Innsmouth Bad Boys - Completed

 These little guys were a bit of an experiment so I'm not 100% happy with them, but they gave me a bit more experience in designing 3D figures. till, they expand my 'Assault on Innsmouth' collection and have given me some ideas for future fantasy projects.

'The Snapper Brothers' - Frog Man
A swivel-gun totting amphibian psychopath - the elder brother of this duo, his toxic bite is as deadly as the bark of his canon-ette !

'The Snapper Brothers' - Shark Man
He never sleeps and his search for prey is ceaseless! He'll get you, by tooth or he'll nail you...

These models take me slightly away from my original peg format with their modified bodies. I think I could have made something similar out of wood, but the great advantage of 3D modelling is it allows a lot more latitude for on the fly experimentation which encourages trying new ideas.

So, that's my monsters and now I'll have to finish off this small series with a few more human cast members. It'll be fun, though, setting these up against 'normal' figures in a skirmish game! 😁

Link to all posts in this project series: Innsmouth Bad Boys/Assault on Innsmouth.

Innsmouth Bad Boys - Progress

While I'm getting there with my 'Innsmouth Bad Boys' I wanted to show the intermediate progress rather than simply going straight to the completion photos (which are about a day away). That would be a bit too much like those frustrating Blue Peter 'and here is one I made earlier' reveals! 😁

While most of these figures have been pretty straight forward. I have topped the project with some painting that is a little more involved than usual...

In particular, my 'frog-man' has been given a facial that is more detailed than my normal cartoonish peg figures, with some graduated tones and textures.

The reason for this little departure from my usual super-simplified style is that I wanted to emphasise the monstrousness of these characters as compared to the 'normal' human peg characters in the series.

They are still - obviously - not 'realistic' by any means, but it was an interesting small departure for my painting style, if only to see what I could do for fun.

Innsmouth Bad Boys - Part 1

 Moving on from the 'good guys' I made for my 'Assault on Innsmouth' scenario (a H.P Lovecraft inspired pulp-horror skirmish game I have in mind), I have designed two of the townsfolk mutants. These are intended to be two of Innsmouth's heavies and will provide artillery support for the town faction.

Above: 'The Deep Ones', undersea demons that the the followers of
Dagon aspired to interbreed with. Source: The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki.

For those that haven't read Lovecraft's story, the inhabitants of Innsmouth displayed a spectrum of mutations culminating in their final change into immortal fish-like humanoids called 'Deep Ones'. In their abdominal worship of the demi-god Dagon, the townsfolk interbreed with the Deep Ones which culminated in a range of aquatic hybrids.  

Designing a Mutant Peg Figure!
So far I haven't really taken my peg figures into the realms of the horror genre, so what I am doing now is a bit of a jump into the unknown for me. In other words, I am - as I have done in the past - making this all up as I go along, I don't have any templates for these new designs.

My first attempt to create a mutant creature was simply to modify my usual peg body by adding a hybrid head...

But this first attempt at a 'shark-man' was not satisfactory at all, I needed to create something a little more monstrous - in both look and mass. So, I decided to create a new, slightly larger body and by doing so I would be able to mount a larger head on it.

Above: By simply upturning the normal body and enlarging the normal
component that I use I was able to create a base for more massive heads!

The massive heads do lend themselves to a cartoonish horror quite nicely, especially as I am trying not to let my monsters look too out of play against my other peg figures. Hopefully, I have maintained a balance here - I can't goo too wild or 'realistic' (relatively speaking).

First to be designed in TINKERCAD was my 'frog man' cannoneer. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek and a sort of cross between Lovecraft and 'The Pirates of the Caribbean' but it makes me smile...

Happy with my 3D design I printed out all the various parts in the form of a kit. Every time I make one of these 3D figures they do seem to get a tiny bit more detailed or have more components to them...

I was particularly please with the cannon and I think I will try to scale this component up to make a proper canon for my normal peg soldiers. That done I moved on to the second of my Innsmouth heavies - my new and improved shark-man (the cocktail sticks are just place-holders until I could fashion better harpoon spears)...

I'm quite pleased with how these little monsters turned out. I think I'm starting to get to grips with this 3D figure making malarkey (even for saying that my cartoon style is fairly simple). 

They are quite intimidating and should give the townsfolk a bit of a chance in their defence against the Federals and their puny human weapons! 😉

NEXT: Scratching my head over the colour schemes and painting.

