Monster May(hem): The Last Straw…

I’ll have to admit, I was getting a little concerned that I wasn’t going to get my “monster” completed before the end of May.

I’d sat down, fully intending on making some in-roads into everything I’d previously started, then discovered that the reading glasses I use for detail painting had snapped, meaning I couldn’t use them.

My mother-in-law had given me one of those magnifier headsets, with removable lenses, so I thought this would be an ideal time to try them out…

Shouldn’t have bothered. For something supposedly designed for this exact purpose, they were remarkably crap. The lenses are too small, so you’re almost cross-eyed using them and whilst they are standard magnifications, I couldn’t find one that met my needs. I ended up going out and buying a cheap pair of 3.5 magnification reading glasses for 99p – whichnis what I should have done in the first place.

So, the only thing I’d managed to do during this debacle was give the figure and base an undercoat of Docrafts Linen.

As this is pale yellowy-white, I thought it would give me a head start on making it look like straw.

I then lined up my yellow and brown paints to see what would be the best colour to go for next. I ended up using an ancient pot of GW Swamp Brown, which is more yellow than brown.

And now we were cooking with gas!

The next stage wad to provide some depth, with a wash of brown. Viewing various images of hay bales online, I decided that probably Docrafts Chocolate Brown would be the best option, so a watery solution of this was mixed, then liberally applied to the model. I also used the same colour, but unwatered, to paint the muddy base.

Looking at the model, I thought it looked a little one note, so went back online to se how others had painted it. Unsurprisingly, the first one that came up was the one from Crooked Dice’s website, followed by one on Brummie’s Wargaming blog and Simon’s version at Fantorical.

Looking at all three, I noted that both CD’s and Simon’s had varigations in the painting, which upon closer inspection of both the pictures and the model itself, I realised were actually branches/sticks lashed into it’s body. Looking at the brown paint I had, I decided they were a bit too brown, so mixed some Chocolate Brown with some Docrafts Dark Grey until I had a colour I was happy with. All the ‘sticks’ were then painted and some of the bindings given a highlight of Linen.

As I wanted the eyes of the Straw Man to look as though they were glowing, I filled the cavities with a generous wash of GW Mithril Silver, followed by a coat of GW Bogey Green, which I also used to touch up the straw round the eye holes, to look as if the light was reflecting from within.

I then turned my attention to the base, giving the broken planks another coat of Linen, then washed the mud part of tge base with Docrafts Burnt Ochre. The planks then got a wash of mid-grey, as wood tends to go this colour if left untreated and then weathered.

I was almost going to call it done, but something was niggling at me. If you’ve ever been to a farm or anywhere that has hay or straw, it doesn’t matter how well bound it is, you always get stray strands scattered about. That’s what was missing.

Luckily, the sewing tin had a reel of cotton the right colour, so several lengths were cut, then PVA painted around the figure’s feet. I then sprinkled these about, adjusting where necessary, until it looked right.

I think it adds a little something.

So, Monster May(hem) done and with time to spare. As I had to wait for the figure to dry, I decided to crack on with AND finish my Action Man-inspired figures.

First, the finally completed Bulletman;

Next, Atomic Man;

And yes, he does have the silver piping on his sleeves;

And finally, what was originally a HeroQuest plastic Fimir, but with a little Carrion Crow magic, is now The Intruder- “Action Man’s Greatest Enemy”;

And as the three above are “Forgotten Heroes” this leads nicely into the announcement for this year’s ‘community art project.’

For those who are not aware of what this is… where have you been? We’ve only been doing this every year since 2016!

Joking aside, if you’ve not taken part before, the “rules” are simple:-

During the month of June, you must produce a recognisable figure of a character that has either not had an official or unofficial figure made of them or has, but you want your own version.

Any scale, any genre – your choice. You want to paint up a GW Imperial Commissar as Marshal Law? Go ahead! You want to sculpt the ultimate version of Venom? Go for it! You want to use a discarded Hulk action figure head to make a 28mm version of M.O.D.O.K.? Um… I may have beaten you to it…

If you want to take part, just drop a comment on here and I’ll add you to the blogroll. Your first post should introduce the character, as if it’s a touch obscure (like when I did Bananaman) people may not know who it is.

