Owen Pitt: Rough concept, mini ideas.

As I work on painting up some of my miniatures and shoehorning them into the MONSTER HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL world, I think I should also start planning out the main characters from the stories.

Owen Zastava Pitt, or 'Z' to his friends, is the protagonist of three of the five books, and the first character we meet in the series.

I suppose if you ever want to read these books, I should at least be as kind as putting up a spoiler alert.  

Spoiler Alert for the rest of my blog!  Discussing these characters and settings will certainly give plot points away.  If you are at all interested in a spoil free story, go read the books, and then come back and visit!


Owen is one big dude, described as a power lifter type guy, around 25 or so.  He's 6 foot 5, and well over 300 lbs.  He had a tough childhood, raised by a militant father who wanted Owen and his brother David to be able to survive anything.  Owen was a competition shooter at an early age, and worked as a bouncer and illegal pit fighter to put himself through college.

In a fight where he lost his cool, and almost killed another fighter, he decided to find the most boring career and get away from violence for good.  So, he became an accountant.

Long story short, he ends up with a werewolf for a boss, has a horrific fight with it, wins, and is introduced to the wonderful world of Monster Hunting.

As I'm working in roughly the 28mm size, I want a mini that stands head and shoulders above the average man.  Unfortunately, I'm not having any great luck in scouring the various manufacturers for a miniature that could serve as a basis.

I may have to try my hand at some massive conversion work, or even having a go at sculpting.

I've drawn a real rough little sketch on what I'm going for:

 I'd like my combat version of Z to be big and beefy, having a huge knife, wearing armor, and a shotgun strapped to him.

Normally, Monster hunters will wear a hockey type helmet, fitted with some Nightvision optics.  The armor has a removable neck guard (used especially when fighting Vampires) and has MOLLE straps to affix a wide range of pouches and gear.

The big knife Z uses is called a Kukri, a wicked curved machete popular with Gurkas.

In addition to a pair of STI .45s strapped to his hips, he is also very fond of his custom made Saiga fully automatic shotgun.  The shotgun also features an under mounted 40mm grenade launcher, and a side switch blade bayonet, inlayed with silver.

This is his boomstick

Lastly, for Z's normal load out, he straps a .357 to his ankle.  The man has a thing for guns.

Actually, the author of the series, Larry Corriea, is a self described Gun Nut, and he knows his stuff.

Owen is very loyal to his friends and family, even to the point here he would put himself in danger (which he often does) to protect them.  He also has a short temper, which gets him into trouble at times.

A couple of minis that could be promising for a basis for Z are from the Hasslefree Line:

Nomad

Hasslefree miniatures are freakin great!

Mordekai

Not included in the Orange box...

Unfortunately, I don't really know how big these guys are to the rest of the line.  Nomad seems the most promising, but still there would be a lot of conversion work.  Definitely a head swap, removing that big honking gun, and possibly making him taller.

Mordekai just has that side of beef look for sure.  But, he is a bit on the cartoony side, and those guns are just ridiculous.  He's an over the top, halfway down the other side type mini.

The search continues, and I have plenty of more of the inhabitants of the MHI world in the pipeline and ready for paint already, so I may just hold off for awhile to include Owen in the lineup.

Any mini suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

This weekend, I plan on painting up some Bigfoots (feet?) and some Werewolves...so watch this space!