Okay, with the clock ticking down, a last dash through some studios, compiled in the one post. Apologies in advance for the length and the photos (the IT curse continues - managed to CTRL-Z the folder with all photos into non-existence, prompting a late night redo)
The 1980s…
I grew up in the 80s so it’s a rich topic for me: playing on
plinthed T-34s back in the old country pre-emigration to Australia, the Vic-20
(we couldn’t affort a C-64), my first sets of Airfix, Esci, Matchbox and
Tamiya, discovering D&D then Call of Cthulhu, purchase of my first ever
Citadel minis set (1985)….then later being sucked into the worlds of Warhammer
through Rogue Trader and 3rd ed Fantasy Battle. Among other stories.
But how to capture the zeitgeist in miniature?
Alas, I don’t have many miniatures from back then. And
still wonder what happened to the 40K Rogue Trader Imperial guard army I had
(and sold): shiny helmets, gang tattoos, imperial beastmen, commissar training
squad and – problematically – ‘human bombs’. I do have a box of ex-Citadel
Foundry Miniatures which are of the period (I assume) but it didn’t feel ‘just
right’.
Then I got onto the TV of the period – in the halcyon days
before interactive screens. the various
miniatures inspired by shows like The A-Team, V, Dr Who. I almost got a box of
CMON’s He-Man miniatures game. But what I really wanted was The Equalizer (also
having discovered Callan in the 1980s). Or maybe Buck Rogers, Battle of the
Planets, Star Blazers*, or Danger Mouse. That took me down to the thinking
journey to this triptych: the 1980s through screen, game and page. Enjoy.
1980s - Screen: Saturday ‘toons: Robotech
Being a kid of the 80s I can point to so many shows - some
listed above (nd many the vanilla-ised version of their Japanese originals).
But Robotech nee Macross was a standout – the tales of plucky UN Spacy pilots
in space jets slash mech armour battling the Zentraedi invaders. Happy days. So, courtesy of Kids Logic 1/285 licensed
Harmony Gold range, here we have: a VF-1S Skull Squadron Super Veritech in Battloid
Mode; Zentraedi Officer’s Glaug (Battlepod); and one of the undervalued
workhorses of the UN world government’s space defence force – a Destroid
Tomahawk.
These miniatures are high detail, to an annoying point
(missed so many fine but deep panel lines and with the undercoat!) and the
resin can be brittle but they are really nice also. Painted using Citadel,
Vallejo and with some Ammo of Mig crystal acrylics and filters. The VF-1S
intentionally left looking mostly dirty. There is an ongoing debate in the
scale model community as to how clean modern jets on ops are and I wanted to
tap into that…and because dry brushing became a pain! The Tomahawk could do
with some decals but is otherwise stock, and not much to add about the
Battlepod.
1980s - Game: Second sci-fi fiddle: Battletech
Of course, the Macross mechs (and other anime designs) would see another
life in Battletech, at least for a while.
Though it didn’t hook my friends and I in like 40K Rogue
trader, Battletech was the backup game (circa 1988). It was easy to throw the
box – with all the card minis and maps – in a backpack, jump on the bike and
ride over to a friend’s house. we never expanded with City Tech and Aerotech),
I liked the art and the story was almost as gripping (though I was also
attracted by FASA’s other offering – Renegade Legion).
The Destroid Tomahawk, renamed the Warhammer in Battletech, was the
mech of the game for me. This one – same Kids Logic as the one above – has been painted in black
with red accents as a mount of (Battletech sex symbol/poster gal), the
notorious and enigmatic mercenary sub-unit commander Natasha Kerensky, aka the
Black Widow. The one regret I have of this is that the Wolf Dragoon’s decal on
the lower right leg is lost – I didn’t underpaint a light colour effectively
enough.
***INTERMISSION***
Armed with my fresh Blue pass, jumping in to...
The Superheroes
Studio.
In the dedicated peak of my comic book reading (pre- through
later teens), there were three ‘heros’ I followed diligently, going down to the
newsagent each week and buying the latest releases: Judge Dredd, Batman and The
Punisher. (now I think about it, might say something about my mindset in those
years). If I was to add a fourth, it would The Nam. So, for this entry, 2000AD’s
iconic and ironic (anti-)hero Judge Dredd.
