Saturday 7 July 2018

Assorted Heroines of Western Films 01

I have always been a big fan of Western films and I still am. In recent years I've noticed that more and more Westerns are featuring females in the starring roles, and this is a good thing in my opinion. I have already shown the two heroines from the film, Bandidos in action in my first Six Gun Sound batrep. In this post I want to show the figures I've collected for two more of my favourite Westerns - Bad Girls and The Quick and the Dead.
Bad Girls was made in 1994 and very briefly the film follows four former prostitutes on the run following a justifiable homicide and prison escape, who later encounter difficulties involving a bank robbery, a train robbery and being chased by Pinkerton detectives.
The four Bad Girls who aren't really that bad.
In this still from the film are the four Bad Girls, who are from left to right, Eileen Spenser (played by Andie MacDowell), Anita Crown (played by Mary Stuart Masterson), Cody Zamora (played by Madeleine Stowe) and Lily Laronette (played by Drew Barrymore).
These are the figures I've used to represent the gang and they all came from different companies. At the far left is the gang's leader, Cody Zamora. Cody is based on the Reaper Chronoscope figure, 50111 Diamond Sue Dawson, who costs £5.22 from the Miniature Heroes webstore. Diamond Sue Dawson was far too good a name not to use, so one of my Black Scorpion Tombstone ladies has adopted that name.
Next up is Eileen Spenser and her figure came from the Knuckleduster Gunfighter's Ball range and is GBF37 - Elly. I added her waistcoat, made out of Milliput, which was a really simple conversion. Her figure costs £3.50 from the Caliver Books webstore.
Second from the right is Anita Crown, and she was produced by Black Scorpion as one of four figures in the Tombstone Cowgirls 1 set, which sadly was just withdrawn from sale at the beginning of this month. I suspect that was because the new range of Tombstone Females were released at the same time, but that seems like a strange decision to me. Surely more choice is a good thing? I do wonder if these older figures will ever return? If not, that is a sad thing, but I'm glad I bought mine when I did.
The last figure in line is Lily Laronette produced by Belt Fed Gaming in foot and mounted versions. I've already shown her once before in this post, https://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/2018/05/belt-fed-wild-west-ladies-01.html However, she is worth showing again, only this time with her three cohorts.
I have created stat cards for these four to use in my Six Gun Sound games. I feel a team up with my two ladies from Bandidos would make for a fun game.

Sharon Stone as "The Lady" or Ellen
Another strong female lead who greatly impressed me was Sharon Stone's character known only as "The Lady" or Ellen from the 1995 film, The Quick and the Dead. The story focuses on "The Lady", a gunfighter who rides into the frontier town of Redemption controlled by corrupt mayor John Herod (played by Gene Hackman). She joins a deadly duelling competition in an attempt to exact revenge for the death of her father by Herod.
"The Lady" character is a popular figure for sculptors of Wild West miniatures. I know of three such figures and there may well be more. Probably the most well known of them is the Reaper Chronoscope figure - 50003 Cowgirl Ellen Stone. I do like how they have combined Sharon's surname with the character's first name. The only thing that prevented me from using that figure as "The Lady" was the fact that she was armed with a double-barrelled scattergun, which she never used in the film.
However, the figure I have chosen for my own Ellen Stone (somehow that name is so appropriate for her) is this new release from Black Scorpion. This is the female leader on foot and mounted from the Female Faction of the recent Tombstone Kickstarter range. I backed this project as soon as it was launched last year. As soon as I saw this figure, I knew that I wanted to use her as "The Lady".
I copied her colour scheme from the photo shown above. All of the leaders of the seven factions from the Tombstone skirmish game come in foot and mounted versions, which I do like a lot. This is a fantastic sculpt, very animated and a darned good likeness of Sharon Stone. As I said earlier, the female faction has only just gone on sale at the start of this month and the foot version of the female leader costs £4.50 and the mounted version costs £9.50. Expensive, I know, but they are high quality resin sculpts, full of detail.

30 comments:

  1. Great painting Bryan, strong female characters that aren't over sexualised is a good thing, like the female character in the latest version of magnificent seven, became strong through adversity. In fact they had some great characters in the film, even if the critics didn't like it

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    1. Thank you kindly, Dave. You make your point very well and I totally agree with you. Well said!

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  2. You may guess from the name I like all things western! You'd be correct! As such I do like your old west posts. These are great, we don't need to see bikini clad bimbos in the west. None of them were surgically enhanced and they were all real women able to support their man in what ever was needed. As such you have selected these well. Bravo sir.

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    1. Thank you, Clint. Again, you make your point very well, and again, I agree 100% with you.

