“Radon” (Forgotten Heroes)

Posted on June 2, 2026 by rantingsfromunder

So here we go, Forgotten Heroes 2026, as Jez said over on his blog yesterday its incredible to think that this has now been running for TEN YEARS!, and it all sprang for a chat Jez and myself had in the café outside the Salute Wargames Show back in 2016, that I think was the first and last time we actually met in person (is this right Jez?), just think with ideas this good if we’d met up every year since we could be running the world by now! 😂

But anyway what have I got in mind for my Forgotten Hero this year, well I knew it was going to have to be a scratch build being the anniversary year and all, but I also have my son’s wedding this month too and I’m doing some of the flowers for that as well (multi-talented me you know! 😉) so time is probably going to divided between these things, especially towards the end of the month, so nothing TOO ambitious (though if I can get the base figure in time I do hope to do a conversion heroine done as well, but no promises in this). But who is my main man I hear you ask well…

A couple of years back I did my rendition of “Shield” a character from the “Super Joe” toy line, and at the time I stated that there was another “toy” I had hoped to do a 28mm version of too but I just hadn’t had the time (This seems to be a recurrent theme it seems!), So that’s who I’m going to do this year. Back in 1976 I went on holiday to Scarborough (a UK seaside town) with my Mum, and it was on that holiday she bought me “Radon” a three and a half inch action figure produced by “Zylmex” from the “Metal Men” line, these fully articulated figures had one unique quality, they were made of ….metal. Sounds brilliant right? Wrong as this meant he was quite heavy, the metallic blue paint on his torso and boots would chip off really easily and he was an absolute bugger to try and get to stand up! (Oh and the ray gun he came with would not stay in his open hand), all that said though he was soooo cool looking I could forgive most of these failings. There was also a soldier, police man, and an astronaut in the range (though they had silver faces and looked a bit naff) and two or three more robots that were pretty nice, but “Radon” was the best (and put me off the others a bit). He would often take part in the childhood adventures of my Star Wars/ Black Hole/ Battlestar Galactica/ anything else I had that was compatible at the time. He is another of the lost toys that I’m convinced are up in the loft somewhere (I think he, Shield and several other things laugh at me from behind the boxes whenever I go looking for stuff up there!), so the picture above is not of mine but has been taken from a most excellent blog “We  had that”, along with so of the information I’ve used in the text, please go and check it out, there’s not a massive amount of stuff on there but it is really well written and a great trip down memory lane.

So that’s what I hope to achieve this year, I think he pretty much qualifies as forgotten, anyone else remember these? I guess it’s time now to “put up and shut up” and get the greenstuff out! (Oh and for Keith to accuse me of making him up! 😮).

Cheers Roger.

Posted in 28mm Pulp, 28mm sci-fi, Forgotten heroes, sci-fi | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

“The Queen of the Monsters” (Monster May’hem)

Posted on May 31, 2026 by rantingsfromunder

Well here we are at the end of “Monster May’hem” (and I mean right at the end!), and I just have time to squeeze in two more monsters, as I’m writing this I still have to base and matt varnish them so fingers crossed that it’s still May as I post this 🤞.

Anyway what I have I got for you this time? These are the other two of the four monsters that came in a box game I got for Christmas back in 2022 (the other two Godzilla and King Ghidorah got painted pretty quickly (by my standards anyway) as they were pretty straight forward (see here) but these two have been languishing on my table ever since. My wife is very well aware that I’m a huge “Godzilla” fan and so bought me this as a present, now every time we go and visit my son in the midlands (we went yesterday in fact) we always end up playing a board game and so over the years we have accumulated quite a few, so many in fact we have a list of games waiting to get played, or played again and this has been next on the list for about two years now, but has been waiting for me to pull my finger out and paint up the rest of the bloody miniatures!

Well now I have 😉, for those who are unfamiliar with these to Kaiju icons I’ll add a picture of the original.

First up we have Megalon, now he is a bit of a strange character to include in the game as he has only featured in two of the films “Godzilla Vs Megalon” and a small cameo in “Godzilla Final Wars”, but he is a bit of a fan favourite so…. I began by basing both figures up on 40mm round MDF bases then added a few layers of modelling sand around Megalon’s feet and Mothra’s flying stand base, then it was out for a coat of matt black and a dry-brushing of chainmail over his drill bit arms mandibles and head crest. This was followed by a coat of a mix of black, saddle and dark grey, this was followed by a dry-brushing of saddle, and finally another lighter dry-brushing with Eurasian flesh. Nest I added his eyes in citrus orange, highlighted with skulker yellow and then again with lemon yellow. His chest and beetle wings were then repainted in black, before I added the “squiggles” on his chest in Dwarf flesh, this was a bit like painting camouflage, then added the “zig zag” type markings on his wing covers in skulker yellow, that just left his toes and the spikes on his tail to add with another light dry-brush of more chainmail.