Any questions regarding this, feel free to ask. At the end of the day, it’s all about having fun, so no need to take it too seriously and, if you do rake part, at the end of June, you’ll have a unique figure that no one else has.

Roll on Forgotten Heroes 2022!

The Call of the Wild

As June is creeping ever closer, I thought I really ought to sit down and get my Wendigo finished before the end of May – especially as I failed to complete my monsters for last year’s Monster May(hem).

And as Forgotten Heroes 2021 is due to start on the 1st June, I need to clear the decks for that project.

Work stuff got in the way, as it does, along with this side project:

That’s right, baby, more beer! 5 gallons of Irish Stout to be precise. I may have strayed a little from the recipe – by adding a tin of dark treacle to the mix – but I am confident this won’t fuck it up.

Well, as confident as I can be, bearing in mind this is only my second brew.

Anyway, enough beer talk, on to the monster…

When we last saw it, it looked like this;

I decided that a Burnt Umber wash was called for on the entire model, as this should give a good base for the next step.

This does work a treat combined with the Linen I used for the bones and antlers, as it does give an aged bone look.

It also tones down the Chocolate Brown I’d used for the base and gave some shading to the model.

Once this had dried, I broke of the White paint and a small sponge. This was used to gently dab all exposed parts of the monster, which gave a bit of a mottled appearance to the plain bits and acts as dry-brushing on the raised parts.

I then moved on to the base, dry-brushing with Jungle Green, Goblin Green and Orc Brown to give the impression of vegetation.

The teeth and exposed rib cage were given a wash of hand mixed pink, and the ‘mane’ given a wash of Marine Dark Blue. The latter was not watered down quite far enough, so out came the sponge again to mottle the fur.

The final touches were to add some Cherry Red to the lower jaw and the tips of each clawed hand, to suggest that the spirit of cannibalism had been rooting around in someone’s chest cavity and paint the eyes with Classic Gold, as when you’re driving at night and your headlights pick out a deer or fox by the roadside, it does look like their eyes are glowing gold.

I think the sponging has worked quite well, as it has added some texturing to what was a flat surface and also makes it looks like it has been dusted with snow, which is appropriate given that it is a creature of the Great White North.

Pretty pleased with how it turned out, as it does look suitably horrific.

My next post will be the first for Forgotten Heroes 2021, which with be the 6th year we’ve indulged in this madness, where I shall be introducing my chosen subject and explaining how I intend to create him.

Joining me this year (so far) are Dave from Wargamessculptors Blog, Simon from Fantorical, Roger from Rantings from Under the Wargaming Table, Keith from Dead Dick’s Tavern & Temporary Lodging, Alan from Golden Age Heroes and Harry from War Across the Ages. They will ge joined by Matt from PM Painting and Tom from The Good Ground.

So, to paraphrase Cap “Assemblers… Assemble!”

And if anyone else wants to get involved, just comment on this post and I’ll add you to the list.

“A Kind of Desolate and Terrible Odour…”

Whilst players of the tabletop RPG Call of Cthulhu may be aware of the Great Old One named Ithaqua the Wind-Walker, it is less likely that they may have read the original tale by Algernon Blackwood that this entity is based upon, The Wendigo, from which the above quote comes.

And as my entry for The Angry Piper’s Monster May(hem) challenge is ParagonStar’s version of this creature, I thought it appropriate.

However, whilst we are two weeks into this challenge, I have been somewhat lax in getting anything done…

So, first order of the day was to water down some PVA glue, then paint this all over the base. This was then sprinkled with sand, then left to dry.

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Once dry, the entire model was given a coat of GW Corax White, which is a pale grey.

I then tried painting the antlers and exposed bones with Docrafts Linen, but discovered that it had partially dried up, so the first coat was too thin, so repainted them with Docrafts Blanc (i.e. white).

The base was then painted Docrafts Chocolate Brown.