And what superhero would be complete without a nemesis, in
this case Judge Death (although I wonder if Death isn’t really the nemesis for PSI
Judge Anderson?).
Sing along moment…
Both figures are Warlord releases from their Judge Dredd
game, in Warlord resin (which I understand has been improved, thankfully).
Death was mostly slapchop and kept to a faded tone – in keeping with his not-alive
and not entirely corporeal state. Dredd was
a slapchop/traditional hybrid (clearly, having kicked off a few minis
with it, slapchop is not the ‘last technique you’ll ever use’ in my book).
Meanwhile, back in the 1980s Studio
1980s - Page: There is only war: Rogue Trooper
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Genetic Infantry, Souther trooper and Nort trooper
|
Mongoose Publishing Rogue Trooper, Nort Trooper, and
Southern Trooper. The sharp-eyed will see the Nort and ask ‘what the hell? He’s
in black” (rather than brown). Although Rogue Trooper has a long history, I
didn’t come to it until the 1989
‘War Machine’ re-boot which, for all its faults, struck a chord with
14-year old me through its grimdark art and, since I was running them as my 40K
army, the Imperial Guard-like look of the Southers and GIs (the helmets and
flak armour – a look continued in some mainstream 40K imperial guard to this
day!). So, the black rubber chem-bio suited Nort is a nod to that – the shine
achieved with Ammo acrylic filter.
 |
With source material
|
Onto...
The Casting Couch….
The Director leaned back to look
up at the casting manager, the now empty whiskey glass deposited on the
oversized desk. It had been a long day, he had a headache which the whiskey was
barely medicating.
The casting manager leaned in, plucked
the cigarette from his lips and exhaled smoke over his notes before speaking.
‘So, Herr Director, I understand
you wanted to sign someone versatile. Make them a star and use them through a
number of movies on a tight deadline. Dare I say, I feel you need someone with
a thousand forms for all the roles you have planned. And, I think I have got
the actor you need…’
The Director sighed. His planned
release schedule was hectic, and costs needed to be kept down. Signing one
actor who could do a variety of roles would save a lot of headaches.
‘Mr N – hmmm, no first name given,
seems to just go by the initial - l’Hoptep. A new find. Yet to meet him in
person you understand but comes recommended. Has been doing some off broadway
and avante garde work, but apparently very impressive. Well, beyond avante garde…if
there is such a thing. His solo play ‘The Tick Tock Man’ was something of an
underground hit although marred by some drama and scandal at the end. Apparently,
the audience went wild. Literally. Tore each other up, some had guns so there
was shooting. A bloody mess’.
‘Hmmmm. That’s the avante garde
crowd for you. What kind of name is that anyway. L’Hotep – French?”
“I don’t rightly know. Probably
made up. His background is…well, you know how these actors like to create an
air of mystery. Nevertheless, maybe this is one you should take a look at’.
‘Fine, fine Rudy, get in contact.
And find a time to summon him in’.
Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, Messenger of the Outer
Gods, God of a Thousand forms and so on. For those not into ‘all that tentacle
stuff’ of the Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep is…actually hard to
describe…an entity that promotes chaos and destruction, and has a myriad human-like
and monstrous forms (‘masks’). And is the main big bad in the Chaosium’s epic
(in several senses of the word) Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign, The Masks of
Nyarlathotep. Given the many masks, you could not ask for better for
versatility in a lead role.
I managed to get two avatars painted up – The Haunter of the
Dark and The Bloated Woman. Both miniatures are from the Nyarlathotep expansion
to the Cthulhu
Wars boardgame (a kickstarter I sold years ago) so boardgames figures, with
all the problems that come with those.
The Haunter of the Dark is taken from the eponymous short
story by Lovecraft“I see it—coming
here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed
burning eye. . . .”
A large partly corporeal batlike entity that detests light, with
its most obvious feature being a tri-lobed eye, it doesn’t lend itself to a lot
of use of colour. The eyes are the obvious focal point. Minis was black
undercoat highlighted grey, with the eyes painted red then orange. To finish
off I used the Ammo of Mig acrylic crystal paint red on the eyes, and Ammo’s acrylic
filter ‘Night Black’ to smoothing out the dry brushed greys and get a sheen.
