Farming the Final Frontier Part I: Blind Beggar Buffalo

Nothing says the edge of civilization quite like the fresh smell of non-human animals in close concentrations. And we all love seeing Mal avoiding the fertilizer aboard his spaceship turned cattle car. So the Tartarus Rim needed cattle. There are a number of makers that sell traditional human cattle, and I aim to add that to the mix as well, but heroic scaled space bison in the form of a herd of Blind Beggar's Noif seemed just the thing.

After all, I already had the Noif Hoider. ;-)

 (In the end, I think some of the People of the Sand make better herdsfolk, so they're who I'm actually using for the job, but Bobby, above, had that title when he was first released.) Anyway, back to the beasties . . .

The models themselves are mostly resin castings, but with metal heads. They're big and somewhat odd looking, and that works well with the heroic scale and sci-fi setting of my usual gaming. They suffer from the usual casting construction problems: be ready to use the greenstuff. But . . . that's literally every multi-part metal or resin casting I've ever worked with. Honestly, even the injection molded stuff benefits from careful work around the seams.

But it's not really too difficult to clean up a seam. And once they're painted up the seem pretty much disappears.

So there you have it: Noifs! Or Noifen? Is Noif its own plural? Ah, who knows. 

Just the same, glad to have you along for the ride. Please pardon the smell. You get used to it after a while. And watch where you step.

Sincerely,
The Composer

Uncivil Servant

A year or two ago I backed a kickstarter by a company called Blind Beggar Miniatures. Like so many things I've purchased over the years the set of miniatures thus acquired is . . . not yet fully in paint. But slowly, bit by bit, it's getting closer. This is the story of one miniature in that set: They Mayor. Quite a few of the miniatures in the range seem to refer to a property called "Outlanders." As best as I can figure this might be related to a movie and its novelization from the late seventies or early eighties by the same name. (Could also be a novel and its dramatization. Not quite sure which way the two fall there.) Most of the miniatures have a sort of space western feel to them. There was quite a lot of that going around thirty years ago, and it's an ethos that appeals to me particularly. I'm not really sure who "The Mayor" is, or how he fits into the Outlanders story, whatever that might be. But he clearly has a rather ominous vibe, with his almost plague doctor like mask and his villainous tophat and umbrella.

He's clearly a rather affluent fellow, given his somewhat antique business garb, so I've decked him out in pinstripes and an ascot that probably refers to some lair where the children of similar fat cats grow into the maneaters they ultimately become. (No evil overlord is complete without a good evil overschooling, right?)

Like so many Blind Beggar miniatures the Mayor's details run a little to the softer end of the spectrum and the scale to the larger. Not everyone will appreciate this, but I feel it gives him a very nice comic-book kind of style that stands him well on the gaming table. Below you can see him next to another unusually tall and slightly ominous sort, in this case one of the Society of Intrepid Explorers from Curtis Fell's Ramshackle Miniatures.

And below you can see him with a variety of other upper crust sorts from various manufacturers: two leftmost from the Space Lords adventurers range now available from Moonraker, two from Ramshackle, our Mayor, and three from Colony 87.

 All in all, I'd say he stands in good stead. He's clearly a little bigger than some of the older models, but not so much so as to seem inappropriate. (We humans are, after all, quite variable in our own size and shape.) And his style of dress fits in quite well with the other sculpts, both modern and historic. And if his details provide a most interesting canvas for a painter to express themself.

Lastly, below I give you the Mayor with the other miniatures from the range: assorted civilians, colonists, aliens, and mysterious strangers wandering about the wastelands. Blind Beggar may be a bit of an acquired taste, but . . . I do believe I have acquired it. Lovely stuff.

As always, thank you for reading along. And have fun gaming out there, whatever miniatures and rules you care to use.

Sincerely,

The Composer

Outlandish Shadows

On to the first (and last) post about a 2018 project. Not quite caught up yet, but getting closer. (See how blinking far behind I was? This is what happens when you don't update your blog for a year kids. Don't do that.)

The miniatures below are from yet another Kickstarter, but unlike some of the others most or all are actually available and in regular production. They're from a company called Blind Beggar Miniatures. I'll say right here that these won't be for everyone, but if you're a little tolerant and enjoy a miniature that's got just a bit of the "blank canvas" to it, these are for you.