Deciding that the antlers and exposed bones looked too white, I added some water to my Docrafts Linen to rejuvenate it – successfully – and repainted them, then painted the rest of the body in Docrafts Light Grey, which is actually darker than the Corax White.

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So, due to the issues with repainting, whilst I spent a long time on this model, it doesn’t look like I’ve actually done very much.

However, unlike last year, I will finish the challenge this time – and then it’s on to Forgotten Heroes 2021 in June! For further details on that, take a look at my previous post.

A Monstrous Wait

It has been a while since I’ve posted on the Buffet, due to issues with work, but Keith over at Dead Dick’s Tavern & Temporary Lodgings has tempted me back to my hobby bench with Monster May(hem).

Having looked through my box of unpainted miniatures, I decided that the figure that best suited the description of a monster was this one;

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This the Wendigo from ParagonStar, which I bought a while ago to see if resin 3D printed figures were actually any good – plus it’s a cool looking version of this creature.

As this particular resin-printed figure is relatively smooth, the challenge will be to try and give it some texture. I shall be doing this by adding some fine sand to the base and using sponging on the figure itself. We shall see how successful I am.

Now, as people who regularly follow this blog will know, I don’t usually back Kickstarters – however, I have actually backed my first one today.

This is because I have been following the development of these figures on this guy’s blog and felt that they fit the aesthetic I wanted for my Distant Stars project, as they remind me of the Bespin cloud car pilots.

So, the 1000ft General has released his first Kickstarter for his Astro Guards, which can be found here. The lowest pledge level is $40, which gets you 9 metal miniatures, all different, as shown below.

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He has already met and exceeded the amount he needed – not bad seeing it only went up today. I think they’re pretty damn cool and as they will be delivered around my birthday, I consider this as an early present.

Now, as the rules of Monster May(hem) mean that I have to complete my monster before the end of May, it won’t be as long between this post and my next.

You’d Better Watch Out…

As regular visitors to the Buffet will know, I am rather fond of the macabre and this tends to reflected in my gaming, with supernatural aspects creeping in to most projects I get myself involved in.

In the lead-up to Christmas, I found my mind turning towards the darker legends associated with this feative period and a craving for… the Krampus.

For those of you unfamiliar with this seasonal figure, the Krampus is a counterpoint to the jolly gift-bringer that is Saint Nicholas, being a hairy horned being, with fangs and cloven hooves, who carries a birch switch with which to punish naughty children and a basket to carry off those who have been especially bad.

And this being has it’s own day, namely the 5th December – Krampusnacht – where the Krampus visits those who’ve been bad and gives them coal.

An ideal holiday horror for a Christmas-themed game, so where to find such a figure?

There are actually a few options, but I’m disregarding the one from Titan Forge, as it looks more like some kind of demonic jester and the one from ParagonStar, as it looks too demonic in my opinion, so I’ve only included those I think accurately represent this folkloric being.

My first option is that produced by Reaper Miniatures as part of their Chronoscope range;

This is available from their webstore for $7.49, which works out at about £6.81. They do another version, which is nicer, but that clocks in at $17.99, so is a little expensive as far as I’m concerned.

Next is that produced by Shortwars as part of their Twisted Christmas range;

Now, this one is a touch more expensive at £13.00, but does come with a choice of right arms, so you can choose between the traditional birch switch or a staff and does stand 55mm tall, so is a pretty substantial beast.

The final option and one I’ll be going for myself is from the new Blitzkringle range from Killer B Games;

Standing at approximately 45mm tall and coming with a separate basket to be mounted on his back, this figure is a very reasonable £6.00.

And if you want to swell the ranks of your mythical Christmas entities, you can also purchase the Ghost of Saint Nicholas at £3.50 and a pack of three figures representing Pere Fouettard, Knecht Ruprecht and Belsnickel for £10.00.

Having contacted Craig at Killer B Games directly, I do know he is planning on adding some additional folkloric figures from other Mythologies to the Blitzkringle range, although the Russian Ded Moroz or Granfather Frost probably won’t be quite as imposing as Jakub Rozalski’s version;

A Merry Christmas to all – and to all a good night!

