Some Kind Of Alien Ostrich Monster

The older I get, the less the whole "grimdark" thing appeals to me. Not for any deep reason, but just because I find it rather dull: too much sepia, mud and inexplicable piles of skulls for my tastes. Of course, people can do what they like, but I find myself increasingly increasingly drawn to make brightly-coloured models of "some kind of robot" or "a space adventurer". Also, outside Warhammer, you don't have to deal with the endless people shouting "heresy!" at each other.

Anyhow, I was in Southampton last weekend, and I visited a Forbidden Planet shop for the first time since the pandemic. If you're wondering, FP is a chain that sells comics, sci-fi and related merchandise, some bits of it classier than others. On the discount shelf, I found several big art books going for almost nothing.

I bought Battle Milk 2 and 3, which seem to consist of design work by a group of film artists, ranging from the realistic to the cartoony and kitsch, and a lavish book called Alien Race, which appears to have been the basis for a film pitch about a "horse" race on another planet and features loads of cool beasts and their weird riders. In any event, it seems that nothing came of it, since all the books were from 2010 or so. I got them for £5: they should have cost £80. 

As an author, it strikes me as slightly sad that books with so much content should be going so cheaply. Anyhow, I found Alien Race quite inspiring, and put together a weird creature of my own.

I had a pair of legs from some kind of mech toy, and a head and neck that I'd used years ago in a failed conversion of the Jabberwock from the Alice books. The neck was from a dark elf hydra, and the head came from a much-chopped squig model. I must have hacked through a lot of metal to make these.

The trouble about toys is that they're often made out of wobbly plastic that isn't very nice to work with (and have dreadful mould lines). The best way to stick this thing together was to use a lot of glue and pinning, and to attach the legs in a sort of full-on sprinting pose, which suited the rather goofy head.

I gave it a bright paint job, influenced by racing cars. I'd had the base lying around for ages - I think it's from a Warmachine model, but I'm not sure how much it's been converted by its previous owner. 

That's me done for now!