Oh dear....

You give in to one demand from those pesky mobsters and they come back with more and bigger demands.

"We need some transportation - get us some cars"
"We need a home and some legitimate businesses to operate from"
"We need some more foot soldiers to expand out criminal empire"
"We need civilians to intimidate, rob and extort"

Not wanting to wake up and find a horse's head in my bed or to find myself wearing concrete overshoes as I slip slowly below the surface of Lake Michigan, I duly complied. An order has gone in to Sarissa Precision for a few of their City Block buildings and one to Old Glory UK for some Blue Moon vehicles and figure packs.

What they don't know is that I've ratted on the punks and ordered some Feds and plods and a vehicle for them!

I'm in a bit of a debate about what rules to use though. One part of me is leaning towards a generic plot driven set like Pulp Alley or 7TV, whilst another is looking more to rules specifically written for Prohibition era gaming.

When the goodies come in, painting priority will go to the vehicles and buildings so that I can get some photos done of the figures I've painted up for gifts and prizes. The figures for gaming won't be painted to quite the same standard and I've ordered another pack of the "Named Gangsters".

There is of course a risk that I won't find anyone to game with, but I think it's worth taking just for the "rule of cool" factor of gangsters. Besides, I can always do some solo games if nobody else is interested.

Paint Table Saturday #25

One thing I had intended to do after the Challenge was to reorganise my painting desk. It's taken a while to get everything together, but today saw the final pieces arrive so I cracked on and rearranged everything this afternoon. It was also a good opportunity to chuck out some of the crap that had accumulated.

I'd found I was running out of space in the Stanley Sortmaster I was using for my paints, so I took a look on Amazon and ordered myself some nail polish racks - a 3-tier and two 7-tier. The 3-tier one will be kept on the desk to hold the paints that I'm currently using as well as some odds and sods.

I also bought a couple of stick-on LED lights (the ones for putting in cupboards) from a pound shop. These will be fixed to the underside of the shelf and will hopefully improve the lighting for my photography.

Last week I posted pics of the gangster figures that I'd just primed. I finished painting them a couple of days ago, but some needed a little bit of touching up before they are varnished.

I'm taking a break from painting today, but will hit the brushes again tomorrow. This time I really will resume work on the pirates buccaneers!

The Gangsters Are Finished

....more or less. I've noticed a couple of touch-ups I need to do and they still need to be varnished, but I'll go with photos now anyway. There are rather a lot of photos in this post.

All eleven of them:

One of these will be for Postie, the other three will be giveaways. Fran or Ray - can you ask Postie which one he wants and then let me know?

This lot will be the Piper-Malkin Gang as Christmas presents for my family. Once I've got some bits and pieces, I'll do a proper write-up about the gang.

And individual pics. First of all, Postie and the giveaway figures:

As soon as Fran or Ray lets me know which figure Postie wants I'll do a post giving the back-story of how he came to be a criminal mastermind.


Finally, the Piper-Malkin Gang's figures:

I do know which figure will be which member of the gang, but I'll leave that for the back-story post.

More Gangsters #3

I didn't think I'd got that much done today, but looking again I realise how close to finished they are. I just need to finish the eyes, do the last flesh highlights, metal highlights on the guns and to highlight the shoes.

Looking at the photos, I might need to knock back a couple of the highlights with a wash of the base colour.

It also appears (from Fran's comment on my last post) that one of these figures will have to be Postie. I bet the others I named will be wanting figures as well. Well, Postie will get his, but the others can sleep with the fishes!

More Gangsters #2

I've made a bit of progress today, but not as much as I'd have liked. I must have slept awkwardly last night, as the joints of my right (painting!) arm are a bit painful. Luckily, I got a good amount done last night after my previous post. I will try to do a bit more tonight, to finish off the colours common to all the figures. Oh, crap - that means doing the eyes!

For the woodwork on the shotguns and Thompsons I tried out something new. Back when Model Zone were closing down, I bought a bottle of Vallejo Model Colour "Woodgrain", which is a transparent paint. I basecoated the wood with Tan earth then painted the Woodgrain over it. I think it's worked quite nicely. I also used it for the wooden floorboards of the "Mama" gangster figure.

Once I've got all the common colours done, I'll focus on individual figures and take each to completion in turn. I should manage to get a few done tomorrow and should have finished the lot by the end of the week.

More Gangsters

I had said that after painting the Fran figure I would return to the buccaneers. However, yesterday evening I was visited at my painting desk by eleven armed mobsters. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse - "Paint us up or you'll sleep with the fishes!".

Gulp!

Discretion being the better part of valour, I accepted their very generous offer and commenced work on them. So far I've done undercoat for the bits which will be white and basecoats for flesh and clothes. I'll do a bit more work later tonight and continue with them tomorrow.

Here are a couple of pics as they are now:

Francis "The Lurker" Lee

Born in 1893, from an early age Francis knew he was destined to be a big man in more than a physical sense. Of Irish descent, he was always fond of his whiskey so when Prohibition came in he knew something had to be done and that he was happy to take on this despicable law.

In his job as a security guard at the Postal Service depot in Salutesville he had become good friends with another security guard, Ray and with one of the postal workers, Stuart. When Stuart approached Francis and Ray with a view to forming a gang to smuggle in much needed alcohol from across the Canadian border, both were enthusiastic recruits. They knew of a few guys and one plucky moll who readily joined the gang.

Successful enterprise followed by successful exploit led to them becoming well known figures in the criminal underworld of the city and to numerous run-ins with the Police. They reveled in the names given to them by the newspapers:

"Postie" Stuart
Francis "The Lurker" Lee
Ray "Sandbagger" Rousell
Lee "Rich" Hadley
Clint "The Fudge"
Sebastien "Frenchie" Gimeno
"Red" Tamsin Piper


Well, that's enough silly back-story. As I mentioned yesterday, I owed Fran a figure for coming top of the Rejects in the Challenge and had decided on painting up a Blue Moon gangster to represent him. I got the figure mostly done last night, with just a few highlights and details left to paint this morning. I still need to varnish the figure, but the weather is totally grotty here so that will have to wait. Looking closely at the pics, there are a couple of bits of touching up to do before then.