Flesheater of the Forests

“The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Its body was unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, giving off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”

— Basil Johnston, Ojibwe teacher and scholar, Ontario, Canada

I think Basil conjures up a rather eerie description of the Wendigo – and one I shall be using when I paint up this chap;

Ordered from Paragon Star on Wednesday, confirmation of shipping sent on Friday, turned up this morning. Not a bad turn around, all-in-all.

“But Jez,” I hear you cry, “what’s the figure actually like?” Well, I have to admit to being somewhat impressed.

Those of you who have ever ordered or bought a 3D printed piece of terrain or figure will know that the process, no matter how high-spec the printer, always leaves striations or lines on the figure. The lower the specification of the 3D printer, the more obvious and raised these layer lines are. The advantage of resin printing (says the 5-minute Google “expert”) is that each layer is made from liquid resin, which remains liquid until such time as it is cured under UV light. What this apparently means is that there is no obvious layering and the surface of the miniature is smooth, similar to resin miniatures cast in the traditional way.

So, as you can see from the pictures, the surface of the figure is remarkably smooth and pretty well-detailed. As I picked a figure that has not got a particularly textured surface, I cannot really comment on how well this process depicts fur, chains or wood, like some of the other figures produced by this company.

The resin used seems similar to other modern resin figures I have, being a little flexible, non-brittle and with no noticeable odour.

I only have one very minor complaint, in that the figure I received had a crack in the base, running from the front right of the base for about 15mm towards the centre. Not enough to jeopardise the integrity of the figure and easily filled, but just a small niggle.

To be honest, looking at this particular figure for any length of time, does kind of remind me of the character of Jon Talbain, the werewolf from the Darkstalkers video game;

However, I don’t think I’ll be replicating this colour scheme.

Weirdly, this figure has tiny wee legs, although they are split like the arms, so forked four legs.

Now, I ordered the 40mm base version of this figure, which means that that from base to horn-tip, this beastie is 70mm tall. Which makes it quite imposing when compared to a standard 28mm figure, like the 13th Doctor below;

“Legend of the Algonquians? I think you’ll find it’s ACTUALLY an alien. Trust me – they all turn out to be aliens in the end…”

Now, how does it compare size and cost-wise with other manufacturers’ products?

In the picture below, we have a Graveyard Golem from the Reaper Bones range in their polymer plastic on the left, at approximately £5.00. In the centre, the Paragon Star Wendigo in their printed resin, at £7.69 and on the far right, The Strawman from Crooked Dice (sans arms, as I’ve not yet assembled him yet) in normal resin, at £15.00.

Once the Wendigo realised that the “Strawman” was actually made from Shredded Wheat, it ate its arms…

If we compare the three, the Reaper Bones figure (and by extension Nolzurr’s Marvelous Miniatures) will be the cheapest option for your big monster needs, but not by a great margin. Normal resin figures will usually be about twice the price, but I would hazard a guess (purely based on the figure I chose) that the intricate detail of a sculpt may be better.

However, the BIG advantage of the resin printed figures is you can choose what size you want. I went for a 40mm diameter base, because I calculated that this would be the “correct” size for this monster. As there are 8 size options, going from 30mm up to 150mm diameter bases and the largest size is £29.99, I think it’s a cost-effective way to get a specific monster at exactly the size you want.

“Swamp Thing” anyone?

Forgotten Heroes, Hidden Monsters

Unlike last month, June in the UK has decided we’ve had far too much nice weather and we’re due some colder temperatures and some rain. Which means that whilst the easing of Lockdown means that you can have visitors in your garden, they’re probably going to get a bit soggy.

However, as June is also Forgotten Heroes month, the inclement weather means that you can stay inside and work on your fictional creations.

As we’ve had a few additional people express a desire to take part, I thought I’d list the participants first, before getting on to the meat of this post.

Dave over at Wargamesculptors Blog has cracked on with his A.B.C. Warriors, completing both Zippo and Hammerstein.