Mothra on the other hand was a right royal pain in the a*se to paint, as once you look into it there are multiple slightly different designs to her, so I’d done a bit of an amalgam from the best pictures I could find 🤨. But anyway after her coat of matt black (which I should have done white as it would have saved so much time later!) I started by painting her body and wings in coffee and them dry-brushed her body in cream them again in white, adding the lower portions in more black. I then added her orange stripes and head colour to her body in orange, and her eyes in metallic blue with steel blue highlights. Then I started on her wings, painting the upper wings in a mix of orange skulker yellow and lemon yellow mixed together on the wing, I had to do this four times as I could only paint one side of one wing at a time, next I did the rings at the front of the wings in the same way using orange and terracotta again one at a time the back wings I painted in skulker yellow at the base and orange from about a third of the way up in orange, blended together on the wing, again these were done one at a time, after all this I added the black portions, at least I could now do one side of both a back and front wing at the same time, I left a portion near the base clear so I could then paint in a cream stripe and then add the two curved orange lines, now I was doing one whole side (front of back) at a time! ( I was flying now!), anyway next I tidied up the black portions either side of these. I added the yellow at the front edges of the wings next in more skulker yellow, with lemon yellow highlights here, then once dry I added the tiny spots of orange along this edge in orange (of course). His mouth I highlighted with chocolate brown over the black, and his legs and mandibles were first painted sand (light) then highlighted with more of the same with a little lemon yellow added. Lastly I went over all the black areas and highlighted these with a bit of dark grey.

Both were then given a coat of “strong tone” Quickshade which I now think was too dark for both of them and I should have gone with the soft tone, but too late now to worry) and once this was dry I repainted the bases black before heavily dry-brushing them in dark grey, more lightly in mid grey (colour party), and then I   did more dry-brushing but only over a few places about the bases this time in coffee. Finally they were given a spray coat of matt varnish and they were done. That as you can imaging brings my entries for “Monster May’hem” to a close for this year, thanks to Keith for running this event again this year. As of tomorrow it’s “Forgotten Heroes” again, and this is the tenth anniversary, so it will be out with the old greenstuff again, but till then.

Cheers Roger.

Posted in fantasy, Monster Mayhem, sci-fi | Tagged , | 12 Comments

“Amy” (2012 – 2026)

Posted on May 20, 2026 by rantingsfromunder

I find myself having to write one of these awful posts again, and it seems to happen all too often these days, but I am sad to have to report that on Friday just gone we had to put another of our beloved cats to sleep, as Amy our little black girl reached the end of her illness that really started just before Christmas last year. She had been steadily declining from that point when we had to take her to the emergency vets as she was sneezing, coughing and having trouble breathing. Though she seemed to recover from this she was never fully back up to her original health, and we have been back and forth to the vets ever since, with eating and constipation issues, however though she seemed fine (for her) when I got up on Friday morning by the time I left for work she had greatly deteriorated, and my wife took her down to the vets as soon as it opened, while in the waiting room she was violently sick and the receptionist whipped her into the back and she was put on oxygen. Tests were run on her and she was said to be more comfortable. However when we went back that afternoon it was clear that our little girl had gone and the unresponsive shell of a cat that was left needed to be let go, so the incredibly difficult decision was made to have her put to sleep. We were there to stroke and fuss her as she went though I don’t know if she even knew we were there.

Always a little “odd bod” she was the outsider of her brothers and sisters, and never seemed to get on with any of them well much preferring ours of her own company to her siblings. In fact part of the reason “Ozzie” went to live with my son was because he was being a little bully with her, never leaving her alone. The last to be born of the five kittens Suki had, I’d come home from work and said “Oh she never had a black one like her (Suki)” low and behold about half an hour later she presented us with Amy. When she was a kitten she was always desperate to be like her Mum, and would often be seen sitting next to Suki in the same pose as mum, causing her to gain the nickname “Suki junior”.

She was always a devil to get into the cat carrying case too, as she seemed to have the ability to twist through one hundred and eighty degrees and have her front end coming out of the door even as you were pushing her back end in! I remember when she and her sister went in to be neutered picking her up from the vets and having turfed all her blankets about in the case she was pinned up against the door, the receptionist said “Oh is she all right?” and went to open the case, at which point the vet quickly said “No, no she’s fine!”  And her hand shot out to stop her, obviously they had had the same problem as us!

