Dusty Old Camper Van for Shanty Town

The ubiquitous VW Camper van can be found in just about any corner of the world. This one, to be found in my African Shanty town, is in reasonably good repair, except for a little rust and dirt. It's more than capable of transporting a fire team or two of my African militia, as long as they can get it started.

Another Disney Cars vehicle. This one required a bit of green stuff to fill in its mouth, just above the bumper, but that was it.

Beat-up Banger for African Shanty Town

Here's my latest bit of scenery for my African slum- A rusty old car. This car is well past its sell by date, but some ingenious mechanic has managed to keep it serviceable, just about, by retooling parts from other cars and welding flattened-out oil cans to the body to repair the holes. More rust that car, its unlikely to provide much cover in the event of a fire fight.This one was another Disney Cars vehicle. He was called 'Fred'. I am not very familiar with the films but I think he was a character in a spin off TV series. The only conversion I had to make was to re-sculpt the front bumper (fender) with green stuff, as it was twisted into a goofy smile. Very heavy rust and weathering seemed the order of the day.

Ray Gunn: Soldier of the Future!

A while ago, when I posted the dastardly Doctor Dust, Jay asked to see Dust's nemesis, Ray Gunn. It's take me this long to get round to digging Gunn out, dusting him off and photographing him. Anyway, preamble over, here is my favorite pulp hero Ray Gunn: Soldier of the Future.

Ray Gunn is a pulp ere hero who found himself trapped in the early twentieth century after falling through a time portal while fighting forces of the Potentate of Mars in the twenty third century. Ray Gunn uses his superior scientific knowledge, along with his trusty pistol and two fists, to right wrongs and protect the weak.

The figure is a Heresy crewman, with a gun swap. The retro style gun is on one of the Heresy weapons sprues. I painted this a while ago, and I think it shows. My painting technique has really improved in the last couple of years since I have been photographing my figures and blogging about them. These something about blowing up a 28mm mini to seven inches high that really shows the areas you need to improve on. That said, I love this little guy, not least because he has got the coolest pulp hero name ever!

Look What I Found in Poundland!

Usually, when you look in bargain basement shops, you usually find tat. Every once in a while, you find a real gem. I was in Poundland a week or two ago, looking for cars that might scale OK with my 15mm zombies. (Poundland, to any readers out of the UK, is a shop where everything they sell is £1). Anyway, I managed to find these lovely not-Hummers, and they are in perfect 28mm scale. Some have sirens/flashing lights on the top, while others are in an army style. Needles to say, I cleared the shelf.

Here's a pictures with a 28mm Copplestone figure so you can get a feel for the size.

Although they are nice enough as they are I will be repainting them to suit my 28mm African terrain, probably as part a government motorcade. It's easy to see these lovely models used in any modern or near future setting, such as Pulp City, or a Zombie incursion. I might pop back next week to see if they have got any more.

Ulric Bloomen: Agent for Hire (KKBB)

The world is full of unsavory characters willing to sell their services to the highest bidder. This is a resent pictures of Ulric Bloomen, a former East German spy, who now works as a freelance agent and assassin.

Another Copplestone KKBB figure, and a particular nice one. I always love painting Mark Copplestones stuff- he is by far my favorite sculptor when it comes to painting- his stuff might not be that dynamical posed, but his clean lines, lack of clutter and his characterful faces are always fun to paint.
My instinct when I picked up this figure was to painting him in dowdy colours, perhaps a grey or navy jacket etc, but I fought the urge and adopted my KKBB mantra- 'Brighter is better'- and opted for lime green. I am delighted with the result, a this figure immediately stands out from my VBCW figures with his unlikely choice of coat. Not very inconspicuous form a spy, I will grant you, but I think it has a cool retro Austin Powers look to it. So far I am pleased with the way my colours are coming out with this range.

Evil Genius and Goons (KKBB)

Since my good lady wife bought me the entire range of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (KKBB) stuff for Christmas, I have been painting a few of them, just to try out some ideas.

KKBB is based on the old spy movies and TV series from the sixties and seventies, like James Bond and The Man from UNCLE. Drawing on this source, and the spoof movie Austin Powers, I have opted to paint my KKBB stuff very colourful. This will also be a nice change from my VBCW painting, which, being set in 1938, has used very dowdy and dull colours.

Here is my first KKBB post. Evil genius Doctor Helmut Von Kriegg, megalomaniac scientist dedicated to world domination, along with some of his jump-suited henchmen and, of course, his pet Persian cat, Mr Pickles.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a range of miniatures jointly sculpted and manufactured by Artizan Designs and Copplestone Castings. Here the evil genius was from Artizan, and the henchmen from Copplestone.