Roger at Rantings From Under the Wargames Table has made an impressive start on his conversions of a couple of cheap plastic toys into Battle Cat and Panthro from Masters of the Universe – to accompany the other characters he has created over the years from this franchise. I still need to add a few more to my own collection – I mean, who doesn’t need a 28mm version of Buzz Off?

Alan has decided to continue his A-Z of Golden Age Heroes, completing the entry for ‘F’ with Fiery Mask, an obscure Timely/Marvel hero… and no doubt will produce a few more before the end of the month.

The other participants have yet to put up their first post, but I’m sure these will follow shortly;

Keith at Dead Dick’s Tavern & Temporary Lodging, Harry at War Across the Ages and Wampley at Wampley’s Castle.

Roy has unfortunately bowed out, due to personal reasons, and we all wish him well and hope he can join us next year. As for Keith Frye, due to the wonders of time travel, did manage to complete his entry three months before the actual start of Forgotten Heroes – so unfortunately, it doesn’t actually count. However, I would go and have a look at his conversion of Col. Virginia Lake from U.F.O., as it is really good.

So, my plan is to turn this Artizan Designs figure (from the Thrilling Tales range, which strangely seems to have vanished from their website);

Into my version of the Eighth Doctor.

So, first order of the day was to sort out the revolver, as whilst the Doctor has used firearms on one or two occasions, he is not renowned for regularly carrying a weapon. Using a pair of needle-nosed pliers, I carefully bent the main body of the revolver upwards, until it was in the right position. Then using a flat needle file, the chamber and bulk of the revolver was filed down, until I had a column of metal extending from his hand, which will become the Eighth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

However, in it’s initial state it was too long, looking more like a wand than a sonic screwdriver. Looking at the figure with his “wand”, I realised that he now kind of looked like Newton Scamander from the Fantastic Beasts franchise;

So, if you want a “Wizarding World” proxy, this might work out a bit more affordable than an official Knight Models miniature…

As the wand was too long, this was trimmed down and the end rounded to be more sonic-y and less wand-y. However, during this process, I’d failed to notice that my handling of the figure had bent it a bit out of shape. This is due to the fact that the top part of the figure is fairly hefty, with the flapping coat being solid metal, whilst the figure’s ankles are quite slender – therefore being the weak point on this model.

After carefully straightening the figure up, the base was filed flat and glued to a standard 25mm plastic base, as all my other incarnations of the Doctor are based in this way. The integral metal base was then blended in to the plastic base with Milliput. As my intention was to try and replicate the knee-high lace-up boots that the Eighth Doctor wore prior to his regeneration AND this was a weak point on this model, some Milliput was added to and smoothed around the bottom half of the legs.

For some reason, this took far longer than normal and was scraped off and reapplied a couple of times, until I was happy with the ‘look’. I then left it to dry overnight.

Revisiting the figure the following morning, I realised that his boots were a little thick, so using various shaped needle files, I filed down both the Millput top layer and, where necessary, the underlying metal, until I reached a point that I was happy with.

This is the result so far:

I think the boots may need some further reshaping before the first lick of paint goes on, but I’m reasonably happy so far.

Right, that’s the “Forgotten Heroes” part dealt with… what about the “Hidden Monsters?”

Whilst I only managed to undercoat my monsters for Keith’s (Angry Piper) Monster May(Hem) challenge, I did enjoy visiting other participants websites to see what they’d done, one such being Matt’s PM Painting. He’d painted a Cloak Fiend, a figure I’d not seen before and was keen to find out where it was from, as I thought it was quite cool. I queried this on his blog, but did then use my Web-Fu – for my Web-Fu is Strong – to find it myself, discovering that it was a Reaper figure.

However… this also flagged up a couple of other figures with the “fiend” suffix, which led me to an Etsy shop called ParagonStar.

From what I could gather, this seller utilises a 3D resin printer to create gaming miniatures which can be in a variety of sizes, based on the diameter of the base – from 30mm up to 150mm, with 100mm and 150mm being printed in plastic, rather than resin.

