Thursday, 19 October 2017

"Sometimes You Have To Play The Role Of A Fool..."

"...To fool the fool who think they're fooling you."
These two 28mm pre-painted plastic “Wizkids” Mime Monsters are both figure number 041 from the New Jersey-based company's “Horrorclix” Nightmares line. However, rather than deploy the pair of 'guardian monsters who rescue victims' for the discontinued "collectable miniatures game" I instead, plan to utilise them as "hand-to-hand specialists" for my Joker gang when playing a Gotham-focused variant of "Mutants And Death Ray Guns" by "Ganesha Games".

Both models were originally undercoated with "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey in order to 'mask' their pre-paints, and had their boots 'picked out' using a combination of Heavy Red and "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson. Their trousers were then simply treated to a layer of Abaddon Black" and I started work carefully following the line of their braces with "Vallejo" Heavy Red. Unfortunately, at this point in the process I encountered a bit of a problem with the softness of one of the Mime Monsters' sculpts, which simply made it impossible in places to trace any sort of detail whatsoever.
"Heroclix" WIPs - The Joker accompanied by lackeys destined for Mister Freeze and the Riddler
As a result, I washed the successfully painted suspenders with "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson and gave the creepy-faced creature's beret a generous dollop of Abaddon Black, and left its counter-part's straps pure Abaddon Black but painted its flat-crowned hat with "Vallejo" Heavy Red and "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson. To finish the "Horrorclix" Nightmares off, I washed both of their grey ribbed shirts with Nuln Oil, and 'picked out' their ghoulish faces with "Vallejo" Dead White and a wash of Pale Grey.

Unsurprisingly, my enthusiasm for re-painting "Wizkids" models is currently rather high, and has been 'fanned' by the arrival of some more "Heroclix" models from "Troll And Toad"; a webstore which "offers one of the Largest selections of Yugioh cards, Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering cards, and Collectible Miniatures at Great Prices." This has caused me to take a sharp modelling knife to a couple of figures in order to 'create' a second gunman for the Riddler's crew, as well as base and prime an alternative sculpt of the crowned prince of crime armed with a sub-machine gun and maniacal grin.
Zombie Gunfighter WIPs - The corpse is slowly having his decaying detail 'picked out' and washed
In addition, I have finally returned to five DC Comics "Heroclix" Hypertime lackeys I started to paint as the beginnings of a gang for Mister Freeze eighteen months ago. All of these plastic figures were slightly converted so as to give them winter bobble hats as part of the 'Forgotten Heroes' challenge, and courtesy of my renewed fevered fervour for "Gotham" I have already almost finished the first of them.

Delightfully, I've also found myself 'powering through' my meagre collection of Zombie Gunfighters by "Wargames Foundry". With a little bit of luck I am hoping to post at least three brain-chomping cowboys for this week's Zomtober challenge entry, and provide my recently completed Crusaders of the Order with some shambling, but potentially still deadly with a gun, opposition...

37 comments:

  1. All I ever do is play the fool..... typecast again.

    another zombie gunfighter. most excellent.

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    1. Thanks Clint, I've another four more Zombie gunfighters after this one; albeit I can always open a second blister pack if needs be ;-)

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  2. A full buffet of lovely minis for us to enjoy as always Simon

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    1. Cheers Andy. I always like to mix up my minis as well you know :-)

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  3. Great stuff! I have a box full of old Heroclix and seeing what you have done has definitely made me think I should try my hand at repainting one - they had some really neat sculpts I recall

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    1. Thanks Ivor. Much appreciated. I find most of the "Heroclix" minis to be great models and being plastic rather fun to convert too.

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  4. Another productive week. I like the Joker figure, I may well order one of those.

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    1. Cheers Phil. The Joker figure is a wonderfully characterful sculpt imho, and what's not to like about a sub-machine gun.

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  5. Great looking repaints on the Heroclix mini's - and I love the bobble hats :-)
    Looking forward to seeing the zombie gunslingers in this weeks challenge post.

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    1. Thanks Greg. I've still a bit of work to do on this latest zombie gunslinger, but hopeful to get him done by the weekend's closure.

