Bramble

Bramble is one of the first Supreme Genesis characters that we have gained capacity to create through running Kickstarter campaigns for Pulp City. She was also a mini I was very much looking forward to tackling as a change of pace from a lot of recent stuff I have finished, especially in terms of colour palette. It has also meant my painting this month has been exclusively for my own Pulp City collection and it has been a long while since I last did that.

I went for a super-simple colour scheme featuring browns and greens for obvious reasons. Once I had laid down base colours I was unable to paint for a couple of weeks, which maybe helped me when it came to finishing her off as I was able to do the main work quite quickly in the end, maybe with fresh eyes.

In game terms Bramble is an Infiltrator affiliated with Settler's Green, and is also a Freelancer. That makes Dead Eye and Dark Solar ideal Leader options for her Team. Her Actions give ranged threat as well as some board control, and I think she will offer some interesting options and surprises for players as they get to grips with her. Hopefully we will be able to add more Supremes to Settler's Green before too long.

Bramble
Hero/Villain, Infiltrator, Level 1, Nature
30 mm

Grimmbiote

My first Pulp City mini of the year! Painting Grimmbiote was nice and quick which was pleasant after losing some momentum late in 2015. Gripped by some impetus I decided to see this through which took a little over an hour or so.

This is the second Grimmbiote I have painted, the first was my contribution to a minis exchange last year and was done in red and black to evoke the colours of a certain symbiote-villain. I eschewed the obvious colour scheme to go for something that would look 'right' (to me!) alongside the rest of my Grimm. It also meant I could make a head-start on a few other Grimm models at the same time. The recent Grimm focus has reason for a battle report game Rob and I have planned for later in the year....

In game terms, Grimmbiote can be a surprising threat as far as Infiltrator's go: he has Rending Slash which has Damage 2 as its basic FX. He adds +1 die to Strength Actions. Ideally, leave Grimmbiote in Base to Base with terrain and use Grimmbiotic Webbing to Pull a Target model closer, benefiting from the bonus die from Wall-crawler, hitting them with Rending Slash in the same Activation!

Grimmbiote
Hero/Villain, Infiltrator, Level 1, Nature
30 mm

Ninjas (Jade Cult III)

My third Minion Card of Ninjas for Jade Cult, and my 7th and 8th Ninjas so far.

These were supposed to be finished back in August for the Minion Month Painting Challenge I had with Rob, but I fell at the final hurdle. While painting various Zombies for Zomtober on one of my other blogs (click for link), I finally regained the motivation to get these finished.

So these are done, which is a 'good thing' as far as I am concerned. I have now painted 116 minis for Pulp City, which I find pretty pleasing.

I still have plenty of Pulp City minis to paint, and hope to get stuck into them over the next few months: Green Serpent; Pulp Monster; 3 x Terror Cotta Warrior; Slug Muldoon; Papa Zombie; Comte Vendredi; and some other stuff...so watch this space!

Finally, yes, I did manage to catch the base of the lamp in the picture of the backs of the minis; oh well, I am too preoccupied to take any replacement pics...I have painting to do!

Ninja Sensei (Jade Cult II)

Click me! Make me bigger!

Well that did not go as planned. This was supposed to be my 'week 3' entry into Minion Month, and it slipped badly - it wasn't completed until last Friday. As for the 'week 4' entry, well that is underway, but I have blown the deadline.

I am pretty disappointed, as so far I have pretty much achieved the challenges I have done with others, but not this time. While I have so far painted 4 Minion models as a result, I was really hoping to have done more. Still, I intend to finish the other Ninjas I have started, and I did some more on them today, so all main colours are blocked out, and have worked on the green areas with shading and some highlighting.

This model is to be a Ninja Sensei for Jade Cult; all my Ninja Sensei will use the body featuring the tabard as well as the bald head, so that they will be more distinctive among the eventual hoped for ranks of Ninjas.

