Night Fright & Leech (WiP)

These have been in my 'to do' pile for quite some time. What held me back for a few months was figuring out how I wanted the sky-board (Leech) to 'fly'; well that was resolved when I saw some smoke style special effects on Tabletop Art's site. I ordered a couple of packs and problem one solved.

Problem two as ever is my project inertia; this can hit at any stage of a project and kicked in before assembly began. Well, it has now resolved - getting six minis painted in December and three (so far) in January created some momentum and so yesterday I assembled this thing and gave it a spray under-coat.

Watch this space for completion (sooner than later I hope!).

Sgt. Bale Extreme

Two years and two months from my original post about my Sgt. Bale Extreme components and plans, here it is finished.

Click on the pictures to enlarginate.

I would not have finished this now if it was not for the 'miniature exchange' that Varagon arranged and orchestrated on the Pulp City Forum, so big thanks to him for creating a vehicle to get me motivated to paint it. I will definitely sign up for the next one!

I have added a comparison shot with my own Sgt. Bale as this will probably be the only time the two minis will ever be able to be seen together; Sgt. Bale Extreme will soon be winging his way across the Atlantic to its recipient.

I have really enjoyed this process and the deadline was a useful thing for me - I seem to work better with a deadline it seems.

It has been nice to see various Forum members who got involved posting their progress. If you get a chance to sign up for something similar, I heartily recommend it.

When the mini due to head my way is received, expect pictures of that too.

Two years and two months from start to finish? No time at all...

Sgt. Bale Extreme (6)

I think I have finished this. I say think, as I will need to have a second look in daylight in the morning to be sure. It is not yet varnished (which I will leave to dry for at least 24 hours once done), but the primary painting is done I feel, barring any last minute corrections.

Once I have rechecked the mini I will take some proper pictures with my lighting set-up before dispatching it to the USA to Beermonkey who it has been painted for.

This is the first time I have painted a mini for 'someone else', and the deadline for the exchange has been a good thing for me. Nice to finally have this done after sitting waiting painting for so long.

Sgt. Bale Extreme (5)

The latest update.

The deadline is next Sunday, 18th March. This week I have been feeling under the weather so have not achieved as much as I would like, but I made a start on the boots and flames - both need more work to finish.

More painting later today then.

Sgt. Bale Extreme (4)

Just a little update. The deadline for this is March 16th, but given the stop-start approach I have to painting I have done some small bits and pieces over the past couple of days.

It may not be obvious from the WiP picture, but the green fatigues have had washes and highlighting applied, so onto the boots or skin next.

Other WiP stuff is: Tengu Boss Zombie; a Reaper Chronoscope mini (Black Mist?); former US Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk.

Sgt. Bale Extreme (3)

Recently Varagon of the Pulp City Forum has organised a 'mini exchange', whereby participants all paint a mini for another participant.

I drew Beermonkey (a.k.a. my partner in crime Devon; we both help out with the Games Development side of things for Pulp City).

With the recent website and store access problems I was faced with the issue that I did not have any spares around of minis he does not have, so I wanted something special. After mulling it over for a few days, I remembered the Sgt. Bale Extreme conversion I began a couple of years ago (I know, I know...). So after more than 2 years, progress has started!

March 18th is the deadline for completion, which should be okay (famous last words...), so hopefully I will update the blog periodically with progress.

Pulp Monster Project Log (1)

Just like the stalled(!) Hadron Project Log, I thought I would start a Project Log to show any progress I may make with my Pulp Monster models.

The first picture shows a size comparison shot with Giant Hadron and Sgt. Bale!

The usual instruction to click on the pictures to embiggenicate them.

Obviously I have assembled the model, and created a base to mount it on (a recessed blank from Fenris Games, plastic-card for the main texture, sand to fill the remaining gap soon). So the first stages are complete. Cost me buying a brand new compass/circle cutter as I lost my original one somewhere in my recent house-move.

I selected parts that I hope will both fulfil by desire for a vaguely Ulthar-styled Monster, that can hopefully pass as an aquatic Beast (no doubt from ocean depths, whether from Earth or an Ulthar colony), or if not an Earthly or Ulthar creature, that could be considered otherworldly, an example of an arcane Elder menace.

The next stage will be gap-filling with Green Stuff; I had hoped to pick up some GW Liquid Green Stuff for that purpose, but my local store was out of stock when I went today. Missed sales? Therefore poor stock control? A post on a whole other tangent there.

Here Be Monsters...

Or "guess what the postie delivered today!"

2 Monster bodies, 4 heads, and lots of bits and bobs - good job I have a couple of weeks free methinks.

The parcel was a welcome sight as I want to get on with painting some new Pulp City stuff and it also contained the latest releases: Loup Garou II & Moonchild/Moon Coyote; Arquero & Riposte. Reinforcements for the Blood Watch and the Coven, as well as some new Hero/Villains - a good all-round mix then.

