I saw these on line some time back and commented that I’d like to get my hands on a set. To my surprise the person who commissioned these figures found me at Cold Wars and handed me a set. I couldn’t wait to get them painted. To my embarrassment, I can’t remember my benefactor’s name, but I greatly appreciate the gift.
I have been looking for the Plasticville gas station for my Pulp town of Granville. It turns out that in O scale, Bachman doesn’t make it any more. On Ebay, the price was crazy, because people are selling it for collectors in boxes, etc. It turns out that two things make the gas station collectable: the box and the cardboard insert in the window. Chris Palmer found the gas station in less-than-mint condition without a box at Cold Wars for $5, and he bought it for me. It was my big “score” for the convention.
I worked on it a little at a time since Cold Wars and finished it up this week. I’m pretty happy how it turned out.
At the same time Chris found the gas station, he also found the Plasticville super market in a bag for $5. Since I already have a grocery store in town, I decided to convert it to a clothing store.
I took the name for an up-scale store that used to exist in the Detroit area. This is where men went if they wanted to get good clothing.
I went online and found some pictures of store windows and mannequins from the 1930’s to put in the windows of the store. The lamps in the front hide slots in the store front where the original supermarket sign used to fit.
A few posts back you can see pictures of the motel I made. At Cold Wars I went by the RLBPS booth and got a bunch of resin bedroom furniture to fill out the rooms in the motel.
If you’ve seen the recent Marvel movies, such as Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers, you’re familiar with the adaptation of these comics for the “big screen.” I found the three figures above at Cold Wars and thought about putting together a group of “Avengers” for Victorian science fiction games. These figures are imported by Iron Wind Metals, which also carries the old Ral Partha figures.
This will be Black Widow, or Natasha Romanoff.
My Captain America figure is meant to be a cross between Captain America and Uncle Sam. I haven’t decided if I will add a shield, but I think I’ll ad one that is more Norman knight looking, rather than round.
This is Iron Man. I decided not to paint him red. I thought that brushed metal would be more “Victorian.”
These are the figures I haven’t chosen yet. I shouldn’t have trouble finding a figure with a bow and arrow. I’m not what figure to choose for Thor just yet; although, I’m more interested in the picture on the top right instead of the one in the top center. I could use a generic Viking, I guess, but I’ll keep looking until something jumps out at me. There is a Pulp figure of a big bruiser that I might get a second copy of in order to paint him greenish and call him “the Hulk.”
Stay tuned for the adventures of The Victorian Avengers!
This weekend, Chris, Duncan, and I got together to inventory the various donations we’ve received. This project, begun with figures from the estate of Wally Simon, is designed to get unused figures into the hands of younger gamers to help grow the hobby. Since the first iteration, we’ve had many folks donate figures to us. The challenge has been that rarely are the donations complete enough.
What we do is get four or more player’s worth of figures painted. Then we run a game for kids under 10 at Historicon. All participating kids walk away with full armies, rules, and usually some other odds and ends to take home and play with their buddies. This is our third year.
We finished inventorying what has been donated. After I type up the inventory sheets we can determine which armies are closest to completion for Historicon 2014. (For 2013 we’re giving away 54mm ACW skirmish “armies” with some really neat paper terrain constructed by Chris Johnson.) I’ll be posting the inventories along with “wish lists” later in the week.