The Bloated Woman - Pure body horror that appears first in Chaosium’s The
Masks of Nyarlathotep. I’ll draw on that for the description of this avatar
(all rights reserved etc Chaosium Publishing):
This particularly disgusting form of Nyarlathotep is known on
Earth only among the Order of the Bloated Woman. The avatar crudely resembles a
human woman, even though she appears as a 600-pound (270 kg), 7-feet (2 m) tall
horror, with tentacles in place of arms, and more tentacles sprouting from
rolls of sickly yellow-gray flesh. Below her eyes waves another tentacle, and
below and beside that are four lumpy chins, each sporting a mouth; all a
perfect bow made hideous by clusters of fangs. Multiple smaller tentacles
sprout from the rest of her body…tucked into the belt is the Black Fan which,
when held just under her eyes, permits her to take on the appearance of a slim
and beautiful Chinese maiden. The fan pulls all attention to her gaze and
somehow conceals the avatar’s bulk and her true form—everything but those lovely eyes. When the fan is removed,
her full monstrousness is gruesomely apparent. Assisted by the Black Fan, the
Bloated Woman may seduce men and women alike, giving her victims unearthly and
degenerate pleasure before smothering them in her flabby bulk.
The miniature is different to this description but still, not something you want to run into. Ever.
Arthouse
I was struggling what to do for Arthouse until the conversation
on the back of one of Curt’s posts about Mork Borg and then Cy-Borg. The cover
of Cy-Borg, Stockholm Kartell’s Mork Borg-esque rules light take on cyberpunk.
Johan Nohr’s cover art prompting this neon flouro-tastic arthouse entry,
painted in a new technique which I am sure will create as much a buzz on the
socials as ‘slapchop’ did: I like to call it slapdash’.
(Ok, I’m taking the micky here).
The miniature started as a GW 40K chaos cultist but was wantonly
Borg’ed with green stuff until it looked suitably chaotic, undercoated black
and then…well the technique literally involved: remind self it is the last
night before the end of the challenge, simultaneously accept that one has had
one or two too many adult beverages to paint with much degree of skilled coordination,
defiantly declare ‘f it, we’ll do it live’, get a bit Jackson Pollack with
flouro paints, wake up the next morning and redo some sections being a bit more
deliberate.
If I was to redo I’d use less colours and starker white
(there is a few bits of art in the Cy-Borg rules in which Nohr uses just black,
white and one other colour – normally yellow – with good effect, in keeping
with the ‘Borg aesthetic and also on black (which helps).
So, do I think it works? Yeah, kinda. Placing the mini on
the rulebook cover – the palette is ballpark,
the figure has the offbeat look that could be Borgian? Borgish? Ultimately
there is nothing (I’m gonna use the term again) avante garde about the figure…until
the UV light goes on 😊
Conclusion (and points)
With my with my lower back about to write a letter of
complaint over some longer-than-usual days in the office and late nights at the
bench, I am drawing a line under my entries for AHPC XIII. But obviously not
before calculating the points:
- Robotech Zentraedi Officers Battlepod (60mm) –
1x 54mm miniature: 10 points
- Robotech/Battletech mechs – 3 x 40mm miniatures
@7pts ea: 21 points
- 2000AD and Cy-Borg – 6 x 28mm minis @5pts ea: 30
pts
- Lovercraftian nasties – this is where it gets
awkward since there is no ‘monster’ category I’m going to pitch for 15 points
each: 30 pts (welcome adjucation on this)
-
Studios Bonuses x4 (1980s, Superhero; Casting
Couch and Arthouse) @20pts ea: 80pts
- Total: 187 pts
Challenge wrap-up post to follow some time.
________________________________
Bartek, from my reading of your post I think you and I would get along just fine. We are of the same vintage and have many of the same hobby recollections. It was nice going down memory lane with your last submission. So much to like here, from the Battletech to the Cy-Borg, Robotech to Call of Cthulhu, it's all wonderful stuff. Thanks for pitching in with us this year, Bartek, I hope to see you in the ranks for Challenge XIV.
- Curt