No but there are some Pulp figures and some Zombie figures today. Anyway aren’t all zombies a squishy pulp?
The are the first of the sixty six figures in the “Night of the Living Dead” game posted on the other day.
Some “general” Pulp figures from Bob Murch.
This one could be used as a “Heroine” requiring rescuing or as any of the Stars, Co-stars or extras in the Amazing Tales, Mystery Theatre, or Thrilling Adventures Genres.
The next three figures could also be used as any of the Stars, Co-stars or extras in the Amazing Tales, Mystery Theatre, or Thrilling Adventures Genres.
This figure could also be used as a Grease Monkey.
Tomorrow some more Night of the Living Dead zombies.
Across the great river from Nokandoo is a dense forest. Deep within the forest at the foot of a great mountain is the “small” village of the Mbenga tribe.
The Mbenga tribe is quite small and their village is nestled up against an ancient idol of unknown origins.
Number 1 sons house.
Small huts for village warriors and their families.
Smnall warriors hut
Small warriors hut.
Idol and ruins.
The village
Chief and his wives outside his hut.
Ceremonial house
Ceremonial house with roof removed.
Number 2 son’s hut
Witch doctor’s hut
The village
The village
The Village
I still have a lot more to do including native canoes lots of scatter terrain and scratch built perimeter wall and animal enclosures. I also have these from Old Glory figures to paint up:
Masked warriors of the Mbenga!
Tribal Villagers. I have already used the fellows in fez for my Turkish Napoleonic army officers.
Tribal drum and characters. At the moment the huts will give me enough terrain to use for African skirmish games, but it will look a lot better when it is all done.
I have four 20mm S model French H35 tanks to give away that I will never put together or use. I have tried to give them away to my normal gaming group but there were no takers.
So I have decided to run a competition for blog followers – “What did you just say”!
The best four captions for the above photo will win a prize. Just reply in the comments section. You can enter as many times as you like but only one per comment.
As normal the winners will be those that “tickle my fancy”, but you are welcome to bitch or complain.
For the last five days we have been entertaining the grand children. Trips to the park, playing soccer, and watching the new “Lightyear” movie were on the agenda. There was also toy shops, McDonalds (yuck), lots of playing dinosaurs, and putting together Lego and Mobilo monsters.
By far the biggest hit was putting together two Airfix starter kits.
The trick was to work out what an eight and a six year child could do and what they couldn’t, and what was safe for them to do and what wasn’t. This meant no using knife or clippers to cut out the parts and no using glue. So what we ended up with was Grandad cutting out the pieces putting on the glue and have the two boys put the parts together and hold them until they would stay in place. Alternating between one child and the other moved things along quickly. This worked for the larger pieces and Grandad had to do the smaller ones.
Charles with his Tiger tank Day 1
Part completed models
David with his Sherman Firefly Day 1
The assembly was done over several sessions to make sure they didn’t get bored and enthusiasm was there as they could see the models progress.
With the models finished minus some smaller parts and with the simpler wheel assemblies it was time for painting. Grandad held the model and the spray can while the boys pressed the nozzle down. They enjoyed getting my fingers painted grey and green! Now I don’t only look like a zombie I am the right colour as well.
I had worked out a very simple paint pattern that they could complete themselves and would look OK as well.
Step 1 was to paint the tracks and a few other silver bits.
Step 2 was to paint white camo on the tiger.
Step 3 was to wash the whole tank with a brown wash to hide all the mistakes.
Step 4 was to drybrush the Tiger white and the Sherman a bright green. I was surprised at how well this stage worked out as I cleared the brush of the excess and the children did a really good job with applying the drybrush over the whole model.
Step 4 was to paint PVA on the base and with the Tiger some on the tank to glue on the snow scatter. Grandad then applied the scatter while they held the model. The loved getting scatter all over their fingers.
The over all effect was reasonably impressive especially seeing the painting was almost all done by the children. The tiger has probably too much white cam but hey the six year old did a great job.
The eight year old is very artistic and did a superb job on the Sherman, especially with the slime green highlight.
What then do you do with a Sherman Firefly and a Tiger 1?
Have a game of Grandad’s Rugrat What a Tanker of course. Movement was simply a 12″ ruler if moving straight ahead and a 6″ ruler if moving in any other direction. You can move or shoot but not both. Each tank had 7 attack dice (hitting on 5 or 6), and 7 defence dice (saving on a 5 or 6). For any unsaved hit you lost a dice and when you had none left your tank was “smoked”.
A sample game.
The Tiger won the roll to go first and moved forward the big ruler.
The Sherman moved the big ruler towards the building.
