The Nefarious Schemes of One Fram Framson (update 6/2 - Awooga)

[Duke Donald]

Wow! You don't stop to amaze me with your painting skills ... and productivity!

[d phipps]

Beautiful details. I saw a lot of these in your previous Pulp Alley AAR, so I'm really happy to shared more photos. 

[FramFramson]

Thankee kindly, gents!

[FramFramson]

Okay, I finally varnished the last painted figures from 2014. These are the Aiyyars of the Order of the Starfish, my Indian pulp League. Left to right they are:

Amala Sockalingham (plucky niece of Professor Sockalingham), Professor K.O. Sockalingham (esteemed but absent-minded Bengali scientist), Princess Roma "Baobab" Khan (daughter of the Nawab of Savanur), Inspector Zanjeer R. Singham (leader of the Order's field operatives and formerly of the Goa police), Colonel Manveer Singh Malhotra (of the Jammu & Kashmir princely forces), and Airman 1st class Waheed Veedu (personal pilot to Colonel Malhotra).



This is actually the very first league I ever came up with, but sourcing the minis and doing the conversions took a while. You might be interested to know that India has a pulp-adventure tradition of it's own, going back to the Victorian period. An Aiyyar is the Indian term for what is essentially a pulp hero, though usually Aiyyars and their adventures tend to have a mystical or magical aspect (but not always).

Each of them bears a token in orange, but some of them are quite small (Zanjeer has a band on the shoulder strap of his backpack, which you can maybe just see and the Colonel and Professor have small pins).

Also, we have some more extras painted last week. The dog was actually found years ago for a dollar in a dollhouse shop. I didn't paint it, it came that way so all I needed to do was base it. The fellow on the left is Eduardo Flores, an Argentine antiques dealer who frequently does business with Mrs. Donerwetter.



The Red Queen's dress was a rather risky experiment I wanted to try. After varnishing her, I added a second coat of varnish as a glue over the red areas (in small patches, not all at once), and carefully applied glitter as I went with a soft brush. This gave me a true sequined dress!

Here's a .gif to show the shimmer a little better:

[NickNascati]

The sequined dress and the exposed stocking are just amazing!!

[Mason]

The sequined dress and the exposed stocking are just amazing!!

Oh, yes!
That paintjob is so good (not to mention bloody genius!) that I almost forgot the wonderful brushwork on all the other figures.
 

[FramFramson]

Thanks fellows!

fram you hit it out of the park with that dress. In fact the entire thing is double plus good. The indian flesh tones are fab and the lady with the six gun is ace.

I really tried to work on the skin tones, giving them an individual look. I'm glad someone noticed!

The sequined dress and the exposed stocking are just amazing!!

I have to thank Michi for his technique on wet/sheer clothes!

Oh, yes!
That paintjob is so good (not to mention bloody genius!) that I almost forgot the wonderful brushwork on all the other figures.
 

I don't know that I can really call that bit a "paintjob"! But it is painted red underneath. I was so worried about how it would go that I took "before" photos because I was so happy with the skin and face and was petrified that I'd have to give her an acetone bath if my scheme didn't work (I did do some experiments off the figure first).

[Katsuhiko JiNNai]

Superb  I especially like the indian league, very original, not just the usual western leagues, and (of course) the red queen

[d phipps]

Yowza! That is spectacular! Where to begin... The stunning faces? Minerva's new head? Red's sparkling dress? Wow, wow, and more WOW! Beautiful work, sir.

[DeafNala]

OOH! COOL STUFF! They are all BEAUTIFULLY painted & based with a LOVELY selection of colors. The sequinned gown is TRES CHIC. VERY WELL & STYLISHLY DONE!

[warlord frod]

Fram once again you amaze us all  . I will have to steal that idea for one of my pulp figs because it is just awesome!

[von Lucky]

I dropped the ball on this thread for six months. Shame on me. The painting on show is fantastique!

[gary42]

Shit dude!  That Indian league!!

[FramFramson]

Superb   I especially like the indian league, very original, not just the usual western leagues, and (of course) the red queen

Hehe! It started out as an idea to mirror the classic pulp/victorian trope of "Team of Europeans with loyal Indian manservant". Only I had so many Indians I wanted to add that the white fellow (an ex-Indian service Scotch soldier of fortune) was cut from the regular roster. I still have the figure though and will probably use him as an occasional add-on (many of my leagues actually have a dedicated figure that shows up if they get a reinforcements roll - such as Eduardo for Mrs. Donerwetter or a Soviet infantryman for the Bogatyrs).

Yowza! That is spectacular! Where to begin... The stunning faces? Minerva's new head? Red's sparkling dress? Wow, wow, and more WOW! Beautiful work, sir.

Thanks Dave!

For those fans of the original Minerva, well, I bought two: I knew I was going to do this conversion, but I got another just so I could eventually paint the original one as well. She's too lovely not to!

OOH! COOL STUFF! They are all BEAUTIFULLY painted & based with a LOVELY selection of colors. The sequinned gown is TRES CHIC. VERY WELL & STYLISHLY DONE!

 

Funny enough, in spite of my heavy use of browns and khakis, the Indian league is probably my most colourful league so far!

Fram once again you amaze us all  . I will have to steal that idea for one of my pulp figs because it is just awesome!

Should I be worried about starting a trend of blinged-out figures?!

For anyone interested in copying the technique, just make sure you undercoat in a nice bright colour which is close to your glitter colour. The glitter flakes do not cover the whole surface - just enough to give the impression of covering the whole (probably around 60% of the surface area? Not sure). The red I painted underneath is actually brighter than the red of the glitter flakes and so it comes out and adds to the colour.

I essentially painted the whole mini just as I normally would, including a coat of varnish, then slowly painted varnish-as-glue and brushed on sparkles. Use two separate brushes for this and the one you use for applying glitter will mostly remain dry, though I did swish it out in a water cup (and blot dry it) between applications, just as you would with paint (otherwise small amounts of varnish would have built up in the brush). There might be a better way to apply it, but you can't just sprinkle fine glitter the way you do flock, because it has a powerful static cling (and gets BLOODY EVERYWHERE).

I also had to occasionally finely pick off stray glitter with toothpick or even very VERY gently with the back of an exacto (this is why I fully varnished first, so that I could rub away stray glitter with a much lower risk of damaging the paint).

Do not re-coat the glitter with varnish of any sort, even gloss varnish, as that will completely dull the glitter and ruin the effect. Discovering this made me very thankful I experimented first. It's also the reason I didn't just mix glitter with a medium.

I dropped the ball on this thread for six months. Shame on me. The painting on show is fantastique!

Heh, well lit didn't go anywhere. I move slow, so luckily you didn't miss all that much!

Shit dude!  That Indian league!!

[Wirelizard]

An actual sequined dress! Glorious insanity and it turned out spectacular.

The painting on all of them is excellent and the Indian-based League is a great concept.