Skeletal Swivel Gunners.

Here are a couple of vignettes I did a few years back for a Zombie Pirates of the Black Coast Army. I never completed enough figures for the project to make it to the gaming table and besides my interest in all things GW was on the wane by this point in time. However I think these boys deserve another crack of the whip so they may yet get incorporated in the Retro Dungeon project.

These were constructed from the plastic empire boxed set &plastic skeletons boxed sets from circa mid/late nineties with gun barrels sourced fro my spares box, they started life as brass and timber ships guns but the provenance is lost in the mists of time.

A Short Gelatinous Cube Tutorial.

Having been frankly appalled at how much a decent gelatinous cube costs if bought commercially I decided to have a go myself:
1. Raid the girlfriends kitchen ware collection for a glass ice cube:

Or you could purchase one from a cookery shop, florists etc for a couple of quid.

2. Make a mould from two part silicon rubber, I bought mine from TOMPS here in the U.K. they have a very extensive and useful online shop. The cube was hot glued onto the base of a plastic business card box but any watertight container would do. I do stress watertight though, two part silicon rubber will find even the tinniest hole and escape leaving a horrible blue mess.
This will now require 24 hours in a warm place to cure. You should be left with something like this:

The glass ice cube can now be removed from the mould box ( hot glue remember, the glass peels away from it easily) and returned to the correct drawer in the kitchen.

3. Mix up an appropriate amount of clear florists resin, this I also bought from TOMPS and pour into the mould. Again leave for 24 hours in a warm place to cure. It is advisable to put a cover over the top to stop dust and small insects getting in, though the latter could be quite cool.
You can also at this stage add any debris into the cube, bones, coins weapons etc, but beware anything too heavy will sink to the bottom very quickly and will look a little odd in the finished product.

Below are some of the finished Cubes fashioned by yours truly.

The top cube has had a small amount of gold glitter added to simulate coins, the glitter elements are actually round which adds to the effect. The lower cube has had a few offcuts of plastic skeleton added.

This is a somewhat fresher victim, again an amalgum of plastic skeleton bits, unfortunately ha floated to the top of the resin during curing and has broken through the surface. This illustrates in reverse what happens when you put heavy stuff in the resin.

If anyones interested I'm quite happy to knock a cubes out for a small consideration plus postage. Just let me know.

Regards HGA.

More Pulp Figures & Some Not Very Retro GW Plastics.

As an appendix to the last post here are a few more miniatures from my RPG related collection.
First up the nefarious Cult of the Black Fan & some ne'er do wells from the back streets of Shanghai.

All of these are Pulp Figures from the talented hands of Bob Murch.

Moving on to the Grim & Dark world of The Empire, a few plastic figures from G.W. These were created from left overs in the spares box so I can't remember which sets they are from.

The scenery comes all the way from Croatia courtesy of Tabletop World, admittedly its expensive but it is very good.

The On-going Dilemma.

Still trying to decide in which direction to take the retro RPG project, although I have nailed it down to two candidates both of which I have material for.
1. Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing.
Back in the day this was very much on the radar for me but with my usual good timing I started polytechnic the same year my roleplaying friends at home took this up. I have over the last couple of years picked up some bits and pieces for it quite cheaply on Ebay and it does look worth a shot.

The investigative aspect is a big attraction here, my current ( I hesitate to use the word regular) role playing group have played Call of Cthulhu on and off for a long time and seem keen on this style of adventure so thats a major plus point and I personally really like the renaissance feel to the setting.

Not sure about the cross dressing goblins though.

2. Call of Cthulhu. This is a favourite of mine, despite only starting to GM it in any quantity in the last decade. The seeds of a possible campaign have been sown by last years Shanghai game and the players are still alive in a real and figurative sense so thats a real goer, the only problem is finding the time and imagination to follow up what was a decent scenario. That part of my aging brain seems to have atrophied in the last few years and I can't fall back on any of the published stuff I own because frankly most of it is rubbish.

A Quick Showcase on some Pulp Figures.

This is a long overdue showcase of the excellent work done by Mr. Bob Murch of Pulp Figures. The ne,er do wells photographed above performed admirably as bit parts in my Call of Cthulhu games a few years back.

A More Modern Take on the Three Stage Character

Very much a feature of my evolving years as a roleplayer was the availability of character miniatures depicted as low, medium & high levels of themselves; these were if memory serves produced by both Ral Partha & Games Workshop / Citadel Miniatures.

Recently I found a French company called Fenryll Miniatures who have resurrected this admirable tradition in a range of resin miniatures; pictured below are two of three Elf Mages, the third still being a work in progress.

Despite these being very un-old school resin I like them & will probably buy more.