Disasters of the Universe…

So, He-Month 3 or “March-sters of the Universe” draws to a close and whilst Roger over at Rantings from Under the Wargames Table has completed his three characters, namely Tri-klops, Trap Jaw and a rather superb Ram-Man, having built them almost from scratch,  I was feeling slightly smug that I only need to add a few details to mine to complete them.

However, the gods of wargaming do not look kindly upon those who become complacent and I have been troubled by recalcitrant paint brushes and paint that refused to go where I wanted it.

Whilst I am done, I’m not entirely happy with what I’ve produced, but feel that further ‘faffing’ will result in making things worse, so I’ve decided to draw a line under it and show my less than sterling efforts for this round of He-Month.

First, Man-E-Faces. All I needed to do was add a few details and a couple of washes and I was done. Unfortunately, the dark blue wash proved a little two runny and resulted in me having to repaint several areas of his flesh and re-wash these to give a better overall coverage. The mask he wears beneath his helmet also proved a little trickier than I anticipated, as it’s effectively a red domino mask with white eyes. Anyway, he’s done now, although not to my exacting standards;

Next, we have Trap Jaw, who I’d decided that all he needed was the silver stripe on his helmet to be finished. However, I then decided that I’d attempt to do a skull and crossbones on his shoulder pad and attempt to ‘paint in’ his jaw. This looked absolutely, shockingly crap, so I had to re-do his face and shoulder pad and washing his face resulted in me having to re-paint his torso too, as I ended up with green runs all down him. He is now done too, but I’m also less than happy with him.

Finally, Tri-klops and whereas the other two caused me issues, Tri-klops was a dream and came out exactly as I’d hoped. I really think that this is one of my better conversions.

Having done a bit of research regarding eye colour and shape, I decided that I’d just go for oval  and red pupils, but did give him the ‘angry’ eye on the front, which has worked really well.

As we need a tally of how many MOTU figures I’ve done so far, I thought I’d do a couple of group shots. So the ‘Heroic Warriors’ first;

So, six ‘heroes’, being Fisto, Teela, He-Man, Man-E-Faces, Man-at-Arms and Orko. Man-e-Faces is quite tall compared to the others, but I still think that of the ‘heroes’, Orko is my favourite.

Next, the ‘Villains’;

So, four villains – Trap-Jaw, Beast Man, Skeletor and Tri-Klops, with Zodac on the end, as otherwise we’d have too many in the other photo. Tri-klops is my new favourite here, followed by Beast Man.

So, a grand total of eleven Masters of the Universe characters, with only another nine (-ish) to go. It would appear that the heroes still outnumber the villains, so I may have to concentrate on the baddies next time, although I have a hankering to try to create the humanoid bee warrior known as Buzz-Off, so we shall see…

In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, next month will see a return to Supers, as I intend to complete one of the factions within my own superhero universe, the super-powered circus performers known as…The Clown Gang. (Not exactly original, I know, but they refused to be called anything else and have threatened me with “cream” pies to the face, so ‘Clown Gang’ it is…)

Comments and feedback appreciated and welcome.

The Power of Three

It’s all about the Power of Three! It’s the third time Roger and I have indulged ourselves with He-Month, each of us is completing three figures, Tri-klops has three eyes, Man-e-faces has three faces and Trap Jaw has three…um…er…

Nope, I got nothing.

It’s all about the Power of Three…except for Trap Jaw, who decided to be bloody awkward.

Anyway, speaking of Trap Jaw, let’s see where we’ve got with him this week;

So, rather than Milliputting or gluing a helmet on, I decided to paint it on as a skullcap. I did initially attempt to do the same for his jaw, but it looked crap, so my version of Trap Jaw doesn’t actually have the ‘jaw’ part. I also decided to give him his signature purple pants, as otherwise his trousers would have been monotonously black.

His trousers and arm have been inked black, replicating the shiny black plastic these parts were on the original figure and all green parts have been washed with Woodland Green. All he needs now is a wash on his blue parts and sword, and a few details, such as the silver stripe on his skullcap. As his belt is a lot slimmer than on the original figure, I’m considering painting a tiny green skull (or skull ad crossbones) on the shoulder pad, as I think this would look cool. We shall see…

Next, Tri-klops;

Pretty much done on this one too. I decided to paint the orange in ‘v’ of his tunic, to bring a bit more colour to the figure and match the chest panel the original figure has. He’s also had the previously dark grey parts inked black, had his green parts washed with Salamander Green and his flesh with Dwarf Flesh. Just needs a wash on sword, the gems on his hilt picked out and his eyes painted on and he’s done.