Peg Figures Batch Complete - Mixed Bag

 Well, I got this little mixed bag of characters completed. Mixed is the key word here, as I have mixed feelings about this latest series of 3D printed 'pegs'. 😕

Three out of the four are original prototypes which were early 3D test prints, one of them - the musician - was THE first print and so I'm not altogether happy with them. Still, rather than consign them to the scraps bin I thought they might be interesting practise models for my painting.

The final figure is a new print that I made for my Lovecraftian 'Assault on Innsmouth' set. He is a salty seadog who is ready to repel boarder! Yar! (Any similarity to one Captain Haddock is purely coincidental! 😄

Anyway, here's the finish pics, enjoy...

'Private Toot' - An early prototype, but useful practise for a potential Christmas
tree ornament. Hence the Christmas colours!

'Mr. Clank' - Again, a sort of Christmas ornament inspired figure. I'm trying to decide
on what kind of figures to include in a Xmas ornament box set.

'Winter Soldier' - Yes, this could be another Christmas themed figure. But, I just
wanted to get back to doing traditional soldier models again!

And for my Lovecraft series, here's a salty seadog - one of the Innsmouth townsfolks!

As I mentioned in the 'Winter Soldier' caption, I desperately want to get back into making some traditional soldiers again (along side my Lovecratian themed figures). But, as you can see, I am already starting to plan for next Christmas as I hope to make even more of the family presents myself this year.

1920s Peg Detective - Part 1

Another in my 'Assault on Innsmouth' series, this character is a Federal agent. It's been a while since I read 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' but as far as I remember Lovecraft relates that Innsmouth was eventually assaulted by Federal forces to clear out the degenerate elements which was mis-reported by the press as a 'prohibition liquor raid'. While this is - as far as I remember - fairly unspecific later narratives in the 'Call of Cthulhu' RPG mythology intimate US Marines, US Navy and government agencies like the FBI being involved.

Now the 'Federal' agencies may have been one of any number, like The Bureau of Internal Revenue, The Federal Bureau of Investigation or even - as pictured above - The US Postal Inspection Service, all of which - despite the mundane titles of some of these services - had a hand at dealing with the gangsters and miscreants of the time.

So, as I cannot be exact as to which department might have had a hand in the raid, my agent is a generic government agent (though I had in mind the 1987 movie 'Untouchables' when I made him).

“Arm your agents, and not just with revolvers. If these gangsters want to use machine guns, then give your special agents machine guns, shot guns, tear gas, everything else! This is war!” Bruce J. Gregory (Addison Richards), 'G'Man', 1935. 

The Makings of a 'G' Man...
As is usual with my peg figures I start by planning the hat - a hat is one  of the most identifiable characteristics of my cartoon figures. The hat most associated  with a detective from the 1920s and 30s was the fedora so that's where I started...

Obviously, to match the look of my cartoon figures I simplified the design of the hat by using basic geometric shapes to create something which looked roughly like the real thing (very roughly)! 😄

I also extended the 'body' of my peg figure to give it the look of having a long coat, another characteristic of the hardboiled detective - where would the gumshoe be without his trench coat?

And finally, as an active member of a armed raid I decided to give my man a pump shotgun - again very much influenced by the movie 'Untouchables'...

Above: My completed 3D 'kit' for my peg detective.

Quite a lot of the final detail will be affected during the painting process - such as the shirt, tie and the coat lapels. But, in the meantime, here's the assembled 'kit'...

As usual I did have a bit of a quandary over how to create a acceptable pose with a weapon. My way of making the peg figures does have certain limitations when it comes to modelling 'realistic' poses, particularly when it comes to the arms. So, I have to take a bit of 'artistic licence'... 😉

In this case, as you can see, I have my G Man holding his pump shotgun one handed, it's a bit iffy BUT is in keeping with some Hollywood movies!

NEXT: What colour is a dirty Macintosh? 😂

US Navy Shore Party Seaman - Part 1

 Onward and upwards with my 'Assault on Innsmouth' characters! Today I've been working on the second of my six 'good guys', this time a sailor with a honking great BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle)!

Above: My reference source for this figure, illustrations of 1920s era
USN Shore Party members from the China campaign.

I've kinda split my investigative team into two types of members - three are the traditional action hero types there to deal with the physical adversaries and traditional dangers, while the other three are paranormal specialists who are adepts in arcane knowledge. (Though in common with D&D conventions each individual will have their own specialist attributes.)

My seaman will be my 'tank', a very physically strong character who possesses heavy firepower and can soak up punishment. His BAR light machine gun will provide the investigative team with protection from waves of aggressors.

