Miss Maple, A Pulp Investigator

Every now and then I find it's pleasant to have a figure in the panting queue that isn't part of a project or an army I'm building, but is simply a pleasant diversion.   Bob Murch's Pulp Figures line fits that bill perfectly.   This Murch figure is a lady investigator with a kitty, who I've named Miss Maple.    Aided by her clairvoyant kitty, Justin, she's investigating a nefarious plot to rename Canada the 51st state.   She has goggles pushed up into her brunette curls, so she seems to be ready to move quickly.  Justin must be more patient with motor vehicles than my cat is!

The kitty is painted in tribute to my own buddy, Marshal Luigi, who sometimes graces this blog.  The paints are a mix of Vallejo, Foundry, and craft paints.

I've started using clear Litko bases for my pulp figures, as they work well with a variety of matts and backgrounds.   I suppose Miss Maple could be assisting some Mounties I painted a ways back, if I ever resurrect my Rockies Aflame project.  Hmmm.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes.

MP+

Another Year, Another Painting Challenge Done and Dusted

On 21 March, the first day of spring, Curt Campbell (aka The Snowlord) called Time on this year’s Painting Challenge.   I’ve taken part in these efforts off and on over the last decade.   The AHPC has become an international hobby community with painters of all different skill levels and interests.  It’s a fascinating snapshot of the miniature hobby landscape.

Here's the happy builder and painter with his total output for this year's Challenge.

This year I focused mostly on 6mm historicals, but thanks to the special theme rounds or mini-challenges I was inspired to paint this set, The Triumph of Frankenstein, sculpted by Bob Murch of Pulp Figures.

It was also an opportunity to play with my new 3D printer and try make some scenery for a mini diorama:

My post for the Challenge, with more pictures and some “How I Made This” details, is here.   

Taking a break to paint these figures was a welcome rest and an enjoyable diversion.  Sometimes I think we get too focused on our big projects in painting and wargaming, and we forget the pleasure of just doing something for fun.  

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

 

Tak

Lady Rathbone's Raiders: Some Pulp Figures

Have you ever painted figures just for the fun of it, without a really clear idea of what they were going to be for?  

That was my motive for painting these five 28mm figures from two-fisted Canadian sculptor, Bob Much, proprietor of Pulp Figures.  This set, called Lady Rathbone’s Raiders, had just been released and somehow snuck it’s way into my shopping cart on my last trip to Bob’s site.

Faithful readers of this blog will know that I am partial to Pulp Figures, and have painted a lot of them for my Rockies Ablaze project.   However, these figures seem kitted out to take on a dangerous tropical paradise, so I don’t really have a clear use for them at present.

 

 Nevertheless, I like the strength and whimsy of these figures, as well as their racial diversity.   Not sure who Lady R is, but like a good pulp character, she has an exotic and varied crew at her back.  I also enjoy painting unique figures, which feels like a painting adventure, free of the dull constraints of the same uniform X 20 or X30, though these figures mostly ended up in predictable military colours, except for the Lucy Liu-is sword lady, who got a treatment of Citadel/GW contrast paints.

  

 

Perhaps they are on a rescue mission to find Amelia Earhart?    That sounds like a pulp tale in the making.  Now, to find some tropical islanders and perhaps Imperial Japanese sailors and soldiers?   That sounds like a fun project in embryo. 

 

Thanks for looking and blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

 

 

The Rockies Ablaze, Part Three

 This post picks up where Part Two of The Rockies Ablaze left off. Part One can be found here.

Near Camrose, Alberta, February, 1937.

The morning after Frenchy Lamoreux’s visit, Sgt. Bill Craighurst set off for the mountains.  It was a calm, bright winter day, and he figured he could make it to Indian River and back before dark.   From Frenchy’s account, he wanted to have a word with Ratko Gligic, the person of interest in the disappearance of Scotty Grainger.   Craighurst relished the chance to get away from the post and breathe the mountain air, and Laurier, his massive Husky, was clearly delighted to be trotting along.

 The Mountie stopped first at Grainger’s cabin, which as he expected was cold and empty.  There was no sign that it had been ransacked.  Everything was tidy and orderly, like the man himself.  He reached Gligic’s ramshackle place shortly before noon, and saw faint smoke rising from the chimney.  Craighurst dismounted, tethered his horse, and approached cautiously, studying the cabin.   Other than the trace of smoke, there was no sign of life.