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  6. The Mime's turned out really well Simon, good to see the renewed enthusiasm for your hero clix models is finishing off some old projects, very nice joker model as well.
    Also what looks to be another great cowboy zombie

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    1. Cheers Dave. The "Heroclix" bug has definitely hit me with a vengeance recently, so expect a few more "wizkids" minis to be polished off before the end of the year. Still a few more zeds left in me as well, I hope :-)

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  7. What a wonderful post, Simon, with every figure shown a winner in my eyes. I like them all and I can't decide if I like the Joker (what a superb figure) or the zombie gunfighter the most. Let's call it a draw, huh?

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    1. Thanks very much Bryan. I've a few 'interesting' "Heroclix" minis waiting in the wings, but need to get the "Gotham" campaign a bit further along before they're be painted and introduced. Hopefully the zed cowboy will be one of three ready for the weekend's Zomtober posting :-)

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  8. Superb idea to use them for your Joker gang very fitting. Nice paintjob as well dude.

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    1. Cheers Simon. I'm trying to give my minions a different look as per their criminal leader, and thought clowns would be ideal for the Joker.

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  9. The Mimes turned out very well - kudos Simon. :)

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    1. Thanks Leon. tbh, the gloss varnish doesn't do them any favours for the photos, so imho they look even better 'in the flesh'. Hopefully that'll become apparent once they appear in my next "Gotham" BatRep :-)

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  10. Really like the mimes. There's not much to work on there but excellent job on the re-paint.

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    1. Cheers Mark. The mime monsters were a little soft in detail in places, but straightforward enuff as a whole. Glad you like 'em.

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  11. The zombie gunfighter is coming along just fine. I don't think much of the sculpting on those Heroclix figures, though!

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    1. Thanks Hugh. I like the overall look of the Mime Monsters, but must confess to not liking how soft the detail is. Its a real pity "Wizkids" don't start selling unpainted "Heroclix"/"Horrorclix" in hard plastic.

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  12. You can`t go wrong (in my eyes) with a post about Mageknight, Heroclix, Horrorxclix, or Haloclix. They`re simply sooooo reusable for a myriad of uses. I`ve been dabbling with my/our clix a lot lately. Nice post Simon, and I especially like the mime guys, though Joker is looking intriguing.

    Yeah, those lackeys are like gold dust aren`t they Simon. I keep trying to pick one or two off when I see them on offer, but my collect of lackeys is still meagre and badly needs fleshing out.

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    1. Cheers Steve. I entirely agree; albeit its been a few years since I last painted a "Mage Knight" mini :-) I actually have a whole box of lackeys ready for chopping and swapping. Next time I order from "Troll And Toad" I'll happily pick you some up if you want - you could send me those "D&D" cards in return ;-)

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    2. Deal... I`d love me three of four more lackeys. But Simon oh nooooo, I feel terrible now, WHAT D&D cards? I sent all the cards along in that package, what have a missed or forgotten?

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    3. oh yikes was it a couple of civilian tokens? I vaguely remember something about that. It plain went out of my head because you never played the game and as time went by I forgot all about it. If its the token (was it one or two?) they`re tiny and *jikes* I will have to hunt for them. I honestly forgot all about that: especially as the game was never used. If you can remind me what I`m looking for, I will have a good root about and try and locate them then slip them in an envelope to you.

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    4. I found them for him. 4 tokens (Brandis, Cassi, Elizar, and Donnel) Still have no idea how they even got separated from the others. Stevie will pop the in the post box next time we are in town :)

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    5. Cheers Hils. I thought I'd imagined the entire email conversation with Steve for a minute. Righto on the four lackeys front too, I'm afraid I've just ordered from "Troll and Toad" again, but should have put another one in before Christmas :-)

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    6. He`d love you forever. Let us know how much we owe you and we can slip it in the envelope with the tokens, maybe?

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    7. No charge, Hils, they're as cheap as chips in the U.S.

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    8. he`ll love you forever Simon :)

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    9. WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!! Thanks Simon, that`s highly cool :-)

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  13. Mime Monsters are looking good.

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  14. Those mimes are truly monsterous, though I did think originally that they would be a little bt more amusing than evil - how wrong was I? Other wizkids minis looking good, but I think I've aniled it why I dislike the Western themed zeds and it's the size of their guns I reckon!:
    (scroll down for the 1859, replica remington)
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/03/daniel-zimmerman/5-insanely-large-caliber-handguns/

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    1. Ha Ha Hah! Great link, Joe :-) Glad you like the Mime Monsters, I've plenty of "Horrorclix" coming over the next few weeks as I try and bulk out the Joker's gang with some weird and (hopefully) wonderful additions.

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