“Talkin’bout My Generation!” (Monster May’hem)

As I only had one week left of May, I could have left it with Jason, but rather than resting on my laurels (actually I’ve got a rubber ring from the doctor to help with that), I thought I’d try and pack in one last monster. But what to paint? Well a while back I “inherited” all of my eldest sons “Dead Zone” figures as he (or rather his girlfriend) wasn’t a big fan of the game and so he had no one really to play against at present. Now he had gone rather “all in” and bought some additional figures, namely “The Plague” faction (that’s undead, to you and me), as well as more “Forge Fathers” (space dwarves). Now would I have gone for the “Plague”? Well no, but I’m not the big “Un-dead” fan that he is, but for now let’s concentrate on this brute that was in the box. This resin figure is apparently a “Generation 1 mutation” and yes, I did have to look that name up, and no, I still don’t know what that really means. He also seems to be no longer available from “Mantic’s” website as he’s been replaced.

But anyway, I thought I’d throw some paint at him, so as he was already glued to his base and even the gaps round his arms had been filled in with “greenstuff”, I just had to stick some sand and cat litter to his base so he’d match in with the rest of my “Dead Zone” figures and he was out for a coat of matt black. I thought long and hard about how to approach the painting, I really wanted him to be able to blend in with the rest of his faction, which is essentially “Zombies”, but my usual recipes for “zom” flesh just didn’t seem to work here, so in the end I decided if “The mountain wouldn’t match Mohammed” then “Mohammed would just have to match the mountain” in other words my “zom’s” would have to match this chap (thankfully I don’t have to worry about this for a while 🤞), therefore I started by taking three colours, plum, ruby red and Polish crimson and slapping them about on the figure mixed them together “in-situ” as it were till he was fully covered. Then I decided to give him a bit of a dry-brush with some bright red, to give him a slightly more “raw” appearance (OK, can you tell I was winging it here! 🤔)

Now turning to his “boney growths” (steady! 😉), I gave these and in the end the rest of him as well another dry-brushing with some Eurasian flesh, this is basically a dirty beige colour, rather than a “pinky” flesh, I did try to concentrate this more on the “boney bits” than the bits in-between. Another very selective Dry-brushing came after this, this time with a small brush over the “boney” areas only, I didn’t want the transitions between these and the flesh areas to be too definite, so this was a bit of a pain in the bum, as it wasn’t always clear where one ended and the other began, anyway once I was reasonably happy with this I added the odd highlight in cream over this. Next I took the black and painted in his mouth and eye’s, going for the same look as my “normal” zombies I gave him white pupils (the reverse of normal eyes), and as it was already on my brush I did his teeth in white as well. Looking at him again I thought he still needed a little something, so taking pink burgundy, fuschia and royal purple I painted in some of the veins running around his body.

As per ’usual he was then given a coat of “Quickshade, strong tone”, and thankfully this figure seemed to have been made for the stuff! As it darkened the whole thing down and made the whole scheme much more cohesive. That just left his base to be painted, and this was simply a case of chocolate brown with a dry-brush of khaki and then another of coffee. All pretty simple stuff, but I think he came out OK. So that’s it for another year of Monster May(hem), I dug out my MDF “slum blocks” and a “Forge Father” to show just how big this figure is, I might try and squeeze in a few of the “Rank and File” Plague figures as part of Zom’tober.

Up next of course is the second challenge month of “Challenge Season”, I am of course talking about “Forgotten Heroes”, and as part of the usual painting, converting and sculpting activities we’ve come to associate with this “Community Art Project” (Jez’s words!), This year after a bit of inspiration and a conflab with “Pat”, I thought it would be fun if we also showed some of our old toy “heroes” from our childhood’s. So if you would like to take part in this “add on”, all you have to do is dig out some of your old, toy soldiers/ knight’s/ cowboy’s/ dinosaurs/ Action figures, basically anything from you formative years that has now become a “Forgotten Hero” (and probably now sits in the loft, cupboard or in a shed singing “When somebody loved me!” 😭) and post pictures (and hopefully a bit of the story behind them), in a post’ I’m calling this “My Forgotten Heroes”*. Now I’m not looking for the “mint in box” stuff, I want the stuff that went on multiple campaigns or adventures in the back garden, chipped, broken, re-painted, much loved, played with stuff. I’ve cleared this with Jez by the way, and he’s fine with this “Piggybacking” his baby. So if you are interested please let me know through the comments and I’ll add links to your posts as and when they go up.

So that’s it, I’ll finish by thanking Keith for coming up with the wonderful Monster May(hem), and till next time, when things will be getting all heroic, stay safe, and cheers Roger.

*It’s purely optional, you don’t have to do this to take part in the main challenge, and likewise you can do this without taking part in the rest of Forgotten Heroes, too.