Recent Discoveries From Faraway Lands

Amazing discoveries brought to us by intrepid adventurers to faraway lands!

So, recently I managed to make a few new additions to the old Pulp collection. These are two pieces that I have really been looking to grab for a long time.

The first is the amazing Allosaurus from Papo. To call this a toy almost seems insulting as the level of detail in the sculpt and paint job are as good as many gaming models out there. The picture shows the dino in the stock paint job right off the shelf. It stands easily on its own two feet and has an articulated jaw.

While the listing in any catalog makes this thing seem huge (11") it really doesn't end up too huge at all and is a respectable size for any Pulp genre monstrosity. The figures on the table with it are 28mm Artizan and Copplestone miniatures.

The other new item is a wonderfully painted and sculpted animal tank decoration. This great, ruined head seems just perfect for adventure in exotic lands and, except for the flat brown color inside the break, seems to need no further painting to use it on the table. The piece is sculpted all around with a walled surface in the back.

While these models aren't the sorts of things to appear in every Pulp Alley game I run, they are definitely fine accents that will spice up more exotic adventures.

-Eli

America's Fighting Dinosaur Comes to Kickstarter

Steve Snoey, local video game designer, artist and the creator of the awesome character, Sammy AKA America's Fighting Dinosaur has started a new Kickstarter project for a short faux documentary about the character. This sounds like an amazing project and should be great fun to see the world of this incredible character expanded and brought to greater life.

Check it out here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/257530608/americas-fighting-dinosaur

More Primaeval Designs

Hey folks,

Being a fan of Primaeval Designs miniatures, I thought I'd do a quick post to show off some moreo f their work and give a nice congrats to the team there.

First little tidbit is that they have been mentioned in the pages of the grea paleo mag Prehistoric Times, a great magazine for fans of prehistoric beasts scienticifc and otherwise.

In other news they have been picked up and are now being stocked by a Japanese company called Terraincognita Miniatures that specializes in high end collectible miniatures. Below are a few pics off their Facebook gallery. You don't see a lot of American hobby stuff make it to Japan, so I thought this was particularly cool.

28mm Feathered Gallimimus



28mm Spinosaurus

 

28mm Paraceratherium

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AmericasFightingDinosaur: The Jaws of Defeat.....

Not mine, but just had to share it!



AmericasFightingDinosaur: The Jaws of Defeat.....: "prologue: If I was a superhero, my arch nemesis would be known as Zeitgeist . Zeitgeist, that thing that leads so many of us to the so many..."

Primaeval Designs Releases 15mm Dinosaurs and Other Prehistorics

A quick news bit off the Primaeval Designs Facebook page...

Good news for the 15mm collectors. Lambeosaurus ($14.00) and Protoceratops ($6.00 for 8) are currently available on the Acheson site. By the end of this week the Neanderthals, Woolly Mammoth, Steppe Mammoth, Woolly Rhino and T-Rex should also be available. We will update you the moment we get the codes and prices.

You all know I'm a bit fan of the fine work that the partnership between Craig and Richard is producing. Rich's sculpting of these enigmatic beasts is top notch and Craig's production of the designs is wonderful. for a look at images of models available, visit the Acheson Creation website or the galleries at the Primaeval Designs Facebook page.

-Eli

Primaeval Designs WIP

28mm gigantic dino madness!!!

For those of you who may not have found Primaeval Designs on Facebook, I thought I would share some pictures of work being done by Richard Deasey. Some of his new stuff he's working on is just epic as far as 28mm paleo miniatures go.

The T-rex with decorative plumage is a cool variation but the nest and separate T-rex chicks is inspired! These little guys are still big enough to be a threat to most adventurers and would make a nice alternative to the ubiquitous raptors for a pack encounter.

These minis are still a ways out, but Rich is incredibly prolific with his work. Craig at Acheson Creations is churning them out as fast as he can and so the Primaeval line is ever-growing.

Must go back to drooling now...

-Eli

Why Primaeval Designs Rocks!

Recent pictures on the Primaeval Designs Facebook page have just given me more reasons to love this company. Richard Deasey was already doing amazing work, but he has recently upped his own ante and started some new work that is just stellar.

Richard has started posting WIP pictures of some of his designs on Facebook offering a wonderful glimpse of the process that goes into his might masterpieces. Among them are some beasts that rare, if ever make it into miniatures. I've included a couple of pictures below. As you can see, these are some pretty big figs.

If you like what you see here, then go check out the Primaeval Designs store at Acheson Creations but also, go to Primaeval's Facebook page to check out greens and in the works figs as well as information on figures that are available, but not yet illustrated on the Acheson website.

Have fun!