 Craighurst didn’t see the trap until he was on top of it, but his natural dexterity allowed him to throw himself aside before his foot descended on the touch plate.

 He was still lying in the snow when he heard a snarl, a shout, and a fusilade of shots as Gligic stormed out of his shack.   Craighust felt a bullet pass through his Stetson as he crawled behind the shelter of Gligic’s woodpile, dragging his rifle by the sling.   “Ratko, calm down!  I’m just here to talk!"

“Go away!  Leave me alone!  I kill you!”   From the thick Slavic accent, it was clearly Gligic.

A bullet slammed into the woodpile.   Craighurst chambered a round as a precaution, but thought talking was still better than shooting.  “I just want to talk about Scotty Grainger.  Where’s Scotty?"

“Wasn’t me!  It was him, the wolf!  The wolf gets him!"

“What wolf, Ratko?”  

“Wolf with red eyes!  He get you too!"

This conversation was clearly going no where.   Craighurst gave a hand signal to Laurier, who trotted off behind the cabin.  Another shot, and a volley of Balkan curses.  “You go now, bastard!  I kill you!  Wolf kill you!”   

A snarl and a shout told the Mountie that eighty pounds of Husky had pulled down the trapper.   Craighust raced over, rifle at the ready, putting his boot firmly on Gligic’s pistol.   “Good boy, Laurier.   Now, talk sense, Ratko.   Tell me about Grainger.   What’s all this about a wolf?"

Spittle flecked Gligic’s beard and his eyes were rolling in his head.  He spoke in a kind of keening moan now.  “The wolf!   The wolf!   He coming.   He coming now.  He eat you up!”  As the prospector’s voice tailed off, a snarling growl came from deep within Laurier as the big dog bristled and bared his teeth.    Craighurst’s rifle came up, following the direction of the dog’s muzzle.

Craighurst’s gaze locked with a pair of deep-set, coal red eyes as his brain tried to make sense of the upright figure crouched in the trees, a hundred yards from him across a small clearing.

 Time seemed to freeze.  The figure in the trees was as motionless as Craighurst’s rifle.  Sensing his moment, Gligic scrambled to his feet and ran towards the woods.   The Mountie wasn’t going to shoot a man in the back, and he wasn’t going to take his sights off the strange creature across from him.   By the time his eyes flicked back from the fleeing suspect, the apparition in the trees was gone.

Craighurst slowly exhaled, and lowered his rifle slightly as one thought kept going through his brain.  Wolves don’t walk on their hind legs!

 Moving slowly, his senses on full alert, the Mountie crossed the clearing, searching for the tracks of the creature he had seen.  Gligic wouldn’t go far, he could be easily be picked up later, or killed, if that was how he wanted to go out  A skilled naturalist and woodsman, Craighurst had no difficulty finding and identifying the tracks in the snow.   They were the hind feet of a wolf, as deep set in the snow as any man’s, and only the rear feet.  After several hundred feet, they tracks went to four feet as if the creature wanted to make more speed.  So damned big, he thought.

Craighurst noted the sun’s position, and calculated the remaining hours of daylight.  Just enough to get back to town, he thought.  He’d be back tomorrow, and he wouldn’t be coming alone.

(Figures by Bob Murch from his Pulp Figures range. Werewolf by Reaper.  Cabin by 4Ground).

 

 

 

Terrain Tuesday: Winter Terrain for My Canadian Pulp Project 3 and Done

Quick post to make it under the wire for Terrain Tuesday, and calling it a wrap on my Lemax Christmas village trees and 4Ground rustic cabin. 

The cabin has a wonderful little porch with removable roof, which is handy as there isn’t quite room to fit a 28mm figure on the porch otherwise, let alone to see it.  I haven’t painted the cabin and not sure if I will.   There are other more important projects queuing on the bench. 

A dangerous standoff!

I’m hoping to tell the next instalment in The Rockies Ablaze soon, and this cabin will feature prominently, in which case I will dress the set with some Christmas village glitter snow.

Next on the Terrain Bench are some 6mm TImecast buildings for my Napoleonics project, and hope to have them done soon.

Cheers and blessings to your world building!