Obviously there is some cross-over potential to my to my

four-colour stuff here too. The henchmen could easily be employed by a super villain, which is useful.

Good News Crossover

Just a quick note- Crossover Miniatures, the kick start company I blogged about earlier in the week, has just managed to raise the requisite $4000 they needed to begin production. I would like to congratulate those involved, and wish I could have contributed financially too. I am eager to see what comes of Crossover Miniatures, and will be following them avidly over the next few months.

Well done chaps.

African Shanty Town Shops

Once more inspired by the excellent Call of Duty MW3, I have built this row of shops form my African shanty town. It is inspired by the market scene in the missions 'Back on the Grid' and 'Fatal Extraction'. The building in notably more up-market that the shanties, and reflects the fact that the shop owners have got a little bit more resources than their poor neighbours.



Its a two story building with a flat roof and a balcony. Access to the roof is either up a ladder on the side or up a stairwell inside. The roof and the first floor are removable to allow figures to be place inside.

I know it's not quite a shanty, but even in shanty towns you are going to have to go some where to buy your food and AK47 ammunition. It adds a bit of height to the battle field, and as it is one of the only brick build structures in the area, I am sure it will be a desirable objective in a fire fight.

I am going to add some market stalls, and build the dilapidated church that also features in those COD: MW3 missions.

I can even remove the balcony floor all together and opt for a single story building with a flat roof.

Crossover Miniatures

A new start up model company has very recently come to my attention producing four colour superheroes and villains, in 28mm scale. This company is called Crossover Miniatures. As far as I know they are based in the USA. Here's some of their greens from their range. They plan to make 8 models, with interchangeable heads, plus a pack of four thugs and henchmen.



The sculpting standard so far looks very high, and the whole thing looks quite exciting. The thing is with this company, they want people to pledge money, presumably to contribute towards the start up cost, and in return you will receive some miniatures.

I have come across this start up pledge thing before, but have never participated. It seems like a good idea to me. The chaps running this one have just 13 days left to raise their target of $4000, and so the pressure is on!

Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, not least my wife loosing her job, I am not in a position to join in with this offer, although I would be tempted if I had a few spare $$$. I really want this project to succeed and get of the ground, and so all I can do is blog about it and hope that some one else who read this blog might be in a better situation than I and can help with the pledge.

Why not check out Crossover Miniatures at their website here.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/211492152/crossover-miniatures-a-new-superhero-miniature-lin

Disclaimer- I have no connection with Crossover Miniatures whatsoever. I am just an interested gamer spreading the word about an existing new project. Any questions, comments or queries should be directed to Crossover Miniatures.

Happy New Year

As this is the first post of 2011, I feel it is customary to offer a quick review of the year, and to outline the planed projects form the next 12 months.
As far as the blog goes, it continues to go from strength to strength. In January 2010 I had 3 followers; in 2011 I had 33. Now I have 68, including many loyal followers who regularly post comments, which is fantastically encouraging to me.
My mate Leon often is often playfully critical that the content of the blog has deviated away from the core content, four colour superheroes and villains, and it has, to an extent, as I have began to include other projects I have been working on. 2011 saw more VBCW, a few pulp heroes, more zombies, some more sci-fi, 15mm zombies, flames of war, and of course my new obsession, the African shantytown. That said, 29 of the 95 blog entries last year were, in some way, related to four colour superheroes, so that’s still a strong theme.
My plans for 2012, apart from preparing for the forth coming end-of-the-world by stocking up on zombie fighting equipment (somehow I am sure that the apocalypse will certainly include zombies), will be to complete the shanty town, then populate it with some African militias and some special forces for force-on-force; to add more 15mm zombies and some police to my collection, and to build more cardstock buildings for my zombie survivors to fight over (a mall or a hospital seem likely); my VBCW army will be expanded too, starting with the royalist defenders of Chester, although I have plenty of ideas for the Wirral Socialist Council too. Of course, I will continue to add more super-powered core content to the blog as the year goes on.
One exciting new project for 2012, and one I know Brummie is going to enjoy, is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (KKBB). KKBB to the uninitiated is a range of retro-spyfi miniatures produced by Copplestone Casting and Artizan Designs, reflecting the golden age of spy movies like James Bond, Man from UNCLE and the Avengers. Luckily for my, by wife was kind enough to buy the entire KKBB range for me for Christmas, and soe I will certainly be rolling them out throughout the year, along with some suitable scenery (doomsday devices and shark pools seem inevitable!). Gaming-wise, Leon and I plan on using 7TV, but I haven’t read the rules yet, so I couldn’t comment on the game. So there you go. One year down and another stretching out ahead of us (well until all that business with the zombies at least). I hope this year brings you all you want, and thanks for reading.