Things That Go Bump in the Night

After my brief mid-week excursion into the vegetable plot in my last post (Unnatural Growths), we’re back to regular scheduled programming, looking at figures suitable for Scooby Doo gaming.

However, as it is Zomtober, I thought I really ought to post at least one zombie, in support of the excellent work that all involved are doing, so here he is:

Yet another Dreamblade miniature, this time the Zombie Enforcer, a Common figure from the base set. The actual miniature came with an axe embedded in its head, which looked daft, so that was the first thing to go. Based on his armament and uniform, I decided to repaint him as a cop. Risen from the dead to punish his killers, delivering justice from beyond the grave, criminals beware the unrelenting vengeance of…Officer Downe.

Moving on…

Over the years I have collected, rebased and painted a lot of figures specifically with the idea of providing foes for mystery-solving teens, hunters of the “Supernatural” or paranormal exterminators. As Ghostbusters is my all-time favourite film, I have always had at the back of my mind a craving to do a Ghostbusters tabletop game. Of course, until the release of Crooked Dice’s Paranormal Exterminators, we didn’t actually have ‘ghostbusters’ and the proxies available just didn’t do it for me. However, this didn’t prevent me from buying ghost figures.

So our next section will highlight a handful of the ghosts I have collected over the years, so bring on the spooks!

As the Toxic Sludger figure I showed in A Catalogue of Creepy Kooks proved to be quite a popular figure, I thought I’d show off a few more transparent plastic figures that I’ve managed to acquire over the years. From left to right, we have Killer Frost from the DC Heroclix range, the Skeletal Maiden from the Horrorclix line, a Hypnotic Spirit from the Dungeon Command game and the Chillfire Destroyer from the D&D Miniatures range. All of these were bought as singles, the most expensive being the Chillfire Destroyer at £3.50.

The good thing about transparent figures is that they usually only require rebasing before you can use them and they make excellent ghosts, even if they were not intended as such. There are quite a few transparent plastic figures in the Heroclix range, usually depicting heroes or villains in energy or elemental forms, so this is a good place to start if you’re looking for ‘ghosts’.

Of course, with a suitably spectral paint job, any opaque figure, metal or plastic,  in your collection can join the ranks of the spectral undead. Here are a few of mine;

From left to right we have Husk from the Chaos in Cairo range, Tristessa the Banshee from the Denizens of Ravenloft boxed set from Ral Partha, an Animated Statue from West Wind Productions’ Vampire Wars range and a Solonavi Shade from the MageKnight CMG. As you can probably tell, the Husk figure’s paint job was heavily influenced by the monstrous form of the librarian ghost from the first Ghostbusters film. The Blue Nun was originally painted as a zombie, but I decided to repaint the figure as a ghost, as I thought it would look better, which it does.

So, as I was saying, if you have any odd historical figures in your collection that are not part of any genre you game, slap a white  or silver undercoat on them, paint with a pale thinned colour (not quite a wash) and then, if necessary, dry-brush with your base colour with a hint of white. Instant ghost and a use for a previously “useless” figure.

Our next couple of figures are for those of you who like a little more gore, such as Bryan from Vampifan’s World of the Undead, so are not Scooby Doo, as they are Not Suitable for Saturday Mornings. You have been warned…

This crowbar-wielding  monstrosity is another Dreamblade figure, unsurprisingly called a Skinless. The original paint job was a little more restrained, but when I was repainting it, I decided to go for a more ‘freshly flayed’ look, so out came my red paints and I went town. Inspired by its definite ‘medical malpractice’ vibe, I decided to try my hand at a tiled floor base, adorned with leakage from what I have now dubbed a ‘Flesh Hulk’. I have to say that I was extremely pleased how this figure came out.

Our next figure may seem quite familiar to some…

That’s right, it’s the figure I use as my avatar, a scratch-built 28mm homicidal gingerbread man. This was simply made by cutting out a suitably shaped piece of thin textured plastic, bending it into shape, then basing and painting it. Originally it was just supposed to be a giant gingerbread man (by giant, I mean compared to an ordinary gingerbread man, not Shrek 2 giant), but the juxtaposition between the smiling face and the blood splatters just completed the figure for me. Beware the hard-baked fists of the Gingerbread Maniac!

Finally, due to a comment made by jpattern2 on this TMP thread,  I decided to see whether I could recreate a specific Scooby Doo villain, using figures I already had. This is the villain:

It’s the Space Kook from the imaginatively titled Scooby Doo episode “Spooky Space Kook”. And this is what I came up with;

So, the body was sourced from a Heroscape Zettian Guard, which is frankly one of the crappest figures ever designed. However, once you remove its arms, giant shoulder pads and ridiculous marshmallow head, the body is actually pretty good. Add a couple of 1st generation GW Space Marine arms and a filed down GW skull, paint as per the source material and I now have a spooky Space Kook.

It’s not perfect, as the Space Kook was not armed (mine has a bolt pistol because, 1. I couldn’t be bothered to remove it and 2. it looks cool), and the major fail is that the head of the Space Kook is actually a skull floating within a wholly transparent dome, rather than a skull appearing at the front of a half-opaque dome.  This is what I get for relying on memory and a single image sourced from the internet. However, as it’s my figure, I’m satisfied that anyone looking at it will immediately know what it’s supposed to be and I’m particularly happy with the way the paint job came out, it doesn’t matter that it’s not 100% accurate.

Apologies for the lengthy nature of this post, but there was a lot to get through. Next time will be my first AAR, as the investigative journalists from Enigma Magazine take a drive into the northern woods and encounter mysterious goings-on…

Comments and feedback appreciated, as always.