The long-awaited parcel from Hasslefree (last mentioned here) arrived, all ordered figures present. On a whim, I checked again on the site an, lo and behold, Daphne and Velma were back in stock. So, I expeditiously ordered them, along with another go ’round of the whole Mystery, Inc. team (standard and post-apoc) so that I could paint them up for myself. They arrived in reasonable time, so it had been the holiday mail holding up things in December. The figures are a joy to paint — I’m hewing as close to the iconic livery as possible.
And so, my younger son’s gift was complete — just a few months after Christmas.
I also finished my elder son’s girlfriend’s gift — the duo from Supernatural:
I wanted them to have a monstrous foe; a little research turned up a “scarecrow” as a serviceable villain. They don’t look like that in the show, but this chap was one of my countless Reaper Bones, now gone on to a better home. (The next edition of Bones — is it 5 now? — was promised for this month, but likely won’t make it until May. Which, of course, is just as well, as I have to many yet to paint from the first four … )
This one has been a mess for so many. I feel fortunate to have remained healthy, employed, and amongst family. I hope the new year brings better things to everyone.
Here is a good bit of my painting progress of late:
The Cthulhu Collection, Reaper Bones all.A lovely suite of torturing stuff; also from Reaper.Weird-lookin’ columns; Reaper.Scatter terrain from Super Dungeon Explore.This stuff sat primed for a LONG time!Super Dungeon Explore kobolds and kobold-ogres.I hate “mimic” monsters, but they make sense for SDE I guess.I tried to go full “silly” by painting the handles to look like eyes.Here’s the whole gang. People online describe them as “fun” to paint. I found this not to be so.Another pair of poker players, from Monday Knight Productions, maybe? I shared the rest of the quartet awhile back.Reaper Bones fantasy. Not bothered to straighten weapons, and ok with that …Zombicide figures. These were kinda fun to paint.
Should you have examined my brain a couple of weeks ago, it would have seemed evident that the “28mm” synapses were firing perfectly. A smattering of the many, many Reaper Bones I now own were being painted, and I was even constructing some appropriately-scaled buildings and terrain. I noticed, but successfully defeated the urge to throw in for, the Dwarven Forge City Builder kickstarter. I was already hard at work on some Hirst Arts/foam core hybrids (which we shall examine anon).
Alas, the rent was beyond my means
High from this victory, I unfortunately rode smack into an ambush. 15mm.co.uk announced a preorder for a quintet of absolute lovelies… resistance was futile. My rationale for parting with money was that I do have a bit of a collection of 15mm figures already painted and ready to play. The buildings can be used for fantasy (?), pirates (got ’em), pulp and VSF (umm…, YES!). So, despite no email confirmation as of yet, the line-up you see below ought to be winging its way over the pond to me.
Upon arrival, they’ll join the nascent collection of 15mm terrain I began cobbling together in younger days. For years, I scoured the interweb for plans intended for oh-so-popular 28mm miniatures and rescaled them for my own nefarious purposes. These two beauties on the right were based upon plans plundered from the old Games Workshop website (back in the days when they tried to help one to learn, rather than to help one to spend). Even shrunk, I still think I made ’em too big — they’ll dwarf the compact accommodations from 15mm.co.uk. I also should have devoted more time to that thatch. It looks like a lovable mop top.
In the early years of the current millennium, Gary Chalk ran an online shop called the Little Grenadier. He endeavored to sell his plans for wargames buildings directly to people online, rather than having them published in Wargames Illustrated. Well, he tired of this after awhile and shut down the store. The simple cottage above was one of the plans, reduced to house 15mm peasantry.
The vignette above (one of my favorite things that I have ever built) was from Gary’s Pirate Buildings plans in Wargames Illustrated. In my VSF setting of Isla Victoria, Tudor and pirate architecture will stand proudly side-by-side.
Finally, the last one should look familiar to old-school grognards. This would be the 15mm version of Pasha Ali’s fortified palace, originally created by David Helber, also known as Major GeneralTremorden Rederring. The wily Major General didn’t provide plans for this one, so I had to reverse engineer from looking at the photos on his website.
My point is, then, that I have the makings of a great fantasy or VSF town in two scales. Maybe others of you share this sickness?
Our next episode will feature the larger scale buildings upon which I’ve been laboring in 2015.
Hexographer is the thoroughly wonderful program I used to create the map in my header. It comes from the mind of Joe Wetzel at Inkwell Ideas, who also has programs for mapping dungeons (Dungeonographer) and, thanks to one of those successful Kickstarters, entire cities (Cityographer). The programs are Java-based, therefore platform agnostic, free for a basic version, and reasonably priced for an upgrade.
Microtactix was on the leading edge of creating terrain for wargames and RPGs that you could download immediately and print on cardstock. The company has been quiet for some time (viz. the moribund Microtactix website), but a plethora of products remain for sale at RPGNow.
The early buildings, such as Vulture Gulch, are primitive by today’s standards — they’re just line-drawn and you have to color them in yourself(!) Yet, they’re not correspondingly inexpensive…
“Newer” sets such as Twilight Street (added 10 years ago) are fully colored and useful. I have many, many of these sets and retain a fondness for carefully assembling cardstock buildings.
The current powerhouse in 15mm miniatures would have to be Blue Moon Manufacturing. They have a small but evocative horror line which includes zombies (of course), but also werewolves & vampires, wolves, and a Jack the Ripper vignette featuring a famous consulting detective.
