Vampifans Views 108 - Monthly Musings 78

With half the year gone already it's time for another of my Monthly Musings. The painting to the left of here was produced by Miguel Sanjulian, whose work I am showcasing this year. It is a stunning portrait of Vampirella surrounded by an assortment of evil creatures. I have no doubt at all that Vampi will prevail against them all.

This has been a good month for my favourite vampire as she has appeared in two batreps within the space of a week. First up was my first High Moon scenario set in Stillwater, New Mexico in 1875, in which Vampirella travelled back in time on the start of a quest to challenge Count Dracula, who had taken over the presidency of the USA. Here's the link to it - http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/2018/06/high-moon-scenario-01-high-moon-at.html
Then John aka Vagabond surprised me by introducing Vampirella to his ongoing Gothic Horror campaign and I couldn't have been more happy to see her. That girl sure gets around. Here's the link to John's batrep - http://vagabondswargamingblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/gothic-horror-hunt-for-mary-scroggins_23.html
I do plan on continuing Vampirella's quest in the Old West, so look out for part two coming soon.

I bought a ton of new stuff for my Wild/Weird West projects, including assorted cacti from Great Escape Games, Shellhole Scenics and Wargames Terrain Workshop, fences from 4Ground and the Tree Fellas (thanks for that link, Solo Wargamer), outside toilets from 4Ground, a stagecoach and a wagon both with horses, drivers and passengers from Great Escape Game's Dead Man's Hand range, 6 unmounted horses from Knuckleduster Miniatures (all painted now), the Graceful Seven figures (also from Great Escape Games and also painted) and the Black Fang Tribe supplement for Shadows of Brimstone. All in all, quite a haul. As you can probably tell, I am very enthusiastic about this project. My next batrep will hopefully be a scenario from Dracula's America. I know I want to include the Red Hand Coven faction of vampires in it, but I haven't decided whether to pit them against the Twilight Order faction or the Crossroads Cult faction. I'll make a decision soon.

The Graceful Seven as they appear on the Dead Man's Hand webstore. They are really beautiful figures.

Whilst I am still painting loads of Wild West and Weird West figures, plus some sci-fi figures for my The Ace of Spades Campaign, it was nice to have a change of direction with the annual Forgotten Heroes challenge. This year I only submitted one figure - a conversion of vampire Chastity Marks -but I completed her on time and was very happy with how she turned out. You can see my finished entry in the previous post to this one.

July sees the release of the Strontium Dog skirmish wargame by Warlord Games. I have read a lot of negative comments about the figures for this game, especially the sculpts for Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer, the two stars of the strip. Judge for yourselves. There is something odd about the way the arms are attached to the bodies. Their faces are very well sculpted but I will admit that I prefer the versions made by Wargames Foundry, which thankfully, I do own.

As for the game itself, and the other figures, I am very excited about them. My Battle Systems Sci-fi Terrain sets (the Shanty Town set in particular) will be perfect for this game. I have pre-ordered the complete collection as this saves me £21 over the cost of buying everything separately plus, I do want everything for this game. I am huge fan of the 2000 AD comic and Strontium Dogs was always one of my favourite strips. Indeed, my all time favourite 2000 AD character is the mutant vampire bounty hunter, Durham Red, who first appeared in this strip before going on to her own stories. I've seen an advanced preview picture of her figure for this game and it's fair to say, hers is the figure I most want. With all of the Strontium Dog figures I already have from Wargames Foundry (now sadly, out of production), which are all painted,  plus my scenery, this is a game I could start playing as soon as I've read the rulebook. Bring it on!

Forgotten Heroes 2018 - Chastity Marks

Here I present my entry for the Forgotten Heroes 2018 challenge - another favourite vampire of mine, Chastity Marks.

