Sunday, March 22, 2020

Snakeskin and the Duchess

In the annals of the free goblin heroes of the Tartarus Rim none rise higher than Pliss Snakeskin.


His gang, the Veridian Boyz, are among the most renowned sneakers in the known galaxy, having quietly smuggled all manner of contraband and even people through their network of agents and unlisted shuttleports, extending to even some of the most secret facilities on the most heavily guarded planets. He himself can generally be recognized by his two most prized trophies: his eyepatch, won in a long ago fight with an orc who tried to enlist his involuntary assistance, and his lucky scarf, which the story says he found while escaping a prison on the old moon of Terra itself. As with all such rumors it is impossible to confirm it, but whatever the truth the original meaning of the design is long forgotten. For Snakeskin it apparently has a newer and more personal meaning: Freedom!

Perhaps his single most notorious exploit on the Rim involved rescuing Proconsul Christos Commodus from a carefully orchestrated kidnapping by none other than the notorious Duchess of Pain Court and her gang, the Boudoir Noir.


This event that was the single most key driver behind the current Treaty of Proserpine, which grants full rights to all goblinoid and orkoid inhabitants of the sector. (At least so long as the Terran Imperial Council remains unaware of this purely local situation.)

. . . . . . . 

This particular duo is of interest since the second provided me with the name and background for the first, thus linking the two of them together. The second, a limited edition Citadel Chaos Warrior, often cheekily referred to as the "Kinky Chaosette," was my first personality of 2020. I was struggling with how to paint her when a friend posted a picture of a bit of fan art to his facebook page: The Duke's Limousine out of Escape from New York. The things was, for reasons of finance, not actually shot in New York. Instead, my hometown provided the setting. Which of course endears it to me and virtually everyone else in my part of flyover country. With that car firmly in mind The Duchess was born.



(Incidentally, Pain Court was apparently once a nickname for the town, back in the very early days of French colonization. Before some other French colony asserted the trademark on the the nick. And you know what? Given what we're infamous for these days . . . I want it back!)

The preceding green fellow was actualy the penultimate miniature of 2019, and one about which I quite forgot. I think I might even have finished him in "Orktober," though don't quite me on that. He is, in point of fact, a Demonblade "Blood Claw Frother" originally released by Grenadier as a part of their K-Force range. I'd already painted the gobbo with the missile launcher out of the same pack, but what to do with the large headscarf? Of cousre! A 'Murican Flag! Why a goblin on the far reaches of space should have a U.S. flag unceremoniously draped about his noggin I didn't know, but . . . where there's a will the imagination writes a way. And really, what's more American than being rebellious and freedom loving, like our little green guy. He's an American knockoff on an Anglo classic, after all. (Which is itself a knockoff on an American knockoff on an Anglo knockoff on a bunch of Euro classics all wrapped up in a copy of the Sunday Times and served with a side of mixed pickle.) Ordinarily this much copying is supposed to lead to a grey sheet of paper, but maybe that theory isn't entirely correct. To paraphrase another son of St. Louis, ideas stolen from creations sufficiently diverse in time and culture can lead to a remarkably convincing simulacrum of greatness. (Maybe the only true genius that's out there.)

Anyway, both of these are pretty straightfoward builds. My paint slapped on someone else's sculpt. The only bit of deviousness was using a shield from the Bizaza Guard. The Duchess was supposed to have one of those generic plastic shields we all know and love. Strange as this may sound, I have so very very little fantasy in my leadpile that I have none. But I figure on converting the Bizaza gang over to outer space, so they didn't really need the shield especially. (I hope.) Eh, for better or worse . . . it's hers now!

Anyway, thank you for following along. Hope you enjoyed this little detour through the realms of imagination.

Sincerely,
The Composer

11 comments:

  1. Great figures,painted well and enjoyable background, what’s not to like?

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    1. Thank you! It took me a little while to figure out how to write this one up, but . . . I suppose we all need to dream of freedom right now. :)

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  2. Great looking minis. I love the head scarf on the goblin. They should splash even more colour on your wonderful stories.

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    1. Thank you! I surely hope so. :) I have to paint up more of the Budoir Noir now, but once I've done that, I have plans . . .

      Of course, knowing how quickly I paint they may not come to fruition until 2021 or 22. Maybe. (Hopefully at least a little quicker than that.)

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  3. Oh, at first I was to say how much I like the concept of Pliss Snakeskin. But then I saw the Duchess and wow! The bold use of blue is great. I was so much into the Blanche mode when I painted mine that I never cosidered using blue. She looks gorgeous!

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    1. I really struggled with how to paint her. I had the idea in mind that I wanted her to be something like the "voodoo priestess" character I saw in some movie I can't even quite recall many many years ago. But I recall so little about the movie I can't even tell you what the title was, or who played the character. It was an African American woman approximately my age or younger who is more famous as a singer. (Which is to say she's a singer the "kids these days" like more than me, ironically.) But search me as to who. I really struggled with her, and I have used so very much blue of late I was . . . really tempted to go in a different direction. (I feel like I'm stuck in a blue mode. I blame the eldar space pirates.) So it's really reassuring to hear that you like her. Once I'd decided to go silver on the armor it seemed the right choice, no matter how much I balked at it. Give her a cold, dark palette. And deciding on an Escape from New York vibe just sort of cemented that. The whole movie has a kind of a cold blue look to it, thanks to all the "night" lighting effects. (At least as memory paints the thing.)

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  4. Cool stuff once again. Adding to the ever growing fluff of The Tartarus Rim.

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  5. Nice looking minis, new epic adventures coming soon!

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    1. Thank you! I certainly hope some adventuring is in the offing. :)

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