Also note that I have changed my lighting set up a little, adding two additional lamps, so that may see a little bit of experimentation with future photographs; I am simply hoping they will be brighter and crisper, but we shall see.

Anyway that is all for now. I have more Ninjas underway, and have started work on the Primate of Mystery, so that may get finished in the next couple of weeks, if motivation is there.

Ninjas (Jade Cult I)

My latest set of Ninjas, and the first ones completed for the Minion Month Painting Challenge.

The previous Ninjas I painted were done last year, in a colour scheme intended to accompany the Way of the Fist and Blade, while this year I plan to start amassing painted Ninjas for the Jade Cult. Things have gone a little slower than I hoped (and this is the second deadline that has slipped a day), but I reckon I will have painted 4-5 Ninjas/Ninja Sensei at minimum this month, with one more already underway, and others awaiting assembly.

Ninjas are a Level 2 Minion card, and my plan for the Jade Cult Ninjas is to do sets of Ninjas and Ninja Sensei, with each set having a characteristic weapon. So this set and their upcoming Ninja Sensei are armed with kama, originally a crop reaping tool. Other options with the minis include sais, swords, and nunchuku. If I can, I will avoid the swords as the Way of the Fist and Blade Ninjas have those, but we will see.

After photographing these I notice a bit of the base of one was still unfinished, so that has been rectified- I just cannot be bothered taking the pictures again!

Well that is week two of the challenge down, and 3 minis completed, with 4 Pulp City minis completed this month already. Not my smoothest painting admittedly, but done nonetheless. So keep checking by the blog to see how I get on. Rob's initial progress can be found here.

Shadow Double

Click-click

This was not the first mini I was expecting to finish for the Minion Month Painting Challenge, but it is done, and it is a mini I have wanted to be finished for rather quite some time! In fact, it is over a year since I finished Shadow Mask!

So now it is done, although it is a day late.

Those Ninjas are still in the queue mind you.

So how does Shadow Double qualify for Minion Month? Well, in the SE rules, the Shadow Double card is a Minion separate to the Shadow Mask card. You could represent Shadow Double however you want to, but to me it made sense to use the Shadow Mask mini with what I hoped would be a suitable colour scheme.

Shadow Double starts in play, and if he is KO'ed, he can be Summoned back into play again by Shadow Mask. So the only way to keep him down is to keep the Green Emperor's own attack dog (a.k.a. Shadow Mask) down for the count.

On the painting, I kind of knew what I wanted, but I did struggle a little at times with this one, so it is far from my best work. On the other hand, I think it does what it needs for the tabletop, so it will do.

This is the 110th mini I have painted from the Pulp City range (of course some are duplicates, as this is to Shadow Mask posted a while back). I am not sure I will ever paint as many minis from a single range ever again, except possibly Anima Tactics (as blogged here - and even then I still expect to be painting more Pulp City as I add to the current number, so Anima Tactics might never exceed the Pulp City line-up I have, even with a larger numerical range of minis).

My first Jade Cult-themed Ninjas are underway, so I hope to hit the next deadline properly. Stay tuned to see how I do!

Shadow Mask and his Summoned Shadow Double

BTW, Rob is away, so his first Minion Month minis will be posted when he returns.

Digger Grimm (2)

Click to embiggenate

There is a hive mind structure to Grimm activities and behavior; some claim that it is actually a human that pulls the strings.

My second Digger Grimm (I qualified for two sets by ordering a ton of stuff when the offer was up way back when...). This was supposed to be finished by last Wednesday, or Friday (28th or 30th), to meet my deadline for Super-November, but therein lies a tale.

My original plan for the 4th and final Super-November mini was Foxxy Blade,  but I dropped her on the floor, breaking off her pinned arm (which never had a strong enough pin in the first place). I glued said arm back, but had to green-stuff it and the job on THAT was bodged as it was rushed. In addition, as her main colour is yellow, that meant multiple layers on the join to get back up to speed, but by then it was clear she needs that arm re-pinning and I had no time. So this Digger Grimm became the back-up plan, but there was not enough time to finish it alas. It was finally finished today.