MP

Terrain Tuesday: Winter Terrain for My Canadian Pulp Project 2

It’s Terrain Tuesday and I’m doing fairly well in making this a regular theme.    Here are the trees from that pack of craft store Christmas village trees, all based.   I wasn’t happy with the amount of snow on them so I mixed equal parts white acrylic artist’s paint with water, applied liberally to the trees (THAT was a mess of epic proportions, I’m still finding white paint dots on my glasses) and then drenched the wet tree in Woodland Scenics white snow powder.    Once dry I spray the whole base with artists’ workable fixative to help set the snow in place. 

Still adding some winter tufts to the bases and then they’ll be done.

Also making progress on the Mad Trapper’s cabin, which is a 28mm 4Ground model, their Settler’s Log Timber Cabin 1.  I’ve purchased and build several 4Ground models and really like them, and this is no exception, very nice kit, though I did make a small mistake installing the fireplace insert.

 Some scatter terrain inside and outside (barrels, a wood stove, etc) would dress this up nicely, but it will do for now.    I may go hunting for twigs and build a woodpile, rather essential for the winter, I would think.  I should visit Annie’s Bad Squid store and see what she has in the way of scatter stuff.

Good progress made on this terrain project this week and should pronounce it finished by the next Terrain Tuesday.

Cheers and blessings,

MP+

Lovely Lysander

Good day!  Since this is my first post of 2021, I wish you a happy new year - may it be happier for all of us.  Over the Christmas holidays I started the traditional plastic model kit build - a 1/48 scale Lysander for my Weird War 2/ Pulp project.  I had opened the box back in the summer of 2020 and the myriad of small parts therein seemed more complicated than the time I had on hand would allow for.

The kit is by an eastern European company, Eduard, which I gather is a gold standard for WW2 games, though I found the instructions somewhat less helpful than I would have liked.

This time I kept my nerve and forged on, going as slowly as was necessary, as it required some nerve doing things like gluing the brass-etched parts like the foot pedals onto the cockpit assembly - totally unnecessary for gaming, but if you’re going to do a thing, do it well as my dad said when he vainly tried to teach me how to make the balsa wood airplanes he had made as a kid.

Brass-etched seatbelts, cockpit instrument panel, and pilot’s compass.

g

Wireless set.

The interior fuselage assembly complete.  I had a discouraging moment when I broke off the wing roots at the top of the frame with some  misapplied press from my clumsy fingers and had to re-glue them.

The Lysander has a huge canopy and the Eduard kit came with precut masking tape, which I had to carefully apply with my wife’s best tweezers.  That was fun.

The masking tape certainly helped the final product.

And finished!  Because of the gaming it might support, I chose the all-black paint scheme used by RAF 141 Squadron, which supported SOE operations in Occupied Europe.

 Those huge struts supporting the wings give the kit a lot of stability.   There is also an underslung fuel tank for greater range, and a ladder to help passengers enter and exit the aircraft.

 

Somewhere in occupied France.  Yvette of Cafe Renee and Michelle of the Resistance keep watch as the RAF delivers something vital to the war effort.   

Thanks for reading.  Again, may 2021 bring happier lives and gaming to all of us.   Stay safe, and blessings to you brushes.

MP+

More Murch Pulp Progress

As the year winds down, I’ve been finishing some small and large batches of figures.

Here are four more heroes of the north for my Rockies Ablaze project from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures range.   I haven’t had time to think up names and backstories for them yet, but I am sure they will come to life soon.  

 

As faithful readers of this blog know, I love me a Murch figure.   

 

Early in 2020 I plan to get my Murch Zeppelin Troopers on the bench and do them in one big batch, after which things will undoubtedly heat up.

Cheers and blessings to your bushes!

MP+

 

The Rockies Ablaze, Part Two

Near Camrose, Alberta, February, 1937.

 

It took Frenchy Lamoreux a day and a half to snowshoe down from the mountains and into town.   Normally he gave the Mounties a wide berth, as did most of the trappers.   It wasn’t that he had anything to hide, he was as honest as any man, but where the redcoats were, it wasn’t long before the surveyors and the mining men and the road crews appeared, taking his way of life away bit by bit.

 

He shrugged when he reached the simple cabin of the RCMP detachment.   “Tant pis.  On fait ce qu’il faut.”