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  3. Nice to see you are a equal opportunities employer, there are at least as many ladies in your western towns as there are men.

    The sheep must be able to sleep soundly in your worlds!! ;-)

    Lovely stuff as always Bryan.

    Cheers roger.

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    1. That is most kind of you, Roger, to think I'm an equal opportunities employer. The truth is that I have always admired strong-willed women who can stand on their own two feet. There'll always be a place for them in my worlds.

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  4. Cowboys and Cowgirls, what better topic for a post, I can't really think of one off the top of my head. I didn't know they had released the cowgirls from the new kickstarter yet. I'll be honest and say I don't think much to the sculpts that they show on their site so am looking forward to your take on them. The only exception is the set of 4 with 2 of them in big hats and dresses, but they look far more steam punk than western.
    Shame they have taken the old ones down, I have to say that Anita Crown or as I know her as Texas Red is my favourite one of them all.

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    1. I much appreciate your comments, John. Yes, the female faction from the Tombstone Kickstarter are this month's release. Actually, I like them all, but I guessed you'd like set 1 best of all. To be fair, they are good for the Old West and Steampunk.
      Thank you for reminding me that your own Texas Red (whom I love!) is the same figure that I used for Anita Crown. I can see why she's your favourite.

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  5. Nice work Bryan. The early 90s gave us some pretty awesome westerns. I enjoyed The Quick and the Dead. The Myesterious stranger as a woman was a nice twist of the old convention and Hackman gave a performance that riveting even it it was close to his role in Unforgiven. I never saw Bad Girls. Maybe I'll check it out. I think my favorite western will always be Tombstone but, HBO's Deadwood is pretty close.

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    1. Many thanks, HP. "Bad Girls" is certainly worth checking out. I greatly enjoyed "Tombstone" but I have never seen "Deadwood" yet.

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    2. I'll have a look. Can't recommend Deadwood enough. If it was rubbish Ian McShane might have carried the show but, it was great so he didn't have to.

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    3. Cheers for that HP. I will certainly be purchasing "Deadwood" in the near future.

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  6. From Solo Wargamer - Doh, let's start again shall we, now the cat has been removed from the area of the keyboard..lol..Firstly, they are really nice figures and the paint jobs compliment them too. Tough women of the west abound in many stories, and it's good to see a few mentioned here. My town of Lawless has it's fair share..lol

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    1. Sorry SW, but by deleting your deleted comment I also accidentally deleted your reply. Anyway, you are absolutely right about tough women abounding in the Old West. They certainly had it hard but more often than not, they prevailed.

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  7. Nicely done Bryan. Love them all can't choose a favourite from amongst them they all look so good.

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  8. Excellent post Bryan, and I love the minis you've chosen to replicate the ladies from the screen - and your artwork on them of course.
    You've got me digging out all my Western dvd's now (I was looking in the cupboard for some samurai flicks too), though I must keep them on one side for now.
    I'd highly recommend the "Deadwood" series :-)

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    1. Very much appreciated, Greg. I suspect I will enjoy "Deadwood" (I've heard nothing but good reviews of it) so I've added the three-series DVD boxed set to my Amazon wish list.

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  9. Deadwood is cool mate, you’ll enjoy it!

    These are cracking minis and I personally enjoyed Bad .girls

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    1. Many thanks for the comments and the "Deadwood" recommendation, Andy.

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    1. BTW: Vampifan, and talking about BAD GIRLS: your town must have on its walls the Cody Zamora's WANTED POSTER! Get it here: https://imgur.com/q5AMc3k

      :O)

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    2. Hi there, Edu. I knew this post would make you happy! Thanks for the link to the Cody Zamora Wanted poster. I've downloaded it and saved it.

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    3. What's not to love? Your girls are AWESOME, GREAT choice of models and painting scheme! Looking forward to see Cody and her gang arriving in Stillwater... and maybe getting into some scrap with Ellen "The Lady", until they join forces to fight a common enemy in the best Comics tradition! :O)

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    4. I like your thinking, pardner! I was thinking of a team up between the Bandido ladies from my first 6GS batrep and the Bad Girls but, hey, why not throw Ellen into the mix as well to make an all female version of the Magnificent Seven?

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    5. PERFECT! That's gonna be AWESOME!!! DO IT!!! :O)

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    6. I think I have to, Edu! Yes, it will happen! :-)

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  11. Another great post Bryan, I seen some of Bandido's while on hols & even with it been in Spanish I liked what I seen :) I did see the other two movie's a long time ago & enjoyed them both.

    Between both yourself & John you guys have really giving me the Western bug, but how you put out such a high rate of lovely painted models & bog posts is beyond me, but keep up the great work as I know a lot of people like myself are enjoying it :)

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