July Painting Summary

Not a good month. In fact a month of painting frustration more than anything. I finished Gentleman Sniper and did Twilight pretty quickly (for me - it is all relative!), and did some work on Iron Train, but put him to one side as I am still struggling to get to grips with NMM.

So I started on four Necro GI's (two spare for when they convert hapless Citizens etc.), I thought I'd try and employ the approach that allowed me to finish the Sentry Bots fairly quickly, yet this time things have just not worked well. The Necro GI's have taken me most of the last week or so in terms of any painting time, and a lot of that is covering mistakes, covering stuff I am unhappy with and worst still touching up after dropping them, knocking them over - you name it, if it can be done to chip the paint I have done it with these four. So clumsiness has played a part in limiting my painting progress, but there have been a couple of diversions as well.

On the writing front I have finally finished up an interview I conducted with Maciej (of Pulp Monsters) a few months ago, and so hope that will be available somewhere soon. I have been doing some other writing-related 'work' as well, making a small contribution to something that will be visible sometime around August-September; more on that closer to the time.

Anyway, here is hoping for a better month next month, and finally finishing these Necro GI's...

JLA - Grant Morrison's Tenure (an era of big superheroics)

I love that Grant Morrison works in comics. I consider myself a fan of his, not a completest, but a fan nonetheless. In saying that, I don't agree with all of his storytelling choices, or that everything he does is great or even 'just' good, but instead that when he hits a note that resonates with me, it is in a way that I think is brilliant. I'd include work of his like Zenith and currently Batman & Robin. And especially a book like JLA that he tackled in the late 90's.

Morrison oversaw the relaunch of DC's premier super-team - the Justice League of America - when re-launched in 1997. The concept had been altered and watered down in the preceding decade and a half, first jettisoning the 'big guns' - Superman, Batman (for a while), Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman etc. - then seeing a whole new direction with comedic overtones during the mid to late 80's. Morrison chose to reinvigorate the concept by returning to a 'big 7' line-up based on the original incarnation from 35 or so years earlier: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, J'Onn J'Onzz - the Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman. Not precisely the same characters, or the same as they had been characterised during the inception of the JLA, they represented the modern representation of that original incarnation. Primarily aided by Howard Porter and John Dell amongst others, Morrison made a decision to go back to basics and use that as a building block for big ideas. And it worked.

This JLA series covered the spectrum of big ideas, while trying to faithfully represent the core characters. The ideas covered everything from Earth-shattering threats, alien invasions, renegade angels, all manner of metaphysics, time travel, to multi-dimensional perceptions, military-political machinations, an enraged Earth, silver age-inspired silliness, as well as the more perfunctory alliance of villains plot. The great thing is that Grant Morrison tackled these concepts with verve and aplomb, and would do so over, 1 to 2 or 3 or however many issues he needed, making a dense read. Compared to many overly decompressed comics of the past decade, JLA today reads like the biggest comic book blockbuster brimming with ideas and a sense of purpose. It leaves many other modern books in its wake. Porter is not my favourite artist by any stretch, yet his style suited this era of big superheroics. The overall package they delivered creatively was and remains a great one in my view - a high watermark in mainstream superhero comics.


I have recently re-read much of the run through the JLA Deluxe collections (see pictures right for volumes 1 to 3), and highly recommend them to any superhero fan.



Characters and images are © 2010 DC Comics.

BOOM - Mentalist

While I continue to paint my remaining Pulp City minis (Twilight was finished yesterday; Necro GI's have had some more work today; Iron Train has some shading and highlighting done; C.O.R.E. has his main base colour; only 9 models currently remaining to paint), I thought I'd post another BOOM creation, this time with two cards to represent both Hero and Villain options.






[Click on card images for larger versions]
The Mentalist is intended to be a low-level psionic. I worked him up as a Support Minion, based on a model from Black Hat's Mutants and Madmen line. The mini was painted some time ago and re-based last year to be in-keeping with my Pulp City minis - something I will likely do again for a lot of models soon. Well soon-ish. To be honest I have a mountain of minis that I would like to re-base, but tackling that goal seems very daunting as a consequence of sheer volume.