I just need to decide how I want to build these Pulp Monsters then, and which heads to use...

Giant Hadron Update [2]

This is the second update of Work In Progress on the Hadrons; as you can see I am slapping on the colours on all 3 together in order to try and preserve some uniformity as I go. The highlighting and shading will likely see differences, especially in amount applied and levels of contrast, but the basic colours are blocked out for now.

Giant Hadron offers some really big surface areas, so my base coat brush has been used predominantly on him. Compared to some of the 'big' Pulp City models on 40mm bases, he is not over-detailed, meaning the greatest challenge will be in achieving satisfactory highlighting and shading on a much bigger mini than I am used to painting.

As for the colour scheme? Well 3 of my favourite characters over the years have been Giant Man/Ant-Man/Goliath/Hank Pym, Colossal Boy (Legion of Superheroes; in his Dave Cockrum and Giffen and Lightle era outfits) and Atlas (from Thunderbolts). What all 3 have in common is that they have red and blue (or blue and red) costumes. add to that that I have chosen red and blue for my Hero palette theme, and it was a no-brainer to look to continue that.

Giant Hadron Update

Okay, after on and off de-flashing and cleaning up the Giant Hadron 'mini', and assembly of a base to hopefully fit in with the aesthetic of my Pulp City collection, Giant Hadron has now been glued to said base. See right for a size comparison picture using Lady Cyburn.

I plan to update this 'thread' as an ongoing blog Project Log.



The model was pretty cleanly cast with no bubbles, but it did need cleaning up, and I variously used my scalpel, an emery board, and a couple of needle files. Mostly I just had to gently carve away excess resin.

There are one or two areas that need to Green Stuff filling, but that will hopefully be quite straightforwards.





I have already (some months ago) started work on Captain Hadron and Mini Hadron, so when I get around to painting Giant Hadron I will pick up the work on those two and try and paint all three at the same time.

Working On...

I picked up a parcel at the Post Office depot today; inside were some minis, some cards and a book. And among those minis these:

Giant Hadron is a 'Direct Only' item from the Pulp Monsters web store; there will soon be more Direct Only items to add to this. He comes with a plain 80mm base (far right of picture), but I'll be using a Fenris base (far left) with self-made inserted texture in order to match the giant Reaper ape I painted a while back. The Captain Hadron and Mini Hadron are included to give a sense of scale. I am hoping to crack into this project in the next few days. The Challenge grows anew!

Sgt. Bale Extreme (2)

I had planned to assemble this conversion piecemeal, to do something when I didn't feel up to painting. Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy, or so they say*. In other words I built this in just an hour or so. So no time-filler on the painting challenge at this time, then.

At this stage some more green-stuffing is needed to fill a couple of gaps and build a finger on the M4 trigger. Overall I am happy with the basic construction. I could have tried to reposition the gun arm, but that would have been both tricky and would possibly have switched focus to the gun more than the flaming hand or skull.

I'll try and log the progress on this model as I finish various major stages. Next up is waiting for the weather to warm up enough to spray undercoat the model.


*They actually said:

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

And they was he, Field-Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, also known as Moltke the Elder. Note that Graf is a title, not a name. A seemingly pragmatic strategist and theoretician, von Moltke postulated that only the beginning of a military operation was plannable. Wise man, methinks.

Sgt. Bale Extreme - conversion (1)

I just thought I'd post a bit about a conversion I am going to start work on. It is a Pulp City mini, a copy of which (not converted) I have already started tentatively painting. But when a percolating idea met another inspiration from my main hobby buddy, then this idea was born.

I had seen Sgt. Bale converted to have a larger than equipped gun, which was an idea I liked a lot. The aforementioned gaming buddy (Rob - whose own blog can be found here: Four Colour Super Minis) had mentioned - over rather tasty sandwiches while out shopping - about using a flaming head from a Wyrd Miniatures basing and accessories pack on an unrelated conversion of his own.

Suddenly I had a eureka moment. Visualising at that moment the contents of the pack (I was pretty familiar with it) I thought the head and a couple of other pieces would nicely complement the Sgt. Bale model, as well as the planned conversion. Such was the birth of this mini project. Which means I am adding another mini to my Pulp City Painting Challenge log of models to get finished before the end of the year.

The components are:
- Sgt. Bale
- parts (flaming skull head, base insert, flame piece) from the Wyrd miniatures Flame Base & Accessories pack
- a RAFM USX Modern M4-type gun (yes they weren't in use until years after the Pulp City setting of the 1980's, but I think it looks cool!)