This is How I Roll…

January is finally over and it’s been a bit of a bugger of a month. Various external factors have prevented me from regaining momentum after the Christmas break and that is why there has been a lack of posts here on the Buffet.

However, I haven’t been idle and as I am renowned for coming up with crazy ideas, I thought I’d try to give an insight into how my devious little mind works.

So, in previous posts I introduced the Court of Shadows, an organisation run by the Night Mayor and made up of various entities that are considered ‘nursery bogies’.

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, this is the definition as per the Encyclopedia Mythica:

“Nursery bogies are a class of frightening spirits, ogres, and monsters used by adults to frighten children into good behavior or to prevent them from entering dangerous situations. These bogies have a terrifying appearance and reputation of harming or eating children.”

So, tales of Jenny Greenteeth were used to discourage children from venturing too close to deep bodies of water and the ‘great, long, red-legged scissor man’ was used to discourage them from sucking their thumbs,which apparently is a bad thing.

Having decided that the Court of Shadows and the Black Museum would form an alliance, I thought it would be quite cool to have one of these ‘nursery bogies’ become a constable…but which one?

After some thought, I selected Jack O’Lantern. Due to outwitting the Devil, he was barred from Hell and because he was a rather naughty chap, was also barred from Heaven, which makes him effectively immortal. Furthermore, he carries a lantern carved from a gourd (a turnip in the original tale) which contains an ember from the fires of Hell. So, a constable who cannot die and has his own mystically empowered lamp – an ideal recruit to face off against the horrors of Blackwell.

And then it went a bit…Jez.

As a regular visitor to Ironclad Miniatures site, who do a lovely range of VSF characters, I’d noted that they had produced Victorian versions of the Marvel characters Iron Man (Ironcladman) and the Thing (Grim Ben). With this in mind, I started contemplating how I could create a model of Constable O’Lantern which highlighted his ‘unnatural’ aspects, but also tapped into my love of superheroes. As my version of Jack O’Lantern was envisaged as a gaunt, almost skeletal figure with a flaming lamp AND I needed ‘cavalry’ for the Black Museum, it wasn’t a great leap to re-imagine the character as a Victorian version of…Ghost Rider!

Once that idea took hold, I searched the internet for 28mm penny farthings (because it’s suitably Victorian and a pretty damn cool idea) and images of a ‘Victorian Ghost Rider’. The penny farthings I found didn’t match my vision AND weren’t immediately available and the only image I could find was this:

Close, but not quite right…

So, flexing my creative muscles, I rummaged in my bits box and began work…

After a false start involving a disc of plastic cut from a blister pack, which proved too flimsy, I rethought my build.

A lozenge-shaped base was cut from an expired gift card, then covered in textured wallpaper to provide a cobbled street. Off cuts of the gift card, paperclips, cotton bud stems, drinking straws and the biggest transparent button I could find were used to construct the penny farthing. Jack himself was a GW plastic skeleton, suitably assembled and then given a uniform sculpted from Milliput.

And this is the result;

He now needs to be painted and have his flaming head and trail of fire added, but I have to admit to being pretty pleased with him.

Is it bonkers? Yes.

But it’s also unbelievably friggin’ cool.

Well…I think so.

Join me next time, when the FULL force of the Black Museum will be arrayed in all their finery.