-Eli

Dollar Store Find - Dinosaur Skeletons

One of the fun things about getting dragged around with the wife is that she doesn't mind me poking my head about in dollar stores or wandering off to other aisles while she is looking for this and that. Today I found these little gems at a local Dollar Tree.

The shadowy figure in between them is a short, 28mm druid figure. These figures may not be perfectly scaled but at $1 for two skeletons you can forgive a little sensationalist sizing. What's more, there are at least two other packs, though I did not pick them up. All three would provide you with a museum's worth of dino bones for a Pulp game. 

Take care!

-Eli 

Primaeval Designs Update

28mm Neanderthal Set #2 -
Primaeval Designs/Acheson Creations

Hey all,

Richard Deasey, the sculptor for Primaeval Designs announced today that the folks over at Acheson Creations have updated their online store to include items that are/have been in production but do not have pictures available yet. Previously, they had only wanted to show minis that had painted figures ready. It is my understanding that this will also be updated to show raw figures in addition to the painted figures.

This is a great change and I personally hope this helps the range take off. I have seen the greens for the whole range over at the Yahoo Group and their Primaeval's Facebook page. I would order anything in this range site unseen, but that is just me.

Go ahead and give it a look!

Thanks,

-Eli

Primaeval Designs = Amazing!

As a self-avowed prehistoric fanboy, I was absolutely floored to find the Primaeval Designs page on Facebook. I had heard their name passed around, but as I haven't the time to game in those genres or scales, I put it on the "to-do" list and forgot about it. Again, I am glad I found their FB page.

If you don't know of them, they are a miniatures sculpting group that is marketing themselves under the Acheson Creations banner much like Arrow Miniatures had down before with it's lovely line of terrain. Primaeval is in the process of creating an extensive line of what they refer to as "natural history miniatures" with gamers in mind. This includes a wide variety of animals from today and yesterday. They offer prehistoric mammals and dinosaurs as well as African animals. They even have 28mm prehistoric hominids in the works.

They plan on working in both 28mm and in 15mm (not released yet) which is cool, but so far they have released only a handful of what they have greens for. If you want to really see what is coming up, take a peak at their Facebook gallery and I'm sure you will find yourself suitably amazed. The level of detail and animation in their animals is splendid and they have avoided some of the tired tropes that have plagued some animal minis in the past. There is action in the poses, waterline river animals, feathered and smooth-skinned dinos and chimps that do not look like circus animals.

28mm Nanotyrannus

One last thing that caught my eye was the pricing on their creations. I am not entirely up to speed on animal minis, but they seemed pretty reasonable for the quality of sculpts. So far their price range runs from about $6 for a pair of 28mm prehistoric cheetahs to $38 for a 28mm Spinosaurus. They have a giant ape in 28mm for Pulp RPG purposes that comes in at $20. You can get three 28mm Dinonychus for $8. These prices are for unpainted minis. If you are not the sort to paint your own or your are getting them for cellecting not gaming, they do offer painted and "collectors" editions for an increased price.

I have to say I am quite happy with their opening works and hope they have a successful career bringing us all top notch beasties for our games.

Check them out and say hey!

-Eli

Too Crazy For Minis? - Part Two

So, in part one, I presented the basic concept, the history behind my attempts to make this idea turn into lead and even discussed the rationale and specifics of what I am looking for. Interestingly enough, the couple of comments I received seemed to repeat the general confusion over the specifics of what I am looking for that have always come up when this idea is discussed.

What I am looking for is not a humanoid lizard/dino but an alien that has the shape of one of the raptoroid dinosaurs and has evolved in that same shape. They haven't gone upright, and they haven't changed to have more human faces. About the only changes might be minor and mostly inperceptible differences in hands, postue, limb length etc.

To aid in the understanding of the project, I present the following concept drawings that I came up with on my own -

Too Crazy For Minis?

Just recently with the release of Khurasan Miniatures lovely 15mm feathered velociraptors rekindled an interest in an old project of mine - Armed Sci Fi Raptor Aliens.

About this time last year, I started a thread on TMP about the idea  but this was really a follow up to almost ten years worth of working at trying to make them happen through one means or another. I first started with the original Eureka 300 Club and have run the project through at least two attempts there but in the nearly ten years that the 300 Club has been around it hasn't happened. I'm not sure why the concept failed but part of it has to do with the eb and flow of the poularity of sci fi minis, little supporting media and the fact that 15mm has rarely been more popular thna it is now despite my own personal long love of the scale.

When you think about it, there isn't much to not like about the concept of Jurassic Park runaways tricked out with a little scifi kit and guns. Some people, as can be seen in the TMP thread, didn't quite grasp the concept entirely. Many though I was referring to the conjectural dinosauroids that have been popularized for the last couple of decades. But I am not after humanoid saurions, I am after intelligent raptors.