Hello Sailor!
I started with my stardard 3D peg figure, though I have now tried to incorporate a belt so as to make painting a little easier (gluing on a belt - plasticard strip - to the printed body proved a little fiddly and messy in previous figures).

Above: My 3D model file was created using TINKERCAD and I am slowly
creating a collection of interchangeable standard parts.

I was thinking about what other items I could add, but in keeping with my simplified cartoon style of my peg characters I decided 'less was more' and that other details were better just painted on.

So, the main new feature of this particular character would be the sailor's Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) which the US military used as a light machine gun. I wanted a roughly identifiable silhouette though it would still be designed to compliment my simplified 'toy' style. I began by laying down some simple blocky shapes in TINKERCAD (using my standard rifle model as a template for size)...

Above: You can see how TINKERCAD uses simple 'primitive' shapes to
build up your model designs. I wanted to create a rough overall shape that
was analogous to the real BAR but which fitted my 'cartoon' characters.

It actually took a couple of attempts before I came up with a design I was happy with, and I noticed that for these figures that I have sorta over-scaled the guns, I suppose in keeping with the chunky cartoon aesthetic. 

The gun done I printed out all the individual parts to make my peg figure 'kit'...

The only thing that was missing rom this set of components is the connecting rod which acts as the arm attachment 'shoulders'. This I would make out of 4mm wooden dowel (I tried out 3D printing this part but - in my opinion - it was a bit of a waste of time and material when a bit of dowel was perfectly adequate).

NEXT: In part two of this project I'll come up with my paint palette for this little seaman (and I am quite pleased with myself for getting right through this post without making any puns about seaman).

1927 US Marine with Tommy Gun

 First of my 'good guys' for my Assault on Innsmouth' series, 'Sarge' is the lynch-pin of my little RPG team. Hopefully, you will be somewhat familiar with the mythos of H. P. Lovecraft but if not think of a darker version of Scooby-Doo with lots of tentacles involved! (LOL - I simplify a lot here!) 😂

Anyway, I simplified the 1920s era USMC uniform a bit but I think it's been done in the right spirit. I'm really quite interested in this Inter-War period of the 1920 & 30s as it has a lot of potential for Pulp/Steampunk sci-fi and horror tabletop game scenarios.

I quite like this figure, he has a lot of character and it did tempt me to make a whole squad made up of marines turning a Lovecraftian scenario into a sort of retro 'Aliens' bug hunt! 😆 But, in the end, I'm sticking to my original idea of making a more diverse investigative team.

Starting to get a small army of peg figures - going to have to start looking at getting a display cabinet of some type.

Glad I decided to add the cigar!

Lovecraftian Pegs - Good Guy, Bad Guy

Completed my latest peg duo, a couple of Pulp Lovecraftian RPG figures. 

I'm still working on low and middle level NPC characters - I'll leave the scary high level Mythos creatures until last - so here's a couple of more figures that can add some spice to the narrative but are easily disposable early to mid game (pre-boss level if you like).

'Mr. Mustafa' is a rather nasty middleman, a collector (and sometimes fence) of rare ancient artefacts. He is loosely based of the Hollywood actor Peter Lorre (with a bit of Sydney Greenstreet from 'The Maltese Falcon' and the character Beni Gabor from 'The Mummy' thrown in)...

The second figure is - I would imagine - quite a useful but not vital character, a policeman. In this case he is a New York police sergeant (a nice counterpart to the British Bobby I did last year) and I guess you might consider him as being a 'ambiguous' entity as he might be good but also - dependant on the storyline - he could be belligerent character.

These are the first of my new 3D printed peg characters and as such they include a few new ways of doing things that make them slightly different from my original wooden pegs. I've also departed from my original gloss finish of my peg soldiers, I've applied a satin varnish finish which seems more fitting for these gaming figures.

More Lovecraft Characters Completed

 In between Christmas gifts I'm still trying to get some of my own backlog of projects done. Among these were some H.P. Lovecraft RPG characters I was working on. I'm trying to build a varied 'cast' of characters and that means crafting low-level bit-players as well as 'stars'!

So, with each set I'm including either a general NPC (non-player character) or minion, you can never have too many minions. 😄 In this case I made a 'thug' to pit against my heroes...

If you are a Lovecraft movie fan you might appreciate the next character I added in this set, the 'mad surgeon'. Very loosely based on the cult classic 'B' movie 'Reanimator' my ghoulish saw-bones is a bit tongue in cheek - but, then, I had envisioned this figure being a ready for Halloween...