Before I show my finished entry I thought you'd like to see just how I converted this Copplestone Castings Bodyguard in Bikini into Chastity. Working down from head to feet, I had to restyle her hair. This wasn't too difficult as it just involved adding Milliput with no filing or cutting required. I added a bit of Milliput to her upper arms to represent her long gloves. I turned her bikini top into a bustier top by adding more Milliput below her breasts and to the middle of her back. In the first picture of  Chastity that I showed you in my introduction, she was holding two katanas, so I added a second katana to her left hand. I had to remodel her left thumb to fit around the hilt of the katana. Next I added the tops of her thigh-length boots. Finally, I added a bit of Milliput to cover up her toes. All in all, it wasn't too difficult a conversion.

And here she is completely finished and ready for action. I did wonder about whether to paint her clothing in satin black or gloss black. Either would work. In the first picture I showed last time her clothing was satin black but in the second picture it was clearly gloss black. Ultimately, I thought gloss black looked better and so that is what I went with.

With so many other projects on the go, I knew I didn't have that much spare time to devote to this project but I knew that converting one figure was easily achievable, and I'm delighted with the result. Roll on Forgotten Heroes 2019!

Forgotten Heroes Challenge 2018 - Intro

It's July and that means it is time for the Forgotten Heroes Challenge 2018. I have participated in this challenge twice before in 2016 and 2017. The challenge is to create or convert a 28-32mm scale superhero/supervillain character who is not commercially available. In 2016 I converted standard and Chibi versions of two of my favourite comic book vampires - Vampirella and Purgatori. Last year I surpassed my expectations and both created and converted the six heroes known collectively as the Bug Hunters. This year I'm going much simpler and I'm going to convert a single figure to create another one of my favourite comic book vampires - Chastity Marks.

In 1976, teenager Chastity Marks was an American runaway living in London. Punk rock was all the rage, and Chastity was soon running errands for a local band. One night while on the job she was attacked by a vampire. She escaped, but not with her life: Chastity was now a vampire, but with a twist. To the rest of the vampire world, she was completely undetectable.
Today, Chastity works freelance for the Cabal, a secret society of vampires, werewolves, and witches who rule over the monster underworld. As strong as ten men and a master martial artist, Chastity serves (on her terms) as the Cabal's most efficient and merciless assassin, all the while trying to live a normal life.
Chastity's last appearance in comics was in 2015, when she appeared in the epic crossover event - The Swords of Sorrow produced by Dynamite Entertainment. Here, she threw in her lot with the bad guys and in a related four part mini-series, she led the forces of darkness against Jennifer Blood and Vampirella. Bad move on her part. Vampirella kicked her ass but refrained from killing her, in order to teach her a lesson that Vampi was far more powerful than she could ever imagine or aspire to be. This made Chastity question her decision to side with the bad guys.

The figure I'm using for the basis of Chastity is this one to the right and is one of the Copplestone Castings Future Wars Civilian figures from set FW45 Bodyguards in Bikinis. This should be a simple conversion so I'm very confident of completing her in time.
I'm looking forward to this challenge and to all the other contestants taking part, I wish you the very best of luck and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Vampifan's Views 93 - Monthly Musings 66

This has probably been the busiest month of the year for me so far. More on that later, but first here is a delightful painting of Vampirella done by Mike Mignola, whom comic fans will know as the artist and writer of the Hellboy series of comics. He also wrote the screenplays for the two recent Hellboy films. He has a very distinctive style that makes his work instantly recognisable. I have to say, I am a fan of his. As far as I know, this is the only artwork he has done of Vampirella. To date, Hellboy and Vampirella have not teamed up, but who knows what might happen in the future?

The project that has really dominated my time this month has, of course, been the Forgotten Heroes 2017 Challenge. You can see my final entry in my previous post, as I managed to make and convert all six heroes from The Bug Hunters comic strip. It took a lot of time and effort on my part to accomplish this huge task I had set myself, but I succeeded and from the comments I've received so far, it was more than worth it. It is fair to say, this challenge took up a large chunk of my time but it wasn't the only work I've been doing this month.

