“Raising a Stink”

Now some of you might have noticed that I haven’t been posting for a while, this is partly due to time restrictions, but mainly due to a complete lack of enthusiasm on my part I’m afraid, but I thought it was time to dig something out and throw some paint at it. Much contemplation ensued and I decided that the thing I most fancied painting was some form of superhero or villain, now as we all know there have to be more villains than heroes so it would have to be a fiend of some description. A root through my heroklix collection threw up a few possibilities one of which was “Wolfsbane” (right) one of the more obscure X men characters, then a memory from the dim and distant past of my childhood surfaced in the form of “The Skunkwoman” a villain from the early days of “Bananaman” back when he was a staple of the “Nutty” comic.

Now the original “Skunkwoman” was just a woman in a tight black jumpsuit very like “Catwoman” (surprise, surprise! Where do they get there ideas from I wonder) with a big “Skunk” tail instead of a cats. Obviously she rendered her opponents incapacitated with her awful smell (much to the hilarity of the ten year old boys reading, I suppose). Anyway she formed the inspiration behind my new villainess’ “Skunkerella!”, though instead of a just a suit I decided she would be a mutant human/skunk hybrid (much to the hilarity of this forty eight year old boy! Some of us never grow up). Physically she was pretty much spot on to my vision except for (you guessed it) a big fluffy skunk tail. This was pretty easily remedied, a hole was drilled into her “posterior” (this sadly went right through to the front but it was an easy fix), and then after a piece of florists wire was bent into the right general shape (a small “tang” was left at the end of this to insert into the hole later). A large amount of greenstuff was mixed up and pushed around the wire a formed into about the right shape, before I added the “fur” by jabbing and tapping it with the point of a cocktail stick. This was then left to dry overnight.

Next day I spent several minutes trying to poke a tiny soft sausage of freshly mixed greenstuff into the hole in her bottom with little success as it was too soft and kept bending, it’s at moments like this that you can’t help but be struck with just how ridiculous this hobby is sometimes! Eventually I managed to get it inserted (stop smirking at the back!) and was able to push the wire “tang” at the base of her tail into place with a blob of superglue for good measure. Once this had dried a little I took another tiny ball of “stuff” and filled in the hole between her legs at the front (I said stop smirking!). After this was all dry it was out for a coat of matt black with the aerosol can and I could get to painting her.

After the figure was touched up with a brush and some more matt black, she was highlighted with a mixture of dark grey and black, to make up a very dark grey, then a mixture of chocolate brown and black was mixed to create (wait for it…) a very dark brown and this was used to highlight the figure again. Next all the white lines on her fur were added along with her eyes and teeth, these were first undercoated with cream and then white highlights were painted over these. Her costume was next, I needed something quite bright to stand out from her black body, after much deliberation, a blue grey base, with porcelain blue highlights was chosen for the main body part and bronze with shinning gold highlights were used for her belt and shoulder pads to give it a bit of pizazz! That just left her lips to be added with a touch of dark red and she was ready to be “Quickshaded”. Basing was of course carried out in my usual way and a “blow over” with the matt varnish finished her off. Not my most productive week ever, but at least I have painted something to show I haven’t dropped off of the face of the earth.

Now while I haven’t been doing much in the way of actual painting of late, I have bought some new stuff… but wait I hear you cry you said you weren’t going to buy any figures this year!! And nor have I, but last bank holiday weekend my local florists supply wholesaler had a VAT free weekend so it would have been rude not to go and take a look and below are the items I came home with.

In the picture you can see the three different types of artificial plant I got, and in brackets after the name is the price I paid (normally they would add VAT (20%) at the till, but obviously these were VAT free). So from left to right we have, Cactus (£1.45), these are great, big but still great and will probably end up with my Sci-Fi “Wild West” stuff, but they would work for prehistoric too, so I got four of these. Aloe Durban (£2.45), Perfect additions for my prehistoric fantasy scenery, got three of these. Aeonium Plant (£2.75), again perfect for prehistoric fantasy, I can see Peter Cushing clinging to the top of one of these poking a monster with his brolly! I picked up two of these. Finally I picked up a “wall Hanger”, this is basically a square 20”x 20” of tiny vines made of wire with little leaves stuck to them, now why exactly you would want this hanging on your wall I don’t know, but my instant thought was to pull it apart to use as ivy or creepers climbing up the sides of buildings or scenery (it would also make a good base for a pumpkin patch, sorry Jez). It cost £11.75, but there is easily more than enough to last me the rest of my scenery building life, so I still thought it was a bit of a bargain. Anyway I’ve stuck “Skunkerella” in the photo’s to add a little scale comparison.

So till next time, Cheers Roger.