Wednesday 24 December 2008

Merry Christmas to everyone, and thanks for stopping by to see my Blog. I hope you all have a fantastic new year. I have been working on some new figures and will post them as soon as the mad Christmas rush dies down. Have a good one, and don't over do it. See you all soon.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

This is a mad little project I have been working on recently.
It occurred to me that I needed some scenery for my games, and to photograph my minis with, but all the ones on the Internet in 28mm scale were quite expensive. When I found a Polly Pocket car in Tescos for £1.15 I had to buy it. Now My supers can hide behind it, or just pick it up an throw it at each other!

Here's how I did it...

1. This is a toy Polly Pocket car.
2. I took the car apart by drilling out the joints. I peeled the stickers and then primed it with Games Workshop spray primers.
3. I painted the car with Vallejo paints and Games Workshop Foundation paints. I used GW washes to add shading.
4. I reassembled the model, then painted on the details and the edges of the windscreen.
5. And here is the finished model again. It was fun to make. I will have to see if I can get any more...






The US marshals service has special responsibilities for enforcing federal warrants. When the felon in question has super powers they call in their own 'Super team' headed up by Marshal Law. He is super-strong and super-tough, and specialises in taking down super-powered felons. Amongst the teams other duties are escorting super-powered individuals to trail or between prisons, and protecting judges, jurors and witnesses in court cases involving super-powered people.



This mini is Harby, a Hasslefree figure. http://hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/pack.php?pack=980
I had to do a minor conversion as he carries a gun in his left hand, so I clipped it of and sculpted a new hand out of green stuff, which was really easy. Fan's of the genre may be interested to know that the mini Harby also comes with a chunky spare right arm and head which look surprisingly like a certain big red superhero from hell.

Also, for more information on the work of the real US marshals, check out their excellent website. http://www.usmarshals.gov/

Tuesday 16 December 2008

This is Amazon, formerly a princess of a mysterious island, turned man-hating super villain. Don't let her good looks and scanty costume mislead: she is deadly and dangerous!

This is from Urban mammoth, a cool scifi range. normally I don't like using to many models with guns but this one I couldn't resist. Very nice pose, a chance to practice my skin tones.
http://www.urbanmammoth.com/acatalog
Surge is a hero who is getting a bit long in the tooth now, having had a career that spans three decades, but he is showing no signs of slowing down. his former side kick, Lighting Lad, has launched his own hero career as Blue Lightning, much to Surge's annoyance. Surge is super-fast, but can also generate a considerable static electrical charge, which he can discharge from his fingers to stun opponents.

This figure is another from the Superfig range.

Sunday 14 December 2008

I have just finished reading a brilliant book, Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman. It is essentially a Super hero novel, and is fun, fast paced and a great read. It is humorous in parts but deals sensitively with the genre, rather than spoofing it, which would be too easy. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the genre of Super heroes and villains.
This is the Prestidigitator. He claims to have traveled to the fabled Shangrila in the Orient and to have studied under many great gurus and swamis. Quite why this man then ended up in a run down suburb of Birmingham, England, living a life of petty crime is a mystery. He is a known associate of the Aston Villain and Shocking Pink.
This miniature is from a range of pulp era figures that I would recommend to anyone keen on the genre.
http://www.pulpfigures.com/catcode.php?range=Gangland%20Justice&code=PGJ&number=13&custID=1959321381206126443

Friday 12 December 2008

The Enigma is a famous TV reporter by day, and by night an avenging crime fighter. He conceals his face with a featureless fleshy mask that has made him the terror of the criminal underworld (a cowardly and suspicious lot).
This mini is Doctor Hugh, a Heresy model based on a certain TV Sci Fi time travelling doctor. http://www.heresyminiatures.com/hsf015.htm
I filed down his face, and covered it with green stuff. The hat is sculpted from pro-create.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

This is the super hero Wild Fire. She is a bio-engineered warrior from the 23 century who slipped back through time after a cataclysmic event in her own time-line. Part Cyborg, part speedster- all hero.


This one is an urban wars miniature, from urban mammoth. I have used a number of their minis. They are nice comic book figures, but unfortunately they all have big gun
http://www.urbanmammoth.com/acatalogs.