I mentioned in my last Monthly Musings that I had bought the Exterminate!, Davros and Missy Bundle from Warlord Games. It worked out cheaper buying all three boxed sets together than individually. I am delighted to say that I have made and painted all of the figures from these three sets - that's Davros and 24 plastic Daleks, Missy, 24 plastic Cybermen and 28 plastic Cybermats. Fortunately for me, these were very easy to make and they didn't take long to paint. I plan on posting a batrep between these two forces soon, although I won't be using all of them and more importantly, I'm not going to be using the rules or cards that come with the Exterminate! game. Instead, I'll be using the rules for the N.E.W. sci-fi RPG. Intriguingly, this game does provide stats for Cybermen and Daleks, but they aren't called as such. The Cybermen are known as Assimilators and the Daleks as Exterminators. I've made a few minor tweaks to their stats to make them even closer to their Doctor Who counterparts. I'm very intrigued to see how the game goes with these rules. Reviews of the figures should be posted soon and the batrep shortly after.

Do you remember that on Tuesday 16th of May, I posted an article celebrating this blog's one million views? I also ran a simple competition at the time, with first prize being £50 and two second prizes of £25 each. Well, it is time to announce the winners. First prize went to Roger Webb, and Clint and Luis bagged the second prizes. Roger and Luis have already received their prizes and interestingly, both turned down the offer of a free Tweak and/or Judge Heston figure made by Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop. Clint has been notified and I'm just waiting to hear back from him on how he wants the money and whether he wants either or both of the bonus figures. Anyway, thanks to all of you who took part and many congratulations to the three winners. I hope you have fun spending the money.

I don't have much else to report this month. Next month should see lots of sci-fi related posts.

Forgotten Heroes 2017 - The Bug Hunters

 

My work for the 2017 Forgotten Heroes challenge is now completed. My entries are based on a little known sci-fi comic strip that appeared in Computer and Video Games magazine between October 1985 and February 1987 called The Bug Hunters. I loved this story back then and I still love it today. It has long stuck in my memory. My initial plan for this challenge was to sculpt the two human characters from the story - Melissa Ravenflame and Jackson T. Kalliber. But I soon realised I could convert various robot figures into B-Con, OTISS and X. The big stumbling block was the robot, Big Red. He is huge and I didn't fancy sculpting him from scratch. But, a big part of me wanted to make all six of The Bug Hunters heroes, so I searched on Amazon for a suitable robot toy to convert into Big Red. I struck lucky when I discovered a 5" tall action figure of Baymax from the animated film Big Hero 6. Now the challenge was on to get the conversions done before the end of this month. At that time, Melissa and Jackson had been sculpted. B-Con was a very simple conversion. OTISS, X and Big Red were much harder conversions but I finished them all last week and got them painted in just three days. Now at last I can present to you, The Bug Hunters.

From left to right are Melissa Ravenflame (an executive working for the Institute for the Development and Expansion of Advanced Systems (IDEAS) Corporation, Jackson T. Kalliber (head of IDEAS Security), B-Con (a former prison security droid), OTISS (Overt Technical Information Suburban System droid), X (a former bouncer and black marketeer) and Big Red (Relocation of Explosives for Demolition droid and not the sharpest tool in the box). Their mission was to find and fix bugs and glitches in artificial intelligence systems, computer systems and other robots. It is fair to say, they met with varying degrees of success. Big Red accidentally managed to totally destroy more than one children's home and orphanage!

I am immensely proud of my two sculpts and four conversions. Just compare these two photos above with the picture at the top of the page, taken from issue #1 of the comic series to see just how close they resemble the artwork. So, what are my plans for them? I will use them in some one-off adventures using the N.E.W. sci-fi RPG by What's Old Is New. I've already worked out the stats for Melissa and Jackson and I'm currently working on the stats for the four droids.

Here's a reminder of what OTISS, X and Big Red started out as - RoJaws, Hammerstein and Baymax. That's quite a change, huh? Note how much taller Big Red is to Baymax. His lower legs were lengthened considerably. The word RED on his chest was made out of cartridge paper, cut out and glued in place. Incidentally, Big Red is a lot less posable than he was as Baymax. His arms can still move up and down, but that's it.
I'd just like to end by saying how much I enjoyed this challenge. This was a project that grew bigger for me as the days passed by. At the start of June 2017, I never imagined I'd have the full set of The Bug Hunters in 28mm scale. But I have and I feel I have surpassed myself with this challenge and right now I'm feeling incredibly proud.