[Click on card images for larger versions]
There are are two variations of this Minion as noted, one hero and Villain. The specific difference is that Support Minions have a differing specific ability depending on Faction. The other abilities are supposed to convey a minor telekinetic shield (Shield Generator), telekinetically enhanced movement (Levitation) and ESP (Target Acquired).

Welcome

The blog has another new Follower, this time bladelord123 who is also following the excellent 'Pulp City Planet'. As always i am very pleased to have someone else join the blog, so a big thank you.

Bits and pieces this week. Work continues on Twilight. Yesterday I splashed a base colour onto 4 Necro G.I.'s. Iron Train has most of his base colours blocked out and shading and highlighting begun on the predominant colour. Hopefully by Monday there will be some newly painted Supremes and maybe Minions to see.

Custom Cards - Take Two

Regular visitors may remember my disappointment when I received my first attempt at my own custom Resource cards recently. Undeterred, I tried again this time with ArtsCow. The difference in the two can be readily seen in the picture (picture right; ArtsCow deck is to the left, CustomStuff deck to the right).

Now I have ordered from ArtsCow (www.ArtsCow.com) previously, which is what inspired this little project. Larkin Vain, a fellow Pulp City enthusiast, and a moderator/member of the Pulp City Forum, made some cards of his own some time ago and I got a set of those. That in turn inspired me to create this deck for my own gaming.

With the various Minions I have created, I thought it was high time I made my own cards, and you have been seeing the fruits of that labour under the BOOM tag. So this deck has a number of my home brew Minions (using the BOOM rules), as well some other...stuff.

I can highly recommend ArtsCow, and thanks to some kind of offer/discount, I only paid shipping on this deck.

Then & Now (Photography)...

As I mentioned recently I have changed my photographic/lighting set-up recently. This has followed on from having to get a new digital camera this year (a unrelated issue, really). Of course it means getting used to a new set-up and hopefully sharpening my limited skills.



The upshot is that I am still getting used to the changes I am making, in terms of camera and subject positioning, backdrop (I prefer the new blue one), picture quality etc.

To that end I thought a quick sample of how I have hopefully made some improvement and progress may be of a little interest. These are the four stages of change in my miniatures photography, handliy having shot pictures of the same mini (Mourn) during each phase of my development.


PICTURE 1 (TOP): current set-up (yes not as well focused as I would like). Now using a small light tent type thing with two extra lamps with daylight bulbs point unfiltered into the subject area. I probably need at least one more daylight bulb in there.

PICTURE 2: the backdrop was actually pale-blue but usually showed up as off-white which I didn't like. Using daylight bulbs by this time.

PICTURE 3 (RIGHT): early set-up 'formula' - normal lamps (2x 40 W and 1x 60W I think), and the same backdrop as above (the subsequent set-up); the pictures were very yellow which required some manipulation using Picture Manager (for ease).

PICTURE 4 (BOTTOM): one of my earliest pictures; no use of macro function, no tripod, use of the flash rather than lamps! Oh dear! Here enthusiasm exceeded knowledge, understanding or experience, and so the fruit of my eagerness was this.

BOOM - Minotaur

This mini was finished long before I took up dice and brushes to play and paint in Pulp City in earnest. This Minotaur mini was originally based to accompany my extensive and somewhat eclectic mix of generic supers themed minis. When the BOOM rules came around, allowing players to make up their own Minions, then it seemed obvious to re-base the big fella.

Now even though my mocked-up card for the Minotaur indicates it can be either a Hero or Villain Minion, it seems most fitting as the latter. Furthermore, I can primarily see the Minotaur as some kind of follower of the Forgotten, since that Sub-Faction owes its origins to the classical Greek myths, which is where tabletop Minotaurs owe their lineage to also, of course.

As is the case with many of my BOOM creations the Minotaur has Solo, becoming a Character Minion. Add in Fury 1 and Deadly Rush and this is a Minion designed to be fairly effective in Close Combat. I envisage its Hurl Weapon Action as being objects picked up and thrown. It is tough like the Giant Ice Golem, but the Minotaur is nonetheless a bit faster on its feet since it doesn't have Slow.

The mini is from the Reaper Warlord line, simply with a weapon removed.