The Tiger moved the big ruler forward again. At this stage neither tank could see each other.
The Sherman moved the small ruler sideways.
The Tiger fired but missed!
The Sherman returned fire, but the Tiger saved and the shot bounced off.
The Tiger again missed. The commanders must be young rookies
The Tiger finally hits taking three dice off the Sherman making it now harder for it to both hit and save.
Despite this the Sherman takes a dice off the Tiger! Eight year old luck I guess.
The Tiger………..loads………… fires……………… and boom! The last four dice come off the Sherman. One nil to the six year old’s Tiger!
It has been a great little project that all three of us have enjoyed. Tomorrow night they are being picked up, and after dinner are looking forward to beating up their Dad and Grandad in Rugrat What A Tanker.
I was a bit eclectic today with the painting. A few animals and a lot of work painting my jungle village that I purchased on the “Kongo” kickstarter a couple of years ago. This will be finished in a few more days.
The animals with one exception are from this kickstarter but were produced by Richard Deasey from Primaeval Designs.
These will be used for some of my Greater Animal Companions and foes for 7TV Pulp.
This plucky little fellow is from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures. The others in the blister have or will appear in this blog soon.
“Grrrrrrr……..and they call you King of the jungle? Ptah!”
It is amazing what you find out about people when you visit them at home. Went to Chris’ place the other day to pick up some figures he had 3D printed for me, and found a huge number of lip stick holders in his paint room! Well, not to be left out, I picked up one of my own to try!
At AU$12.95 from most Target stores this is an excellent price.
The do not hold the regular Games Workshop, Humbrol or Tamiya tubs but as I am gradually changing over to Vallejo style bottles, as there is less wastage with them, this is not an issue.
There are a variety of “eye dropper” type paint brands and they all fit in nicely. Very efficient with space holding 44 paints and 4 Tamiya standard spray can as a bonus.
Now I only need to find something to store that sexy black number and the stilettos!
Sherlock Holmes never said the phrase “it’s elementary my dear Watson” in any of the classic tales written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The phrase was assigned to him by readers and enthusiasts. The character was later given the line in a number of movie scripts that were not penned by Conan Doyle.
I have had the “In Her Majesty’s Name” Scotland Yard figures from Artizan design painted for some time but never used.
With my recent purchase of 7TV Pulp I wondered how a Sherlock Holmes movie cast would look. Here is the complete cast without worrying about star ratings:
In 7TV Pulp terms this comes to 43 star ratings which is eight too many for the standard game.
By taking out Mycroft Holmes, (“Covert Operative”) (6), and Constable Cook (“Beat Cop”) (2), this brings us down to the appropriate rating of thirty five.
The cast from left to right “Crusading Crime Fighter”, three “Beat Cops”, two “Covert Operatives”, “Police Detective”, “Police Sergeant”, and a “Doctor”.
Sherlock Holmes, the “Crusading Crime Fighter”, and Watson the “Doctor”.
Inspector Lestrade and Police Sergeant Donovan
Two “Covert Operatives, Detective Sergeant Upshaw and Detective Athelney-Jones from Special Branch.
“Beat Cops”, Constables Rance, Murcher, and Pollock
Let’s hope we will be saying soon “Come, Watson, come. The game is afoot.”
As opposed to freight liners, Tramp Steamers do not have a fixed itinerary or published ports of call and trade on the spot market. The term Tramp for Tramp Steamer came from the British meaning of ‘tramp’ as a vagrant and was first documented in the 1880s.
Tramp Steamers appear in a lot of Pulp movies including the film, China Seas, which is attacked by pirates while carrying gold from Hong Kong to Singapore.
Even this still from the film has that Pulp look and feel!
The film was a huge hit when released in 1935, restoring blonde bombshell Jean Harlow’s status as a box-office attraction after a series of low-grossing movies. It was of course full of clichés, stereotypes and things that stretch the imagination.
The South China sea was a real hot spot for Pulp Movies (the “Uncharted” saga shows that not much has changed) with a number of films and serials using it as their exotic setting.
With Tramp Steamer and other vessels crews appearing in lots of movies it is no surprise that 7TV Pulp has included them as “extras”.
Ships crew appear as “neutral extras” meaning they can be villainous pirates, or a nefarious U-Boat or Seebattallion crew, or maybe even good Samaritans assisting the hero and heroine in their virtuous deeds.
Captain and First Mate
Crew with hand weapons
Crew with rifles
Crew with Machine Guns
Hopefully I will complete their container ship soon so they have some work to do rather than hanging around idle. And we all know that “idle hands are the devil’s plaything”!