Finally, just for Roger, is this photo of my six entries taken against a plain white background. I'm sure you'll appreciate it, mate!
STOP PRESS

I have been asked about what figure was B-Con based on? Well, I can tell you he came from a range of very old (mid 1980's) Citadel 28mm scale Paranoia robots. This range of robots came in two halves - upper and lower bodies. The idea was that you could swap them around to come up with an infinite variety of robots. I bought loads of them and never got round to painting any of them, let alone making them. So, as a consequence, I had a large amount of robot body parts just lying unwanted in one of my spare parts boxes.


Fortunately, I remembered I still had them and as I rummaged through them I saw the perfect upper and lower body parts to make B-Con. His upper body came from the robot shown in the picture at the top right of here and his lower tracked body part came from the robot shown to the bottom right of here. All I did to convert him was add the searchlight on his chest, his hat and his sunglasses. Oh, and I cut the weapons off his lower body. As I said, a very simple conversion.

Forgotten Heroes 2017 Update 01

Following on from my intro to the 2017 Forgotten Heroes challenge (see here - Forgotten Heroes Challenge 2017 - Intro), here is an update of my work so far. As I said before, I was originally just going to make the two human heroes, Melissa Ravenflame and Jackson T. Kalliber from The Bug Hunters series. The good news is that I have sculpted both figures and they are undergoing paintwork right now. Both have come out really well, but I'm particularly impressed with my figure of Melissa.
I was lucky enough to find the parts needed to convert an old Citadel Paranoia robot into B-Con. He was an easy conversion to do, and he's also being painted right now. I am not going to show these three just yet. I want to wait until all six figures are completed.
I had no intention of making the other three robots, OTISS, X and Big Red for this challenge. I thought it would be too much work, especially making Big Red, who is huge. However, things soon changed and when I realised that OTISS and X looked a lot like RoJaws and Hammerstein from 2000 AD comic's ABC Warriors and Robusters series I knew I could make them as well. Wargames Foundry make excellent figures of RoJaws and Hammerstein. How hard could it be to convert them? So I ordered them last week and they arrived two days later.

I had to add a bit of Milliput to the base of Hammerstein as he kept falling over, due to his centre of balance being off kilter. So, now all I had to do was find a suitable figure for Big Red. I did not have high hopes, but anyway, I decided to check out toy robots on Amazon UK... and found the perfect robot for Big Red. This big fellow is Baymax from the Disney animated film of 2012 - Big Hero 6. He is a posable action figure, but he'll be a lot less posable after I've finished with him. As always, Amazon were very quick to post him to me.

Size-wise he's just about perfect, although I will be lengthening his legs. As soon as I saw the figure, I knew I could work with him and make, what I thought would be a very difficult challenge, a much easier task. Yes, there is a lot of work to do on him, but I have the basis of his figure all ready to go. Most of the hard work has already been done for me. I just have to add some detail to him. Hah! That's all!

The first thing I had to do was remove certain body parts from the three figures. RoJaws had his arms and head cut off. Hammerstein lost his head and right arm. I had to saw them off. I've drilled and pinned a paper clip into his shoulder so that I can sculpt his new arm around it.

Baymax has had his head and shoulder pads removed - they just clipped off quite easily. I sawed off the mounts on his back for his wings. His wings came separately but were never going to be used by me.
Now I can get to work on them with my Milliput and hopefully get them finished by the end of June. I'm pretty confident I'll meet the deadline. I don't usually do work in progress posts but I especially wanted to do this one, just to show you how Big Red was going to evolve. Next time you see him he'll be looking a lot different.