 

 

“Sergeant Craig’urst”, he nodded to the man in red serge behind the desk, as a friendly, hawk-nosed face looked up.   Craighurst was well known to the trappers as a fair and decent policeman, someone who knew the woods and mountains as well as any one.

 

“Frenchy!”  Bill Craighurst’s bantam figure rose easily as he offered his hand.   “What brings you down to town?”

 

 

“Not any t'ing good, Sergeant.  Maybe you ‘ave coffee on dat dere stove?”

 

“Of course.   Sit down.”   Craighurst poured thick strong coffee into an enamel mug and handed it to the trapper.   “Tell me your news.”  He could see something haunting the other man’s face as Lamoureux sipped the coffee and gathered himself.

 

“You know old Grainger, ‘ee ‘as dat claim up on Indian River, nearby of me?”

 

“Scotty Grainger, yes.   Keeps to himself, but never troubles anyone.   By all accounts a good neighbour.  What of him?”

 

 

Lamoureux stared out the window behind the mountie’s desk for a moment.   "I t’ink ee’s dead, Sergeant.”  He told the story about finding the blood-soaked snow.

 

“The last time Grainger was in town, he spoke ill of another trapper, the Serb, Gligic.  Accused him of stealing his furs. Even threatened him.  Do you think there was bad blood between the two?”

 

The trapper shrugged.  “Peut être.  Is true dey not les amis.  But I do not t’ink it was any man what killed ‘eem.  It was … some t’ing h'else.”

 

Sergeant Caighurst’s big husky growled faintly and looked apprehensively at his master.   “Easy, Laurier.   Easy, boy.  Well, Frenchy, I think I’d best go have a look.”

 

One look at the trapper’s face told Craighurst not to ask for his company.  The man was clearly spent.  “Eh, you go if you want, Sergeant.  But as dey say, attache ta tuque."

Some Good Pulp Doggoes

Hello and Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving.

Here are two Very Good Doggoes (are there any other kind?) for my 1930s pulp project, The Rockies Ablaze.   These good puppers are from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures range of Yukon Adventure figures.

My wife Joy has had two Siberian huskies in her life, both sadly gone across the Rainbow Bridge, but our house is replete with pictures, which I used as inspiration.   Joy holds that huskies are the most beautiful animals that God ever made, and I am inclined to agree with her.

Of course, Mounties need husky sidekicks.  Maybe not Constable Benton Fraser from the TV series of the 1990s, Due South, but perhaps his grandfather.

“Let’s go, Fang, there’s trouble out there!"

Sadly our house no longer has a resident dog.  Our very good girl Dinah came to the end of her road last week.   Joy adopted her three years ago after her owner passed away.  Dinah was already elderly then, and while she got deaf and started losing her sight, she had a good life until recently  when her ability to walk and keep clean declined, and we decided to let her end her life in peace and dignity.  I suspect the only dogs here in future will be miniature dogs, as we hope to travel once Covid is over, but you never know.

 

Blessings to your brushes and to your furry friends!

MP+

It's Fat Bear Night!

ghhhrgergerge

 

I’m always on the lockout for whimsical figures for my pulp gaming project set in the Canadian Rockies, including animals.   Hikers in the Rockies know all about bears, and what could be more dangerously Canadian than a bear?    I found this fellow on the Northstar Minis website, a Frostrgrave model, I think, and he looked the part.   Why he is up and angry in the middle of winter?   I’d be cross too if someone woke me from hibernation!

 

Once I noticed it in this photos, I wasn’t happy with the yellow blobs of glue left around the winter tufts by my white carpenter’s glue, so I went back with some white pain and cleaned them up.  Sometimes it takes a camera to see things.

If you think the winter bear is a chonk, meet his resin friend from Thistle and Rose miniatures, their B01 Were Bear model.  He is HUGE by comparison.  He has a forst/grass base because he will be a possible option for my Elven Woodland Forest army for Dragon Rampant, a single base model.

 

Serious chonk!  I like a bear with a big butt and I cannot lie.   That paw could take out an orc shield wall in one fell sweep, and then open up a pot of hunnee.

 Finally, if you like big bears, I encourage you to check out Fat Bear Week, a bracket contest featuring actual brown bears in an American wilderness park in Alaska.