Saturday 20 September 2014

Blake's Seven - "The Way Back" - WIP - Part One

Recently I’ve been watching (and just listening) to the first season of the British television science fiction series “Blake’s Seven”, and as always seems to be the case, it has got me in the mood to take on the might of the dastardly Federation and strike a blow for freedom. I’ve actually been close to doing such a project a few times in the past, looking at either converting some of splendid space ship crew by “Heresy Miniatures” or even dropping a couple of scales for some colonist conversions via “Ground Zero Games”. In the end though I’ve gone with these Freedom Fighter models by “Crooked Dice Game Design Studio”, and in doing so had a slight ‘light bulb’ moment. Why not get back into their excellent “7TV” rule set at the same time; especially as a Blake’s Seven expansion is available as a free PDF from the site here: http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/wp/the-blakes-7-miniatures-game
 
As I was thus returning to both “Crooked Dice Miniatures” and “7TV” I could think of nothing more fitting than a small venture based upon the first episode of Terry Nation’s brainchild, which was entitled “The Way Back”. I still have a few other painting projects on the go at the moment, including the completion of a couple of Painting Challenges and a rather large World War One endeavour. But hopefully this one will actually take off over the next few weeks and result in not only a dozen or so posts, but a few battle reports as well.
I’ve had some real fun with a few of “Wizkids” “Heroclix” models over the past couple of weeks. I’ve still got some work to do on the Rocket Racoon, though I’m a bit undecided as to whether to simply leave his costume plain brown. But the Catwoman model from the early DC Comics Batman Alpha set is essentially finished. I have seen some versions of this pre-painted plastic figure with the cat-suit’s zipper painted silver and many more with the goggle’s eyepieces painted yellow or gold. But the model is a little bit too fiddly for my skills to do such tiny details justice and I like it the way it is.

12 comments:

  1. Nice work on the repaints. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the Freedom Fighters. I really like the Fed Sec but I'm not keen on the weapons carried by the FF. I probably should try and checkout the tv series as its not something I've ever watched.

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  2. Simon, many thanks indeed. I've quite a few more Heroclix lined up in the pipeline. Hopefully as far as painting the FF weapons is concerned I can get away with a white undercoat and grey wash but they are unique looking I agree. Very easy to paint models when you're watching/listening to the characters on the TV :-)

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  3. Nice job on Selina Kyle as always Simon, I see you have the Blakes 7 figs you recomended to me a while back, they do look good but I cant decide who the one on te left is supposed to be, is it Avon or Villa? (looking again I think it's Villa the clothes are wrong for Avon, yes?)

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  4. Roger, Yes that is Vila Restal with his trusty box of gadgets to open security locks and gates. Both Vila and Jenna Stannis appear in "The Way Back" with Roj Blake so I thought the three of them would be a great starting point to begin with :-)

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  5. Vila was always my favourite member of the crew (till Glynis Barber arrived that is!), a chap at works mother was a HUGH Paul Darrow fan and thought he was the most georgeous man in the world???? Still at least he didn't end up being called Avon or Paul (My mum was a big fan of the Saint and 007, if you see what I mean!!).

    Cheers Roger.

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  6. I had the great pleasure of meeting and chatting with Paul Darrow a couple of years ago, and a truly top bloke he was too. He was especially pleased that my two sons were watching his adventures on DVD :-)

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  7. Have you ever read his novel "Avon a terrible aspect" it's really rather good and tells of his adventures that led him to being on the prison ship in the first place?

    Funny how some actors get so in a part they write further adventures for them "Harry Sullivans war" and "Turlough and the uplink dilema" are two Dr Who examples. Both not bad books in their own right.

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  8. Hi Roger. I haven't read that as I'm still behind listening to Darrow do his B7 audio plays and novel narrations for Big Finish. If you've not heard them visit their website to hear some trailers. Great stuff!! I did once try and get so far into "Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma" but thought it was rubbish - and actor Mark Strickson only wrote an intro for that not the book itself. Ian Marter on the other hand, well I've only read his Dr Who novels and genuinely thought he could write well; "The Invasion" being his best one I thought.

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  9. I never liked Turlough in the series (such a sneaky self centered sod and Tegan was so miserable you would have just dumped them both out of the Tardis first chance you got), but I seem to remember not minding the book (you are right of course he did just do the intro) though it's many a year sice I read it (I had the full collection of Target novels upstairs, it took me many many years to get them all and I'm rather proud of them (bit sad really).

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  10. Well its a bit obvious from my answer above that I too own such a collection, Roger, so don't worry about being sad :-) I've got affair few of the BBC and Virgin novels too, but found I simply didn't have the time to read them so quickly gave up. I can't even keep up with audios these days either :-(

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  11. Yes I read quite a few of "The New Adventures" when they started coming out (back when it was Ace and lter Bernie Summerfield but they gradually got less like the Dr who I remembered and I eventually gave up on them (and I was getting more and more into Bernard Cornwell as well) so I sold them all off at a show years ago, and to be honest I have no real interest in anything from the end of Sylvester McCoy onwards.

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  12. Roger, Couldn't agree more. The novels became nothing like the TV series and to be honest, unfortunately a lot of the audio plays have gone the same way. There's been some v good episodes in the new TV Dr Who stuff over the past few years but everyone always seems to be saying they miss the cliffhangers, the endings these days are rushed with no build-up, and why do you have to watch the entire season in sequence in order to understand what is going on - especially for the final episode. If you don't have an interest in the new stuff though you might not be that interested in another painting project I've got lined up; heavily inspired by your Dr Who posting the other week :-)

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