And finally, I've included a good old Lovecraftian stand-by protagonist - a learned university professor, someone steeped in the esoteric and occult. I've 'armed' him with a mystic tome and an amulet of sorts...

And there we go my cast grows ever bigger. The idea will be that as I play different Lovecraftian scenarios I can dip into my collection of figures to create an ensemble of appropriate peg players.

I've plenty more ideas for additional cast, but one this is for sure and that is I'll need a lot more supporting characters than lead roles. This'll be a long project!

Sunday Roundup 27/09/20

 Everything is sort of 'between' or 'in the works' at the moment so there's not much to show you, particularly by way of military models. 😟 (But they are definitely on the way!)

So, here are some snapshots of what is on the main painting bench at the moment...

My little Boeing P.26 is coming along nicely and should be finished soon. I've really enjoyed making this model, the design worked out very nicely, so much so that I can see me making more models based off the design. I'll probably be following up my original plan for this and make a slightly modified monoplane but in Molatarian colours so I can add it to my air force!

Next up are the series of Christmas tree decorations that I've designed - part of my plan to make a lot of my festive gifts this year - though, luckily, these little pegs are quick to do...

On a similar theme, I've also started painting my peg mini-nutcrackers, but I'm starting with a sort of un-traditional figure for my eldest daughter who is a bit grinchy when it comes to the festive season. So I'm making a set of decorations that are probably more to her twisted tastes! 😃

Yarrr be a Christmas pirate... Dunno what pirates have to do with Xmas, but who doesn't like pirates?

Even more left-field is the work I'm doing on my latest set of Lovecraft Mythos inspired figures, including this model of a Wendigo (no, it's not a reindeer for another Xmas gift idea)! 😂

And finally, a set which is totally unrelated to toy soldiers but has, in fact, taught me a couple of additional techniques that I will certainly be adding into future models - my completed Wedding Cake Toppers!

Now, this project has actually given me a few ideas regarding Funny Little War related models, specifically adding civilian costumed models into my collection. I have seen other FLW collectors who have already done this by adding nurses, photographers and members of the aristocracy to their game tables to add some amusing atmosphere.

I'd personally love to do some period costume models (especially Edwardian).

And that's it for this weekend! 👍

More Lovecraftian Mythos Shenanigans!

 Although my fantasy world of Molatero is primarily based on the principals of war-gaming H. G. Well's 'Funny Little Wars' I cannot help myself but imagine that while conventional warfare is underway that a very secret and weirder type of war is simultaneously ongoing. That war is the struggle against cosmic horror as conceived by the mind of H. P. Lovecraft! (Tongue firmly in cheek as I write this!) 😉

My latest Lovecraftian duo - A stalwart British Bobby for those mysterious
adventures in foggy old London town and a lowly Cultist foot-soldier,
minion of the creeping cosmic terror!

I have always been a fan of 'weird wars', whether they be a Steampunk version of Funny Little Wars, or the science-fiction influenced 'Luftwaffe 1947' which re-imagined a 'what if' scenario had WW2 extended and allowed the use of some of the more fantastical 'secret weapons' to come into play (including Nazi UFOs). But also, as a fan of Gothic horror, I have mulled over the idea that the fantasy world of Molatero might also have room for a dark and nightmarish sub-culture?

After all, I base my concept of Molatero on the real world cultures and geography of Romania and the Carpathian Mountains, the locale of Transylvania and the haunt of Dracula! 😃

The Molatarian Mountains - 'Where wolf?'

LOL... Enough frivolous fairy-tale nonsense, however entertaining it may be, as you can guess the above tenuous fiction is but an thinly disguised excuse for me to justify the inclusion of Gothic horror and the later Lovecratian Mythos into my blog! 😏

I've featured a few of my Lovecraftian peg figures in past passing before, but I thought it was about time to add 'Weird' characters as a regular feature on this blog. As if I needed extra incentive to do so, I posted a question on the H.G. Wells FLW Facebook Group enquiring whether other FLW enthusiasts added fantasy elements to their games and I was pleased to find that - indeed - other players do!

Unconventional units like Steampunk inspired airships and steam tanks are popular additions and I have even seen some models relating to 'Martian Wars' on sale (although these are intended for other rule systems). This should not be surprising, really, as H. G. Wells was - of course - better known for his fantasy fiction, including 'War of the Worlds'.

So, my sneaking in the fictional entities from another legendary fantasy author kinda has a president! 😆