I will get back to Foxxy Blade soon, but will take time to get things right. In the mean-time I have just one Grimm left to paint at this time (another Elder), and I am creeping ever closer to painting my 100th Pulp City mini, and closer to my 90th unique Pulp City sculpt.

I really must cajole Maciej  into getting other Grimm into production as they are fun sculpts and nice to paint; I want hordes of these guys one day.

Stalker (Version 2)

I have of course painted one Stalker already, that one done in a kind of black jaguar scheme. Thinking that it would be cool to do another, so that the opposing aspects of Solar/Avatar of the Jaguar could each have a companion, I thought the obvious thing to do was a white-furred variation. Who knows - maybe I will do a more 'naturalistic' one eventually?

This has been finished for a week or two now (I think), but was awaiting time to actually photograph it. Click on the pictures as usual to make them bigger.

I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and at least I managed to get something painted in January amid the disruption of my night shifts.

I wish I could claim credit for the basing idea, using the mail box (by Megaminis I think), but I shamelessly stole it from another Pulp City fan; Tea Urn from Gog Online is the painter who deserves all credit (link here), and a great idea it was in my opinion - kudos to Tea Urn.

Stalker

Recently Solar and his only long time companion, Stalker, are on the heels of the cultists that help Stygian to wake up the Forgotten.

A long time coming this one; the arrival of Stalker was heralded with the original appearance of Solar, both in his background and his rules. So when I was able to get my hands on one, I wanted to paint it straight-away, especially as Solar has been one of my favourite Supremes.

I painted this mini and another (to be seen very soon...) at the same time to try a slightly different approach to my normal 'black' technique, and I was quite pleased with the results, even if the photograph does not show the mini as well as I would like.

The 'new' technique involved using a dark blue-green as base colour rather than dark grey that I usually choose. That was highlighted up by mixing in greys and shaded with black and brown washes.

I enjoyed painting stalker and look forwards to getting him into a battle report sooner rather than later. It was nice to get some minis finished this week, so the next few days should see some more posts.

Le Murtiple

Le Murtiple was never a part of the apes in space project. A.R.C. came across him deep in the South American jungle while overthrowing one of the local dictators. And boy, Le Murtiple was not happy about it. For years he hid his special powers and intelligence, pretending to be a trophy pet creature caught in the world of the celebrity-like lifestyles of corrupted politicians and bloodshed. And he thrived, using his ability to multiply to wreak havoc and turn hotheaded machos against each other.
In the end, who would have blamed the innocent lemure?

A unique Supreme this one: three minis simultaneously representing one character. Take one or two out and Le Murtiple still has a chance of creating further copies of himself.

Le Murtiple is a saboteur par excellence; master of knives, bombs and chemical weapons in pursuit of his goals. Able to create Mirror Images of himself, if all 3 Mirror Images are in play, then enemy models caught in the area they define are better targets for Le Murtiple.

It took me a while to settle down to paint Le Murtiple, mainly because I didn't have any specific ideas for the models. Consequently I used the 'official' versions as a vague guide in terms of colour scheme. Still they are done, and I am reasonably happy with them.

Skyline

For some Heroes their new lives are shaped by the pain of tragedy, while others are called to the fight against evil by their own personal crusades. A very rare few can say their new lives as heroes began simply because they were there.

Skyline was one of the joint Supreme Genesis 2 winners, and very much takes a 'rooftop vigilante' theme to match Jade Hawk, his unofficial companion mini (and box mate).

I loved this James Van Schaik-sculpted mini from the moment I saw it, but I was wary about how to tackle it because of one major thing; the model is supplied with a massive grotesque on which it sits ordinarily. However, that did not fit with my attempt to make most of my bases 'street side' in nature. Therefore I had to work out how to mount Skyline onto a base while allowing for the sweep of his cape. What I settled on was cobbling-together a base from Fenris with some broken brick wall (also Fenris) which gave just enough lift.

