Robert Audin

I was saddened today to read a note on FaceBook of the death of Robert Audin.

I'd never met him, but he was a follower of (and frequent commentator on) this blog and I followed his excellent Fiends in Waistcoats.

I shall miss reading his apposite and witty comments - and finding out more of the Great Zombie Outbreak of 1888!*

Rest in Peace Friend.

* I was honoured to have inspired 'The Gentleman from Norwich'

Terrain Tuesday #13

I think I suggested that Terrain Tuesdays might be quiet during the Analogue Painting Challenge, and it looked as if I might not have anything to report this week.  All I could think of was of telling you that I'd finally eaten my Christmas pudding, and was eyeing up the packaging it came in.

And then I went to the charity shop...

550ml of gold sand

I don't know who buys gold sand by the half litre.  I seriously considered it, but having only just for the first time used some of the red sand I bought two years ago for basing Martian characters, I thought better of if...

I did get a cardboard Sainte Chapelle though.  It's 1:250, but I might be able to pretend it's a small mortuary chapel!

Old School

For several weeks I've resisted the building blocks.  But no-one else seemed to want them...

40K Bargain To Be Had - For Charity!

As regular readers will know, I help out in one of the local charity shops.

We get stuff in that we know can get a decent price if exposed to the right people, but otherwise might sit on the shelves for ages.  Well, in this case, you dear readers, are the right people (or know the right people).

We have here a mint on-the-sprue Chaos Daemons Soul Grinder.  In anyone wants it for £15.00 plus postage (which in the UK will be £2,80), let me know and I will sort it out for you.  The retail price of these in the order of £35-£40.

I won't be taking any commission on this - all the money will go to Relate (Norfolk and Suffolk).  If anyone wants to offer more than £15.00, I'm fine with that!  But this isn't an auction - first come, first served.

NOW SOLD

Treasure!

I recently painted the following treasure tokens, primarily for use in Frostgrave, but possibly also handy for Pulp settings.

They're produced by Ristul's Extraordinary Market (sold in the UK by Bad Squiddo Games).  And are full of great details – magic swords, war hammers, potions, crowns, jewels and, above all, GOLD!  And that's why I ended up submitting them the L'amour round of the Analogue Painting Challenge.

Like many others, I've found it a challenge to find suitable subjects for Curt's bonus rounds.  Not that I think that should be a matter of complaint - I think a good deal of the fun in the rounds is in seeing how the participants justify their entries!

In my case it was because as I painted the tokens, the line "Give pounds and crowns and rubies*, but not your heart away" came to me.

When I Was One-and-Twenty

BY A. E. HOUSMAN

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard a wise man say,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

       But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

       But keep your fancy free.”

But I was one-and-twenty,

       No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard him say again,

“The heart out of the bosom

       Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

       And sold for endless rue.”

And I am two-and-twenty,

       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

*You will notice that my memory was only approximate!

So with the addition of a suitable fluff (which people seem to have enjoyed), that was my entry.  Go and check it and the others out - and don't forget to vote for your favourites!

Nosferatu

Nosferatu can be best described as NOT-Dracula.  When the film was made (1921) a few details were changed to make it different from Bram Stoker's story - not enough though!  In a very early example of intellectual property rights being applied to the cinema, Stoker's estate sued.  The studio went bankrupt and all prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed.   Fortunately some survived, and the film is now recognised as a masterpiece of German Expressionism as well as having provided some genre-defining images.

Max Schreck, 1921

Kinski, 1979

The film was remade by Werner Herzog in 1979 as Nosferatu the Vampyre, with Klaus Kinksi in the title role and there was even a very funny 'making-of' film Shadow of the Vampire made in 2000, featuring Jonn Makovich, Willem Dafoe and Eddie Izzard.

Defoe, 2000

These three films are among my wife's favourites, so when I spotted a pack of Nosferatu at a recent show I snapped it up.  They're 28mm from West Wind and come as a pack of four (I've just realised that, and need to find the fourth!).

So, in true genre fashion, I've left the big reveal until quite late...

Dr Who Wednesday #7

Shiny!

As contrary to my intentions my Painting Challenge submissions have had a distinct Dr Who theme* I needed to restock the lead pile.  Accordingly, I bought these BTD figures when they came up on eBay.

*The Wife:  "Are we ever going to get to play that Frostgrave game?  Where are my wizards?"

Yetis

Ice Warriors

I didn't realise until I started priming them, but one of the Ice Lords has been converted, giving a variant.  I may nominate him as a Grand Marshall or Supreme Lord.

Painting

The fillip that the Painting Challenge throws up worked its magic and the Yetis were soon painted,

I didn't want to go for the proper colours (which make me think of honey bears), but instead did a simple  job, with dry-brushing in various shades of brown.  They'll also do as generic furries in other games.

The 'proper' colour scheme

Patrick T gets in touch with his Inner Yeti

With the bases, I wanted to represent their origins in the wild Snowdonian Tibetan valleys.  Not being able to find any rhododendron leaves to scale, I instead went for bleak tufts and heather.

It seems that Yetis have a nemisis...

"OK boyos!  Back to the hills!"