First let me start with the "specforce ranger." I suspect he's probably another take on Lawrence of Arabia, rather like the Imp Guard Scout from a couple of posts back. But where I ran with that a little more on the last Lawrence, I tried to treat the current fellow more as a young Faisal of Arabia, which is to say more authentically local. (And less Dune. No blue washes on the eyes this time.) The scarf, which I again take to be a kind of khefiya, I gave somewhat more traditional colors. (Which is to say black and white.) Such things really do benefit from some kind of pattern, particularly since I now have several and I think blank colors would look cartoonish fast.

I tried to give the dog-bot a weathered look, where the paint was maybe half stripped away by years of natural sand blasting. (I'm fighting to recall how I did that. I want to say it was maybe silver damp-brushed with red, dry brushed with silver, and maybe washed with a red ink that covers absolutely snot.)

Next up is a pack labeled The Bounty Hunters. I actually prefer to think of them as nomads, and I painted the short one as a young child. (With a whimsical flower to kidsify her sand-mask. Yeah, she's got a gun and all, but . . . kids can be kids.) Apart from that small bit of freehand I suspect this was a fairly obvious paint job and it's quite a lot closer to what's on Blind Beggar's website than most of what I've done. But painting off white robes is actually a lot of fun. There's so much room for variation and subtle shading there. Besides, the three of them make a great family.

Have you noticed that every second Western seems to have at least one fellow with a Cockney accent? Yeah, this is that character. And where there is a bowler there should be pinstripes. Again, a little freehand makes nearly any model pop just a bit more, and it is REALLY hard to argue with a pinstripe vest in the middle of a dusty frontier setting. Officially he's the manhunter, but I prefer to think of him as a grox herder or some such. Get away from the smog of New London and enjoy the smell of fresh air and grox leavings.

The next set is labeled as The Mechanics: Joe, Kaero, and BOB 2. (I assume BOB 2 stands for Bits of [Busted] Bot or something like.) Joe and Kaero seem a clear enough reference. The lady with the oversize wrench got some freehand to spice her up a bit. The striped blouse is fairly obvious, but I think the camouflage pants in the same pattern as the First Logansport might almost slip past. (Perhaps she mustered out at some point not too long ago. Or maybe she just shops military surplus for work pants. Either way, it can be a subtle connection to her surroundings.) The Sapiens non-homo got a fairly simple orangutan inspired treatment. The busted bot is heavily weathered, but otherwise pretty simple. iR2 is from a separate line of miniatures, but I like him and got him painted fairly quickly anyway.

I rather broke some rules with the next few. They come from a few different sets respectively called the Priest and Acolytes, Baronial Guard Characters, and an alien monk fellow that was, I fear, a kickstarter exclusive. I believe the guards were originally marketed as a customs inspector and his guard. Moab III already has a spaceport official with a rather different look . . .

. . . But he quite reminded me of the Colony 87 pilgrim (seen below in grey) . . .

. . . And so I painted him in similar grey and blue colors with the guard decked out to match.This, of course, had certain religious implications, and so he became yet another cult leader. (Probably not the same cult as the pilgrim, but quite possibly related.)

So the acolytes gained a new preacher, but otherwise remained much the same. (And I think their habits look much more akin to the tech collars of the Baronial forces anyway.) The priest became a monk, if a somewhat angry looking one. And the alien monk became the friendlier alternative.

I still have a few miniatures to go in the set: most notably the mayor, his wife, and a bunch of small animal robots, but all told I'm fairly please with them. Many of them benefit from some judicious freehand, as there are large fairly plain stretches of cloak or shirt to paint. The sculpting is fairly simple, at times maybe even just a touch crude, but that actually works well for the environment I have in mind. And with paint? I'm really quite pleased with what they add. All told, these have been fun. They're probably not for everyone, but if you want civilians for a Space Western you could really do quite a lot worse. These folks will add some bustle to any half-forgotten settlement on the edge of flea infested nothing.

As always, thank you for reading along.

Sincerely,

The Composer