The colour scheme was intended to sit easily with that of Jade Hawk without being identical (they are not official partners after all); it is very dark being predominantly dark grey and dark sea green. I am pleased at that as it seems fitting for a night-prowling vigilante.

Eventually I plan to do another mounted on the accompanying grotesque with Jade Hawk similarly mounted, but basically as a display piece only.

Grimm Digger

There is a hive mind structure to Grimm activities and behavior; some claim that it is actually a human that pulls the strings.

Sculpted by Christian Danckworth, this is another of the first set of Grimm. These characterful little under-dwellers make frequent forays to the surface world under the bidding of their master.

The (currently available) Grimm can be fielded in a couple of ways: they can be used as Minions to be taken by any Faction; or they can be used as a Resource that provides some kind of boost, however this requires the presence of a Grimm Master or Superior Grimm Master in the same Team (Guide; Errata p. 137).

The Grimm Digger adds Immunity to Difficult Terrain and Ram to the abilities of a card of Grimm Minions.

Jade Hawk

A voice whispers in the darkness….. “Armed robbery sounds like my kind of scene.” A dark figure leaps from the rooftop and into the shadows. The hunter has begun stalking its prey.

Okay, so it has been two weeks since I last posted a painted mini. This was the 51st completed mini of my Pulp City Painting Challenge, and Jade Hawk is one of the ones I enjoyed tackling the most. That enjoyment was and is tinged with some sadness, however.

This tremendous sculpt is from the hands of the extremely talented James van Schaik, and there is a sad story attached to it. Jade Hawk was a winning entry into one of the (fairly) regular Supreme Genesis contests, and its creator was Matt Randy, a Pulp City Herald and one of the guys that had been working to help develop the game towards its eventual upcoming edition. Matt took his own life earlier this year, and in doing so left a hole in a the gaming community where he had been before that.

He will be missed.

I'd like to quote the words of Maciej Żylewicz (quoted from the Pulp City Forum):

"I just can't sit here and do nothing, so I thought you may want to remember Matt the way he was: funny, totally dedicated guy.

I loved the Jade Hawk idea - mind I read the entries blind not to get distracted by the author's name. There was only one problem - Hawk was initially male and I wanted a female character to accompany my other favorite, Skyline.

Matt, like an expert lobbyist, dropped me an email saying: you know, we reinvent her gender!

We started working on Jade Hawk, and he had a clear vision. A couple of concepts were scraped, Matt labeled them "Jade Parrot" and "Jade Owl".

Finally, his concept got finished by Melvin and it ended up in James van Schaik's workshop. I was so happy to send the pics to Matt, he was sending me one "Where's the Jade Hawk?" email a week.

The last email I ever got and will get from Matt said:

She does look good. I can't wait to see her in pewter in my own hands.

Should have known something was bugging him because Matt I knew would send me a long list of likes and dislikes. Matt, I hope you really like her."

Chimp Chi

Chimp Chi is a member of Ape Revolution Committee (ARC). He is possibly the sneakiest character in Pulp City and capable of dealing some serious hurt.

The sculpt comes from Jarek Smolka, and was a mini painted quickly, in just a few hours (off and on - spread over a couple of days). I wanted something 'done quickly' because it helps me feel my painting is moving along.

There are times I feel bogged down by painting, so I find it satisfying to try to do something quickly that hopefully looks reasonably effective. To that end I chose a vaguely ninja-esque look for the colour scheme, with some red and brown to break up the dark grey-'black' costume. I am still working on my NMM, so the blade didn't quite work as well as hoped. Time and persistence will hopefully improve that particular skill.


Being a Hero/Villain, Chimp Chi can be used by either side since at present there are only two sides (factions) in the Pulp City games - heroes and Villains. Each of these comprises smaller sub-factions (allegiances), and ARC is just one of those.