It doesn’t matter if your fancy is John Clayton (Lord Greystoke) or James Bradley (Jungle Jim) or even just plain George and his “mate” Tookie there is a place in 7TV Pulp for you.
Let’s start with Tarzan first.
There are endless options with a standard 35 star rating cast. The obvious choices are Tarzan as the “Jungle Paragon”, and Jane as the “Stalwart Sidekick”. The next obvious theme choice is Cheetah as the “Chimpanzee” (surprise surprise!). With the main cast in place your options really depend on what your movie theme is. Are you trying to protect the pygmy tribal lands from gold mining or are the pygmies in league with some evil being intent on destroying Tarzan.
In my first option I have chosen the former by having the Pygmy “Tribal Host” as allies of Tarzan. I have added a chieftain, a witch doctor and five warriors, three with bow and two with spear.
The second option is just by changing the options with the tribal extras. I have swapped the warriors for the chieftains female bodyguard. In games terms this replaces missile fire with greater close combat abilities. I am hesitant to even talk about game effect as I think you should be really worrying about the theme of the miniatures and not their game effectiveness.
Another option is to go totally down the “Lord of the Apes” theme with this one. The extras now consist of a giant ape (King Kong) and three great apes. Cannot shoot but boy can they fight!
Tarzan might be escorting a party bringing supplies to the blockaded Pygmy tribe. Here the extras include a Chief Bearer, six Bearers, two Native Warriors and a Great Ape.
Other possible options within theme include lesser animals like a monkey, or a greater animal like an adult lion, rhinoceros, or elephant.
As I have said you are only limited by your imagination and what fits within the genre of your pulp movie. The “Casting Guide” provides guidelines on what Star, Co-star or extra fits within what genre.
Tarzan could of course be placed in a Victorian England setting. Who knows he might even join forces with Sherlock to deal with Jack, or that pesky varmint, Moriarty.
There really was a man, an English nobleman, who, shipwrecked on the jungle coast of Africa, was cared for by the apes, grew up with them and eventually survived a thousand adventures before returning to London to assume his rightful title and position. The man was William Charles Mildin, 14th Earl of Streatham. For 15 years, between 1868 and 1883 his life was the prototype of Tarzan
George of the Jungle
This one is not so straight forward. you have several choices. You can treat George as the “Jungle Paragon” and treat him as the hero, or as the “Comic Relief” and have Ursula Stanhope as the “Jungle Paragon”. I prefer this option, because of those regular incidents with a certain tree.
Tookie the Toucan could be treated as a “Lesser Animal Companion”, Shep as a “Greater Animal Companion”, while Ape speaks for itself. George does not really have any allies until George of the Jungle 2 in which he is joined by his son (“Stalwart Sidekick”), a kangaroo (“Greater Animal Companion”) and other animals when he regains their trust. In George of the Jungle 2 my preference would be to have George as the “Jungle Paragon”.
Unfortunately I do not have an Indian Elephant (Shep was not an African elephant!) without a howdah, but there are some great Toucan miniatures on Etsy for sale.
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim has a rich literature to source your caste and movie themes from. Initially a comic strip which featured stories revolving around pirates, slave traders and other common jungle antagonists. As World War 2 began the strip developed a wartime theme, with Jim fighting the Japanese.
There were then 16 movies, and a single season TV show which although only running for one season was in syndication for several years. It was regular after school viewing for me.
In the films Jim’s only friend was a chimpanzee named Tamba, shades of Chetah from Tarzan. But when the film series ended, Columbia which had by now gone into the television business, put Weissmuller in a half hour series as the intrepid jungle guide who got into all kinds of adventures.
Jungle Moon Men with “She” overtones provides an Egyptian like setting.
In the Jungle Jim television series Jim got some human co-stars in the persons of his teenage son, Skipper, Haseem, the Hindu manservant, and Tamba the chimpanzee. Commissioner Morrison also appeared in nine episodes.
As a guide Jungle Jim went wherever he was contracted to go which saw him in many exotic locations other than Africa, giving you lots of scope as film director to place your cast in any location.
Though there were female guest stars, I never recall any romantic plots in any of the episodes.
Left to right Skipper, Jungle Jim, Tamba, Hassem, and Commissioner Morrison.
Many other Jungle Heroes exist including Ka’a’nga, a Tarzan style clone, Ranger Comics 1948 “Jan of the Jungle”, “Lorna the Jungle Queen”, and of course “Sheena Queen of the Jungle”. So there you have it. Lots of scope to use your jungle heroes.
PS I haven’t forgotten that other jungle hero, “The Ghost Who Walks” – the Phantom, who will be the subject of a separate post.
