Primal Law

Regular visitors to this blog will know that whilst the majority of the content posted here is relatively sensible, there are times when my brain experiences a spasm and we get something a little bit mad. Today is one of those days…

So, if you’ve turned up here expecting more Doctor Who figures, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. However, if the above has intrigued you, then read on…

One of my favourite blogs to visit, until it sadly closed it’s doors, was “The Games Cupboard”, the majority of the content for which was provided by Steve and Hilary Gilbert, ably abetted by Tarot Hunt. I always looked forward to reading what they had posted, as their love of the hobby was evident and they chose to discuss all aspects of it, rather than just providing an endless parade of figures that had been painted in the preceding week.

I became very good friends with all three of them and have remained in contact ever since. Whilst they may not have been making regular postings on a blog, this does not mean that they have been idle, as they actually been painting and building and, most importantly, playing with their miniatures.

So, the current focus of their attention is a long-planned Judge Dredd/Cursed Earth campaign, which, from the sounds of it, will be absolutely epic. Rather than going the route of buying every single available ‘official’ figure, they are utilising their existing figure collection and converting, scratch-building and generally being awesomely creative to ensure that their vision of the world of Dredd matches what they think it should be, rather than being a cookie-cutter, straight-out-the-box version, like everyone else’s.

The good news is that you won’t have to hear about this second hand from me, as Steve has very kindly agreed to write some articles regarding this project, which I will be hosting here on the Buffet – so watch this space.

The bad news, however, is that the discussions about this project inspired me to create some characters for their campaign and I went a bit…off road.

So, first order of the day was to decide what characters I wanted to create and the obvious choice is Judges. In order to do this, I required some suitable ‘bodies’ and felt that the original ‘womble’ Space Marines from Games Workshop would be ideal. They have big boots, elbow pads and massive shoulder pads and the particular figures I chose were all armed with bolt pistols, which make suitable proxy lawgivers.

So, I removed the backpacks and all their heads and tidied up the torsos a bit, as there was a fair bit of glue residue, due to these being originally put together in the early 90’s.

Looking at them, I decided that whilst they were pretty close, they weren’t exactly right, which led me down the thought path of ‘alternate reality’ versions of the Judges. If these were Judges from another dimension, this would explain why their uniforms were slightly different…so why not make them really different? Which led to the next component parts, namely these:

This is a selection of small plastic dinosaurs, the kind that come in a ‘toob’ and are roughly 30mm tall.

That’s right – I’m making….DINO-JUDGES!!!!

So, having selected the relevant heads and tails, these were removed from the torsos, trimmed and dry-fitted into the neck collars and rears of the Marine bodies.

Once I was happy that the fit was correct, out came the superglue and I discovered that the rubbery plastic used to manufacture these dinosaurs doesn’t like superglue. Having had this issue with plastics before, I went straight to the understairs cupboard and fished out the ‘No More Nails’. This stuff will stick anything to anything, and this indeed proved the case in respect of the dinosaur parts and the Space Marine bodies, as shown below:

Once these had dried, it was just a case of painting them up in the appropriate colours, although I did decide to go with dark blue rather than black for the jumpsuits and gold for the shoulder pads and the buckles for their harnesses.

Now, these may not be the correct colours for ‘official’ 2000AD Judges, but these are DINO=Judges, so they can be whatever colour I like.

I have to say that I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, although my initial assembling of the marine bodies shows that I didn’t consider how I’d paint them, as some of the nooks and crannies were a pain to get too. But now I have completed four Dino-Judges, ready to be dispatched across the Irish Sea to join in Steve, Hils and Tarot’s campaign – which hopefully means this won’t be the last time we see them.

Yes, I know it’s a little bit bonkers, but they’re anthropomorphic future dinosaur policeman – and that’s feckin’ cool!

“You have the right to become extinct! I am the ROAR!!!!“

Next week should see a return to ‘regularly scheduled’ programming, but I’m not promising anything…