(Lead) Mountain Musings - "Forgotten Heroes" June 2018

"Heroclix" Solomon Grundy WIPs - The undead criminal is to be turned into five ice zombies

This month's randomly themed attempt to try and reduce my sadly 'significantly increasing' collection of metal, plastic and resin miniatures has been put on the back burner as a result of the announcement by Dick Garrison and Carrion Crow that "Forgotten Heroes" is back for another year. Collated on the 'official' "Forgotten Heroes" website, this wonderful challenge specifically encourages bloggers to create/convert "an existing figure into a costumed superhero or villain" of their choice, "from any source (be that Comic’s, TV, Film, Adverts, Toy lines, Novels basically anywhere you can think of)."

Previously, I have rather naively attempted to complete a considerable number of conversions for "Forgotten Heroes", many of which have rather embarrassingly taken several months longer to finish than I had initially anticipated. This time round however, I'm sticking to five relatively straightforward figures, which after a bit of cutting, will rely solely upon their paint-jobs in order to change their appearance rather than heavily rely upon my usual 'spot of kit-bashing'.

Volturnos WIP - The High King Of The Deep has been assembled and primed "Vallejo" Black

With this in mind I have turned to arguably my favourite "DC Comics" publication, the February 1979 edition of "Batman", and hope to create the band of hulking mindless ice zombies Victor Fries mistakenly creates for himself as a result of his failed experiments to make some of Gotham City's richest inhabitants immortal. Currently my "Heroclix" crew for Mister Freeze only consists of a gang of bobble-hat wearing goons, so these brutishly heavy minions will help provide the "former cryogenics expert" with a bit of extra muscle.

Having done a bit of research I've chosen five Solomon Grundy miniatures from "Wizkids" "Arkham Asylum" range for this project, as the lumbering slow-minded revenant is the perfect sculpt to replicate the wealthy suit-wearing cryogenic rejects. Initially, I actually considered leaving the gnarled branch the figure was carrying in one of his hands, and converting it with a sharp modelling knife into a menacing-looking icicle. But in the end I just cut the wooden weapon off, leaving the menacing model with two closed fists instead; besides the frosted fiends didn't use any weapons in their comic book appearance.

Akhelian King WIPs - The multi-part plastic miniature will lead an Idoneth Deepkin host

In addition to "Forgotten Heroes", this month also sees the start of a much longer-term project collecting, building and painting an Idoneth Deepkin force for "Age Of Sigmar". These marvellously marine-based "Games Workshop" miniatures have really captured my imagination with their turtle-riding tanks, shark-riders and tentacled spell-casters, so I plan to construct at least 1,000 points worth of units during the summer.

To begin with, I have patiently assembled the army's leader, their Akhelian King, Volturnos - High King of the Deep and his serpentine mount. This massive, multi-part plastic kit actually costs over a quarter of my host's in-game costs alone, so I'm currently planning on only needing four-five other units, including some mandatory battle-line, before my force is complete...