an Olympic sport. These days, folks done gone and got themselves mighty soft. It's come to be that a man can't mosey in public without being tossed in the jailhouse by some fancy-pants sheriff. Me, I blame the railroad.

I had some of Black Scorpion's excellent resin cowboys waiting for paint for about a year. Given the release of their Wild West game, Tombstone, I thought it was high time - High Noon time, more accurately - to paint them up.

The guy on the left looks a bit like Shane from the film Shane, and I went for a blue and grey colour scheme (the other option was entirely off-white, which would have looked odd). The middle bloke reminds me of Sam Elliot in Pale Rider, so he got a cream-coloured coat and grey hat (and a huge moustache which you can't see here). The one on the right has a coat a bit like Clint Eastwood's in Pale Rider, so I painted it a reddish-brown colour like his. Of course, they'll be getting their own names.

The Disruptive Kid, Old Man Mumbles and Shifty Jim Chubb.

They will be joining the deadly team of Doc Casserole and Lottie the Curse of Millhaven, as seen below. Lottie is a girl but there ain't no shame in it. Some folks git to thinkin' that a woman can't ride with no posse, but truth is, there ain't no critter in Tombstone more ornery than a woman who's all riled up - exceptin' a cougar, of course.

Reckon that's this here blog post done. Now git.

It Came From The Swamp

This week I continued writing a story about a robot, tried to write a script about a robot, and watched a film about a robot. I like robots.

But not like that.

I've been working on the big deathclaw-type monster that I started a while ago. I thought that he looked like something that had crawled out of a swamp, so I made him a suitable base. The base was built up a little with DAS Clay (I can never write that without hearing the synthesiser music to Das Boot), and the lower areas were painted dark green and washed with water effects. The tree came from the Nurgle tree set and the little pier was built out of coffee stirrers.

 The broken fence was made with bits of sprue for the poles with the plastic mesh from a bag of oranges stretched between them.

Here is the monster on his base. His right arm is slightly raised, and he's using it to knock the fence down. The model is quite static, and I think this gives him a nice sense of forward motion.

I painted him with a lot of washes over a white undercoat. It's a bit scrappy in places but overall I think it looks good. Seen from the side, he's quite long in the body. The bit of the conversion I like the least is the point where the carnifex legs meet the nurgle mid-section.

Overall, I'm pleased, especially with the washing technique, which is often a right mess. I also gave into temptation this week and purchased a barn and two sprues of plastic farm animals from Warlord Games. The barn is a good model, although not very interactive. I'm not sure what I'll use the animals for: perhaps the basis of a long-awaited Animal Farm Necromunda gang.

Another Weirdo From The Wasteland

Things we have a lot of in the apocalypse:

Spears
Pistols
Hair dye

Things we need:

Armour
Properly-fitting t-shirts
Shoes

This week's painted model is a real oddity. It's from Sphere Wars, a Spanish game which seems to be discontinued. Sphere Wars made the Masalan Phallhounds that I picked up cheap at a wargames fair, and the rest of their sculpts are pretty good too. I've ordered some other weird bits and bobs from the only person on the internet who stocks them.

This lady is some kind of pirate, and was firing a big harpoon gun, which hid most of the front of her. I gave her dark eldar weapons and painted her in a colour scheme to reflect the not-Escher gang that I'd done. Given her primitive outfit, I reckon she would make a decent Ratskin Scout for the gang - and she has the added bonus of not wearing a dead rat on her head.

 

And here's a work in progress. This thing started as a Feculent Gnarlmaw, which is Age Of Sigmarese for "Nurgle tree" (Who comes up with these names?). It was £17 and, like a lot of GW's terrain, pretty decent value. Anyway, I've started to convert it/him into a greater daemon of Nurgle.

Trust me, it will look find in the end. Well, disgusting, but still fine.

Pictures from the Barbican

Recently, I went to a corporate event at the Barbican, in London. In case this makes me sound impressive, I should point out that, as far as the world of big business goes, I am more Winston Smith than Gordon Gecko. Anyhow, after learning about AI (in short, it's a rubbish film), I got the chance to take some pictures of the venue with my phone camera.

(Warning: arty talk to follow)

The Barbican has a large internal garden, protected by a massive conservatory-type roof. Here are a couple of shots.

What I find interesting about this is how overgrown it looks, and how the human elements seem to be getting swallowed up by the plants. You could make a terrific gaming table like this - although you'd still have to fit the miniatures in there somehow.

This picture looks like something from The Last of Us, where deserted cities have become overrun by vegetation.

The next two pictures struck me as interesting because of the industrial details. I could imagine them making good Necromunda terrain. Although the hive is supposed to be polluted and foul, it's probably more mutated than dead. I expect there is some pretty weird plant life down there. I particularly like the inevitable warning sign.

Nice pipes!

These last two pictures are of the inside of the Barbican. I thought they would make rather good (and oppressive) corridors. I could imagine one of the more impressive ministries in 1984 looking like this - except less clean.

Like having the city in a birdcage!

Anyhow, more miniatures shortly.

Masked Avenger

Over the last year, I've been stockpiling old Carnivale models as if they were going to become some kind of post-apocalyptic currency ("I'll swap you two Venetian nobles for a toasted rat and a baseball cap").  I started this model ages ago but left it for more exciting conversions.

Anyway, this is a nobleman and gang leader. He's lead and very spindly, and it was hard to attach his weapons without them snapping off. He is mounted on a Wyrd base.

I was pretty pleased with the cloak, which, as with many things I've painted, looked excellent until I took a picture of it. Oh well, it's not bad here.

And here he is with his minions, Mr and Mrs Antoinette, ready for some kind of masked ball action.

Right then, I've got to get some work done - actual work that doesn't involve little lead people. See you soon.

EDIT

Well, that didn't go very well. At least, I did some of the work, and then I found  a model I'd been meaning to make for at least a year, and so I started cutting and sticking again...

The model in question is a casualty model from the game Dead Man's Hand. He's meant to be lying on his back, but I think he looks really good pressing himself against a wall. Is he hiding or lying in wait?

Being little more than a fancy wound marker, he wasn't an amazing sculpt. Luckily, the resin was quite easy to cut. I used Green Stuff to rebuild one of his hands and his foot. The base is a Warlord one: I deliberately chose a lower base so that he'd look more like part of the scenery than a model that moves around.

Just a bloke

Here's a metal Delaque ganger that I painted just because he was knocking around. He's on a Sedition Wars base.

Half cyberpunk, half used car salesman. That's it for now!