Intrigued by the figure that had brought me to the site, I browsed the range (354 items), noting that figures started from £5.49 each, it was a UK based seller, so shipping was £2.99 and, whilst the pictures in the shop were renders, buyers had posted reviews with pictures of the ACTUAL models painted up.

Then I found this;

I have been searching for a decent miniature to represent the Jersey Devil for a very long time and I had now found one that I was happy with.

Using a steel rule and the ability to expand the view on my mobile phone, I worked out that in order for the figure to be the ‘right’ size for 28mm, it would need to be on a 40mm base, which meant that the figure would be about 35-40mm tall. This meant that the figure would be £7.69 + £2.99 shipping, so a total of £10.68. Based on the level of detail and size, this was a bargain compared to other figures.

However, I decided that before ordering THIS figure, I’d test the waters by ordering a different figure, so plumped for Paragon Star’s Wendigo, which was very reminiscent of the illustration of it that appeared in issue #138 of Dragon magazine, way back in the dawn of time…

Okay, so the Dragon version hasn’t got 4 arms, but Paragon Star’s one is pretty damn cool.

So, ordered last Wednesday and due to be delivered beginning of next week. Once it arrives, I will give it a full review and show everyone what it looks like compared to other figures. The seller is quite communicative, so if you have any questions prior to purchasing, send him a message. I asked what the height of the figures would be, based on a base size of 40mm and he came back the following day to advise, confirming my calculations.

As mentioned above, there are a LOT of monsters on there, and they are all non-standard – so while they may have a version of an Owlbear on there, it’s probably not what you’d expect – which is pretty cool. As long as the figure quality is decent, I may very well be ordering from there again. I’ve been needing a proper Jersey Devil for a while, but can I really resist getting a Keg Golem…?

Double Duty

It was my intention for my last post to be longer, but when I realised what the time was, I decided to cut it short.

So, let us continue looking at alternative figures for Doctor Who gaming in 28mm…

A while ago, Roger Webb very kindly gifted me with a bunch of rubbery plastic figures that were a giveaway with the Doctor Who Adventures magazine, which included the New Paradigm Daleks, but also a variety of other monsters from NuWho. The majority of these were in scale with 28mm figures, but the quality of the sculpts was variable.

However, the figures for both the Silence and the Weeping Angels were fairly acceptable, so on to two pence pieces they went.

First, the Silence;

These figures are about 45mm tall and only come in a single pose. The reason they’re leaning is because they’d been stored in a tin with other metal miniatures on top, prior to basing, and due to the nature of the plastic, they’ve deformed slightly. I’ll probably have to hot and cold water them, to get them to stand up straight.

Obviously, the pose isn’t particularly dynamic, but the Warlord ones aren’t really that much MORE dynamic;

If you bear in mind that the above three figures (which are 32mm scale don’t forget) are now £13.00, should I wish to bolster my Silence forces, I’d much rather support Attica Games, whose ESPchers have SIX different poses and you can get all 6 for £17.00.

The Weeping Angels come in two poses and were slightly taller initially, but as they’re supposed to be the same size as normal humans, I cut off about 3-4mm to make them a more sensible height;

Currently, they do look a bit rubbery and the left-hand angel’s arms are a little stumpy, due to the sculpt. However, with a decent paint-job, they can end up looking like this;

Not my work, but that of Michael Awdry of 28mm Victorian Warfare fame. I’ve only got one of each pose, and as the Crooked Dice one’s are OOP, I decided to bolster my forces with some of the Reaper Bones Angels of Sorrow;

You get both figures for a very reasonable £4.00 and I think they should match well with the others.

Now, one of the character’s introduced during the 10th Doctor’s run was River Song, who made her first appearance in the 2008 episode “Silence in the Library”, portrayed by Alex Kingston. She spent the entirety of that episode dressed in a spacesuit, like so:

Now, whilst Crooked Dice do still sell a figure based on River’s first appearance – ARC Astronaut C for £4.00;

This doesn’t really represent the sassy, confident River of later episodes, and as Crooked Dice’s “Melody Lake” is OOP, I had to search elsewhere.

