Better late than never!

No update last week, as I didn't get anything painted.

Instead, I went to the theatre with Mrs. H to see Back to the Future: The Musical for her (very late) birthday present.  It's not my fault her birthday was in August and the show wasn't until now. In short, it was amazing. To borrow and bastardise the tagline from an old-but-well-known film "You'll believe a car can fly"

I also provided her with a Crackpot Inventor and Unearthly Traveller from Crooked Dice - any similarity to characters in the films/musicals purely accidental.

Images from Crooked Dice

Maybe I'll be able to feature her versions of them in the fullness of time (yes, Mrs. H.  that's a hint).

This week, however, I got back in the saddle and have managed to get some painting done.

Skull Tales has now officially been painted in its (owned by me) entirety.  The final 7 heroes are done, and it's a fully painted game.  I'll have to learn how to play it now!

Clockwise from top: Gunner, Witch, Noble Rebel with War Dog, Musician, Alchemist, Lookout, Sea Dog (in centre)

Only the Musician screamed out at me as a reference to something else here.  Were Peter Dinklage to ever turn Piratical Musician, who knows, he might look something like this...

As it's the first week of the month, I also took a look at my work in progress pile to see if anything jumped out and told me to paint it.  I wouldn't say that that was exactly the case, but I did still remove a few things from the pile of shame.

First up are some re-purposed HeroClix models, originally they were used as mooks in a Savage Worlds Necessary Evil Campaign (Essentially Super-Villains-Save-The-World).  They only ever got as far as being re-based and then undercoated, so I've got them painted and I expect they will form a 7TV SWAT Police Cast - I'm hoping to get some 'out in the sticks' terrain done over the next few months as well, so they may end up paired with a group of cultists or similar that have been abducting folk for some kind of foul ritual.  This might mean a Children of the Fields cast, or maybe some reclusive survivalists - I've not really decided yet.

First up a Tough Detective and her Dependable Deputy, ready to lead their strike team to rescue the abductees.

Sculder and Mulley?

They'll be backed up by a SWAT team  - at first I wasn't sure what to do for these, because the only Police SWAT team appears in the Paranormal Investigators guide, and precludes the use of 'English' Police (the "Across the Pond" SFX) - which would mean I couldn't use Riot Police, which you'll see below.  However, I realised that an Army Unit 1) Also has the Law Enforcement Genre, and 2) the Dependable Deputy also has the Military Genre - so I'm covered both ways by using the Army Unit profiles for these - 9 Privates and a grenade-toting Corporal.

"Fire at Will!" "Which one's Will Sir?"

And here are the aforementioned Riot Police. Or the meat shield, as they are likely to be.  The Sergeant is so hard he doesn't even put his visor down. I may have to get hold of some kind of Police Car or Van to make best use of their "You're Nicked" SFX.

"Let's go Clubbing, Lads"

The Last few figures I have will likely represent a Dog Handler (the chap with the pistol and empty hand), for whom I shall have to acquire some Dogs, and an Explosives Expert - as a cast can only have one of the latter, I'm not sure what I'll do with the duplicate figure.  Perhaps a hand swap is in order to provide me with a second Corporal so I can split the SWAT team into two units.

Why does this make me think of a boy band
that will soon be firing their stylist?

Also in the work in progress pile were some character models for yet another RPG setting - this time a Sci-Fi one-shot that I ran, with pre-generated characters.  Another undercoated but never painted tale for them.  These are my first time using clear bases - mostly as an experiment to help me get my head around how to use them for a future project.  I think they work nicely, though I'm not sure I'd use them for a lot of things, they might just be the best idea for Board Game miniatures (yes, I'm aware I've just finished painting a boardgame, and I sanded and painted all the bases ...)

So, here are the crew of the Starship Lakota, from left to right a Crooked Dice Time-Lift Security Operative, Karl Drax and Kaela Yu from Hasslefree (I removed Kaela's Cigarette as the character it Psychic and it made a nice 'mind reading' pose, I felt), and a Reaper Miniatures Sligg.  I still need to get a 'drone' for the Sligg to control - fortunately it won't be that long until Crooked Dice's Sci-Fi Pulp miniatures will be heading my way, and there's a rather wonderful Major-Domo drone coming that will do the job perfectly.

The Crew of the Lakota

The last bit of painting I completed this week was, in all honesty, done because of how simple it would be.  One warning when you look at these Reaper Bones figures.  Don't blink. Don't even blink.

Blink and your dead.

Perhaps these will be Animated Statues for the Cult the 7TV Police cast are investigating.  Maybe they're up to something more mystical than mundane ...

In total that makes 35 models painted this week, which somewhat makes up for the week before when nothing got completed at all.

Mrs. H. has already chosen my next project.  The Investigators from Mansions of Madness 2nd edition.  We don't quite have all the supplements, and Mrs. H. has already painted one of them, so I'm only left with another 30 to do (at the moment).

Because of the lovely boards they move around on, I'm intending to finish these with clear bases - some of the feet/contact points are rather small but, having already done the crew above,  I reckon with a sharp knife, and some patience (along with a lack of canine or junior interference) I'll be able to get them sorted.

May also appear as a 7TV Pulp cast, or two, or three ...

Will I manage to get anything else painted this month?  That's going to be a very big maybe ... 30 individual characters means that not much in the way of batch painting is going to happen.  I might build up a couple of MDF scenery kits and do something with them though - it all comes down to time in the end.

Running Totals

Painted: 292

Acquired: 65