In later year she gained another nickname….”Scooter” I won’t go into detail here, but I’ll just say we could just as easily called here “skid mark” enough said.

She was however a really lovely little soul and loved nothing more that laying in the sun on the spare bed where my wife has her computer for working from home, we all miss her enormously, I think my wife summed it up best at the vets when she kissed her head and through the tears said rest in peace lovely.

Dad.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

“A Brute and A Hoot!” (Monster May’hem)

Posted on May 14, 2026 by rantingsfromunder

Well here we are nearly half way through “Monster May’hem” and I haven’t posted anything up yet, hopefully that changes today as I have two submissions for this challenge that I hope Keith will approve as “Monsterous” enough to qualify. I picked up both of these figures from local shows in the last twelve months, the “Brute” at a “wargames table sale”, though I don’t really know what he is supposed to be, he has a look of some sort of massive “Pit fighter” and reminds me of the mindless creatures from the 80’s Sword and sorcery movie “The Beastmaster” he was cast into a  box of random figures so I pulled him out saw he was priced at £2.00 and the rest as they say is history. The other figure I picked up just a couple of weeks back at a very local small show, this “Owlbear” came from “IGS Mini’s”, I just thought he was very cute and would go well with the “Lucid Eye” figures I’ve painted in the past for my wife, so £4.00 later he too was on my table getting painted for Keith’s challenge.

First job was to sand the Brute’s base a bit before they were both re-mounted onto round MDF bases and filler and some kitty litter rocks were added (though only to the brute’s, I had something different in mind for the Owlbear), when it was out for a coat of matt black primer and off we went…

Starting with the “Brute”, he was given a heavy dry-brushing with the old chainmail then after his rope belt and the wrapping around his feet were painted Eurasian flesh these areas were dry-brushed with coffee. Then turning to his fur? I gave this a coat of a mix of black and chocolate brown, this was then followed by another dry-brushing with some black green mixed with a little deep bronze green, and while still wet I also dry-brushed in some more deep bronze green mixed with some dead flesh here and there, trying to get a mossy/ swampy look to him. I dotted in his eyes next with some white and black and this was followed by his “raggerty” tabard that was first undercoated in a mix of dark grey, blue grey and a touch of black that was then highlighted with more blue grey. For his flesh I went with dwarf skin mixed with a touch of skin wash ink, and then highlighted with just dwarf skin, though I did run a little more of the skin wash ink into the recesses between his fingers and toes. Lastly on him I added some rusty patches to his helmet and wrist bands with rust, chestnut brown and orange, and he was ready to be Quickshaded, I used strong tone on him and once dry I based him in my usual fashion, that is too say an undercoat of chocolate brown, dry-brushed with khaki, and then again with coffee. Areas were then picked out with scenic green before these same areas were flocked with some Javis “Summer Mix” hairy grass.

Next up is the Owlbear or as I’m calling him “Albert” the Owlbear, get it? Oh suit yourselves 🙄. Anyway after his coat of matt black I went in with chocolate brown, Eurasian flesh and coffee that were blended together over the relevant bits e.g. coffee on his face, chocolate on his body etc… this was all painted relatively quickly, as I then added some chestnut over the chocolate areas, as a dry-brush, then highlighted his face with cream, with a touch of coffee added to it. I added the whites of his eyes next in well…white, his beak was then painted black at the base and citrus orange at the tip again these were blended together, next I did the pupils of his eyes and went over his beak in skulker yellow and a little lemon yellow again blended together, lastly I added the black to his eye centres and his claws in coffee and cream. All pretty simple stuff to be honest. Turning to his base next, I added a flower and a few toadstools to match the Lucid eye figures, these were painted in porcelain blue and pale blue with a lemon yellow centre for the flower and the toadstools were either plum with fuchsia highlights or bright red with terracotta highlights and spots of cream atop the plum ones and coffee and cream stalks. Then after her coat of “soft tone” Quickkshade I painted her base in a mix of chocolate brown and earth brown (as my pot of scenic brown had completely dried up! And this was a reasonable match) then again, though missing the odd bit in scenic green before it was flocked in pasture green flocking.

A final spray coat of matt varnish and they were both finished. So at least now I have done something for this challenge, hopefully I can get some more done before the end of the month!

Cheers Roger.

Posted in 28mm fantasy, Monster Mayhem | Tagged , | 6 Comments