Secondly, a stray Cyberman who escaped the bunch I submitted for the Nostalgia Round.  He too is from BTD.

And finally, I submitted one of the ever-popular Weeping Angels*.  This was one of a bag of mixed figures I picked up in a charity shop.  I think they were freebies with Doctor Who Monthly.  The Angels were an odd soft plastic which didn't take paint particularly well.  It left them quite sticky (which in hindsight made static grass a rather poor basing choice!)

* Only one of these three was started and completed during the challenge.

Coming Soon! (I Hope...)

Terrain Tuesday #12

Sadly, my intention of submitting my Gurt Big Castle for the Defensive Terrain round of the Painting Challenge came to naught.  However it is primed, so we might see it in future terrain updates.

First up this week is a nice resin piece that I got in a box set with some other terrain and snake-warriors.  I really don't remember the manufacturer.

I've used it in the past in Lost World and Dino-Hunting games.  But now need not feel worried about its resin-y nakedness.

Secondly, another ancient damaged statute.  This time more Frostgrave-y.

The statute itself is one of the large plastic kit-figures that came with Doctor Who Adventures in Jan 2014 (oddly enough, they've got around to using them again for the current issue).  The plinth I picked up more recently.

In other news...

My entry for the L'Amour bonus round of the challenge will feature terrain, so there's that to look forward to.

APC Update - Why the Cardinal? Caution: Footnotes

Well, because nobody expects...

No seriously, my second submission to the APC was a 28mm metal figure from Black Pyramid Gaming - their Prof Stanton Brook.

Professor

He's obviously based on the Sydney Paget illustration of Prof Moriarty for the Strand Magazine, and that's why I bought him, but on handling the figure I was immediately put in mind of this chap from my youth.

Archbishop

This is Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892), Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and I somewhat perversely decided that I wanted him in miniature.

The expected question was asked - "From your youth?  How old are you Edwin?"  No, I don't remember Manning, but I did spend quite a lot of time reading about him. (1)  So much time that I even considered submitting him as my entry to the Nostalgia bonus round. (2)

1  He was the subject of my Master's degree.
2  But decided that was too self-referential and obscure.

Enough about me.  What about the figure?

Whether the criminal mastermind has decided to disguise himself as Dr Manning, or whether - more shockingly! - His Eminence is himself the Napoleon of Crime will have to be the subject of further investigation.  It is however an odd co-incidence that Manning's death occurred mere months after Moriarty's supposed demise in Switzerland...

The base. again, is one I won from RayR.  I have tried to catch M's cadaverous pallor and broke the monotony of clerical black with some uncanonically grey gloves.(3)  You mayor may not be able to spot the purple bib.

3 I'm sure you all remember the story about John Henry Newman donning grey trousers in 1845...

I titled the submission to the APC 'Eminent Victorian'.  This is of course a pun on Manning's position as a Prince of the Church, but also a reference to Lytton Strachey iconoclastic book of the same name. (4)  Some of you (5) will immediately think "By gad!  He's going for a full set!".  Yes, I've already done one of Strachey's victims subjects - I only need Florence Nightingale and Thomas Arnold and I'll have a crime-busting quartet the pantheon of Victorian respectability.

4  Of course, he was using the same joke - weak minds think alike.
5  I'm looking at you Mr Awdry.

APC Update - Leg It! It's the Filth!

Evenin' All!

Last week was a bit of a lost zone as regards painting.   My self-imposed aim of entering each of the bonus rounds in the APC didn't even stretch to the second one, which was (no irony intended) Epic Fail.  It's a shame really, as I'd intended to use the French Foreign Legion's attempt to turn Laurel and Hardy into part of a crack fighting force.  However, the Defensive Terrain project is faring better - at least it has been primed!

However, over the weekend I managed to do three figures to contribute to Team Monday's efforts (Yay, Go Mondays!).

The first were Sgt Bung and PC Savage, two representatives of those fine boys in blue - the Berkshire Constabulary.

They're 28mm metal figures from Ainsty Casting's Aggro range and are ideal for anyone who wants to game on the streets of 1970s or 1980s Britain.  Soviet invasions or zombie outbreaks spring to mind, but for me they're more likely to be Yeti-bait in Dr Who games.

The bases are some I was lucky enough to win on a blog give-away run by RayR.

They're nice sculpts, and I''m tempted to get some more of the range.

And here's a treat for those of you who remember the '80s

Dr Who Wednesday #6

At last some miniatures painted!

For the Nostalgia bonus round of the Analogue Painting Challenge I went Dr Who and submitted these boys...

Loyal readers of this blog are rewarded with a better photo than
that submitted to the APC

Cybermen of course.  These are from BTD - their 'Earthshock'* version, with the exception of the one I've painted up as the Cyberleader, who is an earlier model.  They were something of a rush job and I'm quite unhappy with the basing - indeed there is a seventh where the basing all fell off as I tried to paint it before the glue dried (I told you it was a rush job, didn't I?).  He'll appear later in the Challenge with other odd Who figures.

*Poor old Adric - he never did get his end away...

The good news is that I found the Jon Pertwee figure that I'd lost!

And finally, just because,..

"Silver chap over there - five rounds rapid!"