Only a year from the last post showing the start of painting these, and five years from priming them, to now finishing these my Martian Metals K'Kree.
This must count as one of the longest lead pile to completion in the hobby, given that Martian Metals went out of business in the mid-eighties, and I acquired these in 1984.
These ABC Warriors have sat in the lead pile for more years than I care to remember. And it has to be said that sat around in primer for nearly three years too. Okay, let me put that into perspective for the younger followers who may be reading my blog.
My guess these were bought circa 1988.
Unpainted figures in the lead mountain lie. Given enough time, may even appear in a game or two.
So I've laid down the first coat of green with some wash to increase the depth of the shadows, and next is the mid-tones and highlight shades. After that, I'll add some red to make them pop.
And, my Martian Metals K'Kree that have also sat around after being primed waiting for me to notice them too.
As I've said before, these K'Kree are rarer than rocking horse shit. I picked them up circa 1984 on a trip to Toronto from a store on Yonge Street. Along with my Zhodani marines that I posted here, which can be found in the side-bar under Martian Metals.
It has only taken me four years from noticing that they needed to be cleaned, then another year until primed before they finally wandered onto my paint table. Slow is steady, I guess!?
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| Taken with my new Olympus 7-14mm F2.8 Pro, at 7mm, F8, 1.3 secs, ISO 200. Crop from 64 megapixel Hi-Res shot. |
There is rare, and then there is rare as rocking horse pooh or chicken's teeth, the latter not being as rare as you think–genetics being what it is and all. I bought these models on a trip to Toronto back in 1984 from a shop on Yonge Street.
Yes, they've been sitting in a box for 33 years waiting for me to paint them up ever since.
Equally surprising is that fact that despite all the things I've gone through over the years I managed to keep hold of them. What provoked me to get them out, clean off the white oxidation and base them was assembling the Clear Horizon figures, because I thought what the heck, three more 15mm figures is no big deal.
So here they are ready to be primed.
By now the news of Loren Wiseman's death has broken out on the internet. He along with Frank Chadwick, Marc Miller and Rich Banner were the founders of Game Designers' Workshop who published the Traveller RPG. Though I had played D&D before going to university, it was playing Traveller that made me go and buy the rules (little black books), and start running games.
So many happy memories.
So now I have another good reason to paint these because time is fleeting, and there are not enough hours in the day to do everything one wants to do, so best to do those things that are meaningful while one has time.
Time for some more Traveller figures from my collection. In any game I've run I've always had to have people and animals to mill around and make life difficult for the players.
I think the rider on the creature is a Martian Metals figure, which was another of those figures I picked up on my visit to Toronto back in 1983 from a place in Yonge Street. I found a stash of Martian Metals figures in a shop and just bought the lot.
Best figure purchasing decision I've ever made, period. The rest are from Citadel and Laserburn. The latter are still available here.
Then there are the other people and giant robot, which I modified as I didn't want it to be armed, just large. Inspired no doubt by watching the droids in Star Wars. All of these figures were used to play contacts that the players met to do deals with.
And finally, have spacesuit will travel. You never know when you might need a spacesuit, after-all one could end up being picked up by a passing spaceship?
After all this is Traveller we are talking about.
Yes these are those Zhodani figures from the long defunct Martian Metals range. I got these on a trip to Toronto back in 1983, and I guess I painted them sometime around 1986, or so. I can't remember. As you can see there were five poses.
I bought all that the shop had, and was able to make up this platoon, which is one figure short as one of the commander miniatures has a broken arm awaiting the time I get around to fixing it.
Anyway, I'm posting these so that Thomas Nissvik can show his girlfriend some figures painted in pink.
Having spent today writing and doing these photographs for these posts I have been happily reminiscing about he good old day when I use to play in RPG campaigns run by my friend Kevin (who died a few years back after having a heart attack, I miss him), along with his then partner Rhona, with Patricia and Bill of the Warlord Games shop, not to forget to mention Dave Harwood, Saul and the others I played with too.
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