This is Shocking Pink, a delightful page 3 stunna turned super villainess. Really she is only in it for the celebrity, and hasn't got a genuine bad bone in her.
This mini is a very simple conversion from a Mark Copplestone mini. She was carrying a gun, but I clipped it of, suck a blob of green stuff on her fist, and then shaped it into an energy blast. The paint job might not be much cop, but I think the over all effect is pleasing.
The mini is found in FW5, (bikers) blister pack. http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=FW

This robot is one of a legion of robot warriors made by the criminal master mind Doctor Apocalypse, with help from Doctor Otto.

Again this is a Copplestone Castings mini, but this time there was no need to convert. Find him and his fellow robot legionaries a
FW 15 (Terminator Robots) at the same site as above.

Monday 8 December 2008

This is a picture of Doctor Otto, a deranged scientist with an obsession with developing a super soldier programme. He one worked for the US military, but even they could not tolerate his dangerous experiments, which more often than not resulted in the deaths of his subjects. He is now on the run, offering his services to the highest bidder.

I honestly can't remember who made this miniature, and I have trawled the web for the usual suspects but to no avail. This was my first and only attempt at directional lighting, with the green glow from his flask reflecting on his jacket. It was not entirely successful, but I think you can get the idea.

Saturday 6 December 2008

No one knows the origins of Dragon, other than the fact that he came form the east. he has mastered a multitude of martial arts styles, and now travels the world looking for great warriors, and challenging them to combat in order to test his super-human skills. Fast, tough and skillful: A villain to be feared!


This characterful model is another one from Hassle-free, in their Martial Artists range.
This slightly overweight villain is The Aston Villain, a Super-strong football hooligan from Birmingham, UK. He rarely has any master plan to his crimes, as he is only interested in getting into a good scrap with any super heroes he can find. Usually he just smashes things up until a hero arrives, then tries to smash them up too.


This figure is from the Hasslefree range fantasy range. He is meant to be a jailer, but I think he makes a fun super thug.
Here is a high speed photograph of Blue Lightning in action. Blue Lightning used to be Lightning Lad, side kick to the veteran hero Surge. Now he is getting a bit long in the tooth to be a super hero's side-kick he is trying to launch his own hero career under a new name.


I think that this miniature is another superfig, but I am not sure. Again I was given it by my good friend Leon, so I can't vouch for its origins. Thanks pal.

Friday 5 December 2008

This is Savage, he is as wild and bad as they come. Not bright, but good in a fight. Mostly he works for other villains as a hired thug, but he occasionally branches out into random acts of destruction just for fun. He has astonishing regenerative powers.
This miniature is one of the Superfigs range ( http://www.fourcolorfigs.com/ ) which is a great range for anyone wanting to build up a lot of super heroes and villains without having to do a lot of converting. Check it out!
This is the Wasp, a minor super villain and sometimes hired thug. most of the other super villains think he is a bit of a joke, but his electo-gauntlets pack quite a sting.

The mini is an old Golden Heroes Miniature called Bug Bandit, made by Games Workshop (I think) and long out of production. My mate Leon managed to get this one for me on EBay, and I am delighted with him. The scale is a bit small, but that just makes him look even weedyer (if that is a word?)
I have photographed some of my older stuff, just a random selection. some of them have been around a while an are a little bashed up (a bit like me), but I hope you like them.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Welcome to My Blog


Hello out there.

Welcome to my blog, dedicated to four colour super heroes and super villains in the form of 28mm scale miniatures.

I have been painting 28 miniatures for the last 23 years (gosh that makes me sound really old!) Mostly I have collected Games Workshop minis, but a few years ago my mate Leon joined our Role Playing Group, and he is an obsessive nut when it comes to collecting and playing super hero role playing games like champions, villains and vigilantes, brave new world and Gurps Supers. As a result we have played a lot of super hero figures to use in our games. Most of them I painted to what I would call a good tabletop standard suitable to play with but not really meant to be shown off. Recently though I have been working hard at practicing some new painting techniques, and I am pleased with the results. This web site will give me a chance to show off my stuff.

The minis I am painting are not based on any existing comic book characters, but are characters from our super hero campaign. That said, there may be some similarities with published characters, but that is coincidental (mostly).

I am also a member of the Forum of Doom, http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php , a forum of people who love the minis made by Hasslefree, Heresy, Black Scorpion and Spyglass, four miniature manufactures in the UK who produce really cool 28 mm miniatures. A lot of the figures I am using at the moment are from one of these four companies.

This is one at the top I finished a few weeks ago. it is a super heroine names Amber Blade who used to be an assassin , but has turned her back on the villainous organiastion that trained her. The mini is 28mm from Hasslefree.