Forgotten Heroes Challenge 2017 - Intro

So, it's June and that means it's time for the Forgotten Heroes challenge, which is run by fellow bloggers, Jez and Roger. I very nearly gave it a miss this year because the figure I was planning on converting (a Twilight Knight) by Soda Pop Miniatures into a Chibi Lady Death was discontinued earlier this year before I could buy her. But having greatly enjoyed the challenge last year, I decided to take a totally different tack and a one that no one could possibly envisage.

I'm currently heavily into sci-fi gaming. So I have decided to make a couple of 28mm scale sci-fi figures. Yes, make them. They will not be conversions but rather will be sculpted by me from scratch. The two figures I'm going to make are the two human heroes from the old comic strip, The Bug Hunters, Melissa Ravenflame and Jackson T. Kalliber. Already I can hear everyone saying, "Huh! The Bug Hunters? Never heard of them!" Understandable! Let me give you some background info on them taken from the Comics Corner section of the Weird Retro website.

"Back in October 1985 a serialised comic began to appear in the pages in Computer and Video Games (C+VG) magazine. The series ran almost every month until February 1987. For any teenage computer geek growing up in the 80s, C+VG was the must buy computing and gaming magazine, and the addition of The Bug Hunters only made the magazine all the more worth buying. The sight of Melissa Ravenflame on that first panel, set many an adolescent comic book/computer geek's heart a flutter. (As sad as that is!) See the picture to the left.

The Bug Hunters was scripted by Jerry Paris, whose early work was for Marvel UK on titles such as Freefall Warriors; drawn by Pedro Henry (the pseudonym of renowned British comic book artist, Steve Moore), who gave Alan Moore his leg-up as a comic book artist; and inked by Garry Leach, who worked on the seminal British comic book 2000 AD, and also collaborated with Alan Moore. Both Steve Moore and Garry Leach worked on the regular feature in 2000 AD Tharg's Future Shocks. During the period of The Bug Hunters appearing in C+VG, Leach also worked on Judge Dredd. For a comic strip series appearing in a computing magazine, The Bug Hunters was exquisitely pencilled by Paris and inked by Leach, creating some of the most memorable images of comic book art in the mid-80s UK.

Computer and Video Games was first published in November 1981, and was the world's first dedicated video gaming magazine. The first issue featured an article on the arcade game Space Invaders. The magazine ceased appearing in a printed format in 2004, but continues as an online magazine format as it has since 1999. In the 1980s, C+VG was the multi-format magazine of choice for all gamers and computer geeks. It featured news, reviews, as well as hints, tips, game maps and long list of programming code for readers to laboriously type into their home computers to create games.

However, in 1985 when The Bug Hunters first appeared it was a shift for the magazine, as they used the images and characters from the comic series to promote various sections of the magazine. Set in 23rd Century London, the aforementioned Melissa Ravenflame was working on a new project for IDEAS Corp. (Institute for the Development and Expansion of Advanced Systems). Three years earlier they had created the most addictive computer game ever, called GOD. She teams up with Jackson T. Kalliber, an ex-military man who looks like a cross between Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson. He's put a team together of robots, that include OTISS (Overt Technical Information Suburban System), Big Red (Relocation of Explosives for Demolition), B-Con a security droid who helped with a prison break, and X a "fascism" droid who can pirate anything. Thus a rag-tag team of robots.

Over their time in C+VG, The Bug Hunters went through a darkly comic series of adventures. Beautifully illustrated, told with a quintessentially British sense of humour. An almost forgotten gem of a comic book series, that stands as an example of the genius of comic book artists working in the UK at the time. Especially those that went through the 2000 AD stables. It was one of the greatest multi-serialised story, multi-artist comic books in the world."

I'm just happy that due to copies of C+VG now being in the public domain on www.archive.org I was able to download all 15 episodes of this series to keep as a permanent reminder of one of my secret pleasures of the 1980's. My brother used to subscribe to C+VG and whilst I had no interest in computer gaming (I still don't) I absolutely adored The Bug Hunters comic series.

So, I plan on making Melissa Ravenflame and Jackson T. Kalliber as my entries for this year's challenge. I would love to make/convert the four robots but that can keep for another day. Perhaps they might be next year's challenge.