The Blog of Michael T. Murphy and his lifelong obsession with "little army men" and their imaginary glory, miniature wargaming, and other things...

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Update: A "Fall Haul", Pulp Figs and a possible new genre....

Well, once again it's time for my often "overdue updates", that seem to so often plague me. Really, dear reader, I "do" intend to try to make regular updates, but with "life and the real world" getting in the way, while suffering from Mini-Gamer "Ooh Shiny" syndrome, and the fact that I think that anyone who does read this blog on a frequent and regular basis, must sometimes scratch their head and wonder "Does this guy have a life?"...well....You can see how easily it get can put on the back burner.

But anyhow....
So this past weekend my wife (Gawd bless her!), and I did our Saturday shopping. Hobby Lobby, Michael's, JoAnn's, and Menard's all had sales of varying sorts and while we didn't hit Michael's or JoAnn's, we did hit Hobby Lobby, and Menards.
So as you can see in the pic below, here is the results of my "Fall Haul".

1:Six Packs of Lemax Street Lamps from their Christmas Village.
2: A power unit for them. (might have to get another one).
3: Numerous acrylic paints.
4: A box of "Project Bricks". (I've seen some people use them to make all sorts of cool things for gaming so I thought I would get a box and "give it a whirl...").
5: A couple of plastic protractors. I always seem to lost these...
6: Some Mayberry Fair and Jewelry bits and bobs for treasure containers and other assorted madness.
7: Some Dremel Cutting blades. (I needed to restock and actually remembered this time).
8: Two Lemax Cobblestone Mats. One to be used as a standard mat, and the other to probably be cut up into road sections.
9: A Lemax "Spooky Town" Haunted Tree....
10: But perhaps the most of all was the incredible sale they had on quality artists brushes. They were selling 11-13 dollar brushes for 2.50-3.00.  So now I own some new Winsor-Newton brushes.


A quick look at the haul. Oh yes...and the wife got two pumpkins to kill for her cooking stuff.....

Here's a close up of the "Enchanted Christmas Village" street lamps. 
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I've actually seen these used in a game at Little Wars last year, and they struck me immediately as "Ooooh! That is soooooooo cool!"  And I've always been wanting to get some as a result.

Then there are the paints....



 I'm starting work (after all of these years) with more metallic colors and satins, and pearls. My friend Mike Mitchell, gave me the idea. Honestly I have no idea why I hadn't thought of it before....That's the way these things go I guess...

Moving right along, I saw this at Menards and was in "I neeeeeeeeeed this!" mode!


BOO!!!!!

This is "just" the thing that your pulp characters DO NOT want to encounter or find when they enter that creepy old forgotten cemetery late in the night to investigate the mystery of (insert mystery of the week here)......
I'm going to check it out, but I think I can get rid of the skulls, and the tombstone, and apply groundwork over it, and keep it "scalish"....

And my brushes.....


Really...for what I got here, it would've been a small fortune...but I am very, VERY, happy, as I wear out fine detail brushes real easily.


And while we are talking figures.....

I've been working on some more of the wonderful Bob Murch Pulp Figures stuff for a bit now. Truly 99% of them are a complete joy to paint.  As you can tell below, you can see many of them, in various stages of painting completion. 
Oh and you can see a Westwind figure there, and one of my Blue Moon Egyptian Agent figs (#4, I think), that I previously wrote about. 

A picture of "The Usual Suspects"....

While rummaging through some of my many figures, I came across this little beastie that was started years ago by my wife, and never finished. I do think it's time to finish it and thus give my pulp figs, (and others), something to be on the lookout for, don't you?


What a wicked web it weaves.....

Remember in the previous paragraph that I said that "Pulp Figures are 99% a joy to paint"?...Well here's one of the "1%". 
This is a WIP of "Angus MacHaggis of Clan MacHaggis."  
Of all the hard things, the tartan pattern is a nightmare, as is the Glengarry.
While some folks like the current tartan kilt pattern, I think I am going to go and redo it today. replace the white with a think dark yellow, (it will help divert the eyes from the mess ups in painting straight lines), and finish the glengarry. for some reason I've been having issues painting straight lines recently, (especially tiny straight lines...
But he is a good figure.

Angus MacHaggis of Clan MacHaggis....Rumor has it that they reason no one has ever seen or caught the Loch Ness Monster is because that "Nessie owes Angus money...."

And as such this brings me to a new dilemna....

A while back I was getting interested in Dystopian Wars.  I love the ships and still do, although I don't see anyone around here playing it, and thus, in a way I don't see any battle reports on TMP, LAF, etc...so perhaps it's a niche or even a 'dead game", (kinda like Leviathans went?)....
However, I have been in the last few weeks been getting more and more interested in AQotMF ("All Quiet on the Martian Front").
The Tripods are a beauty and there is so much possible alternative history there. I could kick myself now that I didn't jump in on the kickstarter. And since it works well with HO and 15mm I can already us a lot of my scenery and terrain for that.  Truly I do think that in the next month or so I am going to plop down the cash for the starter kit and get deep into that....

Sigh...

It never stops with us mini gamers does it?....

Okay...more to come....

Hope you enjoyed....

Comments are appreciated.