Such as Bombshell Miniatures Counterblast range and Science Officer Helen Salinger;

Available in the UK from Westwind Productions, it’s a little pricier than I’d normally pay for a figure, being £7.00, but it’s such a spot-on version of the character, I’m prepared to pay a little more…especially as I bagged a bargain on my next figure(s).

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was looking for additional minions for my vampiric count, to bedevil those stalwart men in blue from the Black Museum. I ended up going for the Myrmourn Banshees, as they were being offered at a reduced rate via the Mortal Realms part-work.

However, had I given the GW website a thorough browse, I would have discovered these “beauties”;

These are Ur-Ghuls, which are sightless horrors associated with the Drukhari – in other words, space ghouls that hang around with space dark elves. Anyway, you can buy a single metal Ur-Ghul from Games Workshop…for £12.00. Your other alternative is to buy the Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress boxed game from GW, in which you get the four plastic Ur-Ghuls above. Of course, that’s £95.00, but you do get a bunch of other stuff too…

“But surely you mentioned a bargain, Jez?” I hear you cry. Well, as with most big boxed games, certain enterprising people will buy the game, then break it down into its component parts and sell them on eBay or other sites. So, I managed to pick up the four Ur-Ghuls above for £6.45 including shipping. That works out as about £1.61 a figure, so…BARGAIN!!!

And I will be using them in an upcoming Doctor Who adventure AND probably on the streets of Blackwell too – which explains the title of this post.

Until next time, have fun everyone and stay healthy.

The Order of the White Rose

Since the horrifying events of that fateful night the previous October, Dr. Wilton Hume had devoted his considerable intellect and resources to tracking down those responsible for the death of his grand-daughter, Susan. And, being one of the foremost eminences in the study of the Un-Natural, his network of contacts and associates extended far beyond the shores of Britain, to the darkest recesses of the Continent.

RSF08 Chrononaut Grandfather, Miniature Figurines – £3.95

 

Based on the telegram he held in his trembling grasp, his dedication to this cause had borne fruit, at it appeared the Count had finally shown his hand… in Wisborg, of all places.

Unnatural History

Anyone who has visited one of the big museums, such as the British Museum or the Natural History Museum in London, will know that not only are they filled with cool and interesting things, but they…are…HUGE. I’m not just talking about the exteriors, but once you walk in through the front doors, you find yourself within a cool, marble-floored hall, whose ceiling and walls stretch away from you – almost to infinity. This sense of scale, of grandeur, is deliberate, as it puts you in the right frame of mind to full appreciate the artefacts that you will shortly be viewing.

Now, back in 2009, Sony released Ghostbusters: The Video Game across various home console platforms, including PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii. There were two ‘versions’ of the game – realistic and stylised – depending on which console you had, but the general plot was the same.

It was set in New York in 1991 and the Ghostbusters, with the addition of a new “Experimental Weapons Technician” (controlled by the player), attempted to thwart the convoluted plan of Ivo Shandor to return from beyond the veil and complete the work he had begun back in the 1920’s.

Now, unlike a lot of the games published under the Ghostbusters banner, the script and story for this had been created by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, and featured the actual vocal talents of the majority of the original cast, including the notoriously reclusive Bill Murray.

And it was awesome, especially on the Wii, as you actually felt like you WERE a Ghostbuster.

You may be wondering how this video game and my introduction regarding museums are related to one another…or to wargaming, which is the purpose of this blog and probably why you’re here in the first place. All WILL be explained, so read on.

So, one of the levels of this game featured the American Museum of Natural History, star of the first Night in the Museum movie and novel Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (NB: the movie based on the latter – The Relic (1997) – whilst not too bad, moved the action to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, so not the same place.) You got to explore various parts of the museum and bust a variety of supernatural menaces along the way.