The idea of intelligent dinosaurs who have maintained most of their original anatomical geometry is not completely without its merit and interest. There have been other artists who have tapped into the wicked combination of animal sleekness, cunning, and/or  high-tech firepower.

An example of a dinosaur-like alien are the Sii-ruuk from Star Wars. Though they are not purely based on earthly dinos, they have the same sort of geometry I am looking for - non-anthropomorphic but evolved to tool use. For me, I want to keep the dinosaur charm and excitement but turn them into an intelligent alien race.

One artists, the author of the RobotBlood blog has created some lovely dinosauroids, depicting them in the height of their own evolution, utilizing tools that fit their own anatomy. Note the feathers and the the very avian appearance. He even did a study of a form of fighting style for them. As you can see below in the sketches and drawings, he has maintained the dinosaur geometry, so you have lovely, tool-using dino primitives.

Now comes the question of why such figures have not appealed in the past and whether or not they will appeal now, a year after I last brought them up on TMP. Surely there is a greater desire/need for interesting aliens out there. Khurasan Miniatures' Garn miniatures have given use a fully bipedal dinosaur-like alien but is there room in the market for sleek, long-necked dinos with guns? As an attempt to demonstrate my idea, I am tempted to do some conversion work on some existing dinosaur minis assuming I can find some that are not too big, but beyond a small squad of a few demonstration models, I am not sure how many I am willing or able to convert. Doing kit and especially guns at 15mm can be tricky, especially with consistency.

Tell me what you think. Is there merit to this idea? Would you buy them if they existed? What are your reasons for not buying or lack of interest?

Thank you,

-Eli

New Dino Repaint

So, I have started collecting and repainting plastic toy dinos again. The first two new ones I picked up were a couple of dollar store finds - a styracosaurus and a stegosaurus. Neither of them is the most modern interpretation of these wonderful animals and they are definitely big for use with 28mm figures, but then again everything in Pulp is bigger than life. The original paint jobs and some of the details of these two dinos left something to be desired. I was pretty happy with the details on the styracosaurus, so I decided to start with that one.

The first thing to do was to get rid of the horrible rosy pink color they had painted the whole thing (I wish I had taken pictures of the thing). I found that painting this plastic was a bit weird and it took a few days for the black base paint to stop being tacky to the touch. Even still it didn't hold the paint well. Anyhow I wanted to do the thing up in some earthy tones with a bit of color on the frill going with the assumption that such frills were used for mating/threat display as much as defense.

The body was done in a base coat of a yellow ochre type color with a very earthy, almost olive green brushed over its back and along the hind quarters. This was black-washed and I attempted to highlight it, but the paint didn't want to take very well so my success was limited.

The head frill received the most attention. Taking some inspiration from the original red color they had it painted, I decided to do the outer areas of the crest in a bloody red. I highlighted this to add some depth. The interior space of the frill was done in the same green as the body markings. I wanted the dino's frill to really pop and remembered seeing some interpretations having eyes spots like you see on some butterflies and some reptiles. I painted white oval rings onto the frill which gave the dino a really wide-eyed display.

The rest of the detailing was pretty straight forward. Bone coloring for the frill and hose horns. The nails on the feet and the beak were done the same way. I am not overly happy with the end result and have held off sealing it yet, hoping I can find some way to add some depth to the beast.

So, this is the first of what I hope to be a good long series of dinos both repainted and higher quality prepainted alike. The goal is to be able to start on a Lost World project after Game Storm in March.

Take care,

-Eli

Dino Repaint

So, I thought I'd fill some space with a quick post of a project I had thrown together some time this last year (can't recall when). I had been redying for some Lost World adventures using the ".45 Adventure" rules from Rattrap Productions and found myself lacking in the dino department. In a quick move, I scored a tube of cheap plastic dinosaurs at the local craft supply store on one of my runs. Many of he dinosaurs in the set were unusable, being too small or too squat in their proportions. The few that were usable were treated to a quick no frills dry-brushing and some touch-ups to make them look more natural.



My favorite was a raptor (pictured above). This dinosaur was large enough to be something like a Utahraptor or something. It was too big and too muscular for later, smaller raptors. I decided to dress it up with a bit of conjectural styling, adding a nose crest with some green stuff. I painted it in a neutral brown scheme with some mottled striping along the back and then decided it needed some color for attracting mates which came in the form of blue under its eyes and on the nasal crest. The feet looked a bit unnatural due to the cheap plastic casting, so I decided to obscure them a bit with foliage on the base.

Overall, I am happy with the overall effect, especially considering how little work I actually out into it. I am planning on going back to it later o try and improve the overall effect, but painting has never been my strong suit and I'm afraid I'd screw up a perfectly serviceable mini.
Thanks again for reading and let me know what you think,

-Eli