Finally, Man-e-faces;

Following the colour scheme of the original figure, I’ve painted the front straps of his chest panel purple, as well as the armour plates on each hip. I also tidied up the blue sections and gave them another coat. Finally, his ‘flesh’ parts were given a wash of dwarf flesh. Whilst this does highlight the cybernetic nature of his limbs, I still think he looks cool.

I just need to apply a further brighter red to his gun, paint the red ‘mask’ associated with his human face, add some orange highlights to the central part of his chest panel and he’s pretty much done as well.

Obviously, I still need to wash their bases as well.

Of course, if you want more accurate representations of Trap Jaw, Tri-Klops and a particularly awesome Ram-Man, take a look at what Roger’s been up to over on Rantings from Under the Wargames Table.

Yes, we are slightly bonkers, but we’ve got Masters of the Universe figures. And it would appear we’ve only got about halfway through the figures we want to do, so there will be ample opportunity for others to join us… you know you want to…

Comments and feedback welcome and appreciated.

Finally…March-sters of the Universe!

My regular followers will have noticed a lack of recent content on my blog, for which I apologise.

Unfortunately, my computer has finally given up the ghost and the funds at the Crow’s Nest are not currently sufficient to replace it. However, not being one to give up in the face of adversity and being somewhat cunning, I have worked out that I can upload the photos from my ‘phone via the WordPress App as a Draft post, then  edit the post via a plug-in keyboard attached to my Fire tablet…

Hopefully, this should work, so you’ll have to excuse any roughness as I get used to updating my blog in this fashion.

So, as noted above March is He-Month 3 or “March-sters of the Universe”, where Roger Webb of Rantings from Under the Wargames Table and myself attempt to create 28mm versions of characters from the Masters of the Universe franchise. Follow the above link to see how Roger is progressing, as he’s been regularly posting since the beginning of March and is doing rather well…

When I last posted, all I’d done was state that these were the figures I was intending on using:

So, from left to right we have Drax, Lex Luthor and Doc Samson, all from Heroclix. As previously guessed by Roger, Drax will become Trap Jaw and Lex Luthor will become Man-E-Faces. However, Roger failed to guess that Doc Samson is intended to become Tri-klops…

Whilst I’ve always liked Trap Jaw as a character, the representations of him so far have been a little…rubbish. So my challenge was to not only make my version of him, but also make him cool. Trap Jaw screams cybernetic space pirate to me, so that’s how I’m approaching him.

So, I first removed the lower blade on Drax’s ‘cutlass’ and his right arm. This was replaced with an arm from a GW ‘womble’ space marine, from which I’d cut away the actual arm, leaving the shoulder pad and bolter. And this is what I ended up with.

For Man-E-Faces, I added a GW Laspistol to his right hand, then built up his helmet using Milliput, topping this off with an offcut of plastic sprue for the top. And this is what I ended up with.

And for Tri-klops, I cut off Doc Samson’s right hand and the top half of his head. The hand was replaced one sourced from a Heroscape Tarn Viking, as this had the right type of sword. And this is where it gets really cunning, as I knew that I didn’t stand any chance of re-creating his visor with my sculpting skills, but I could find a shirt button of the right size and glue this to the top of his head, which was then topped off with another sprue offcut. As I always felt Tri-klops was a little bit ‘ronin’, I decided to give him a dangly skirt, rather than the standard hairy pants. And this is how he came out.

Looks a little bit Mexican, like Zorro’s pulled his hat down over his eyes… However, as it came out exactly as I intended, I’m pretty happy.

I had a little Milliput over when I’d finished basing them, so not liking waste, fiddled about with it for a bit, then stuck it on a flight stand and voila! Another ghost for Ghostbusters…

Now, the problem I had before was that once I’d undercoated in white, people couldn’t actually see the figures as the characters, as shown when I created Beast Man from a Bugbear. So, I decided to slap some base colours on each figure, to see if this helped…

Trap Jaw

I’m trying to decide whether I give him ‘tattoos’ on his head,similar to how some pirates had skulls tattooed on their face, in place of an actual cybernetic jaw and skullcap. what does everyone think?

Man-E-Faces:

And Tri-Klops:

So, hopefully worth the wait. I’m pretty pleased with how they look so far.

Comments and feedback appreciated.