This got me thinking that having a tabletop representation of a museum – a museum ‘board’ if you will – would be a great location to play a variety of games on. A heist of a valuable artefact could be thwarted by costumed vigilantes or uniformed police; a group of stalwart, square-jawed adventurers could sneak in to prevent cultists from opening a portal to another dimension and releasing some squamous horror; paranormal exterminators or meddling teens could investigate and eliminate a haunting, whether real or faked. Just think of all the movies you’ve seen that have featured a museum or art gallery as a major location and think of what fun YOU could have with your figures, if you had one yourself…

Now, I am aware that Sally 4th does as part of their Terra Blocks range, under the sub-heading of Exotic Locations, The Museum of Antiquities, which is constructed from 17 100mm cubes, that can be rearranged to your heart’s content, for £17.50.

However, whilst nice, this doesn’t really convey the scale of the big museums to me, so I sat on this idea for a while until I had one of my unbelievably genius ideas. You may be somewhat sceptical at this point, but just you wait and see…

Right, first thing you need is a box, but not just any box. You need a box that is pretty big, robust and deep. I was initially going to use a box file for this, as they’re pretty cheap and easy to get hold of wherever you happen to be in the world, but then remembered that Ikea do black storage boxes for a very reasonable £2.00 each. Obviously, being Ikea, you’ve got to build them yourself, but no tools are necessary, as these are the only parts you get:

As you can see from the instruction sheet, this box is called ‘Tjena’, and comes in three parts; the pre-assembled lid, the sides and folded bottom and a flat insert to go in the bottom of the box for added stability. The box is 13 3/4″ long, 9 3/4″ wide and 4″ tall (or 35cm, 25cm and 10cm, if you use Metric) and looks like this once you’ve built it;

You can now see why you have a insert, as the folded part of the base of the box means it hasn’t got a flat bottom.

Each one of these boxes will represent one hall within our museum, so depending on how large you want your museum to be depends on how many boxes you buy. As each ‘hall’ is only £2.00 (in the UK at least), your playing area and budget will dictate how many halls your museum has.

Once you’ve decided how many halls you are going to have and the approximate layout, you need to cut openings in the relevant walls of your halls, so that the visitors can move between halls. Make sure that the openings in each hall are the same size, so that when you put them together, they marry up. I have decided that as my museum may have exhibits such as prehistoric animals or modern art in the form of giant plastic pigs, the openings need to be 3″ wide and this hall will have three openings, so I cut these out.

The reason I did this first is because whilst the box, insert and lid are coloured black, the card it’s made from isn’t, so the cut parts show the original colour of the cardboard it’s made from. As the next stage involves paint, it’s better to have all the bits you’re going to paint on show at the same time.

As museums tend to have neutral coloured walls, out came my £4.00 can of Wilko ‘Soft Taupe’ spray paint and the interior walls (and the cut parts showing the base card colour) were given a liberal coat, then left to dry whilst I moved on to the next part. And this is what it looked like once it was dry.

However, whilst it was drying, I tackled the ‘floor’. The idea here was to cover the card insert with suitably patterned self-adhesive decorative vinyl. Having found a role of said product that featured 1 inch squares, that looked like floor tiles (and is actually fairly similar to the tiled floor of the British Museum) in Poundland, I thought it would be ideal.

So, I cut a section big enough to cover the insert and overlap the edges, peeled of the backing paper and carefully applied the sticky-back plastic to my card insert, like so;

As the walls of my hall were now dry, I simply dropped my floor into place and had the first of my basic museum halls completed;

And to give a sense of scale, here’s Jake Hudson of the local Ghostbusters franchise facing off against some Oriental beastie stalking the halls of the Rookhaven Museum of Natural History;

Now, it’s not complete, as I am intending on adding skirting boards, light switches and power outlets to the walls, to make it look more ‘real’, but I wanted to get this up on the blog so others could see just how simple, quick and inexpensive creating a large interior space to play in was. It doesn’t need to be a museum – it could be ANY interior. And it doesn’t need to be a room this size – it could be easily divided up into smaller rooms, to represent a secret base or a prison or…well anything YOU need.

And, once you’re done playing, pop the lid on and stack it up with the other halls you’ve built. Robust, quick and easy to build and store, and cheap.

Genius.

‘Nuff said.