Special Agent Franks, and some Cool Monster Hunter News...

Over at  Monster Hunter Nation, Larry Corriea's blog, I spotted a cool bit of news.

John Ringo and Larry are doing a teamup to bring us the latest book in the MHI series.

Awesome-sauce

Seems like the story will take place in the 1980's as opposed to the present, and features Ray and Susan Shackleford in their heyday as Hunters.  I can't wait!! But seeing how it's not out until August, I guess we're force to!  In the meantime, I'll dust off my 'members only' jacket and start regrowing the old mullet.  I wonder if my parachute pants still fit? (i already know the answer to that)

The second cool bit of of news I got from Monster Hunter Nation came in the form of a post Larry Corriea made.   I had commented on the site, asking any interested folks to check out my blog here, Larry was gracious enough to not only check us out here, but gave me a shout out in his latest post.  That really made my day!

So, if you wandered over here from there, welcome!   If you are unsure of what exactly I'm doing here, I'll try to explain.  I paint and model little toy soldiers, and since there really aren't any commercially available that represent the world of MHI, I'm trying to convert and paint existing miniatures to fit and represent the characters.

The scale of these miniatures is about 28mm.  That just means the 'average' man of 6ft tall or so, is 

represented as 28mm tall.  So, that's a bit over an inch tall for us that never could figure out the metric system (thanks Jimmy Carter).

Normally, these miniatures are used in tabletop games, but I mostly end up just painting them, instead of playing, but maybe someday...

So, enough of me blabbering about what this site is, lets get onto some Special Agent Franks.

Spoilers about Franks will be revealed below!

Special Agent Franks has grown to be one of my favorite characters.  In the first book, you kind of learn to grudgingly respect him, in book Two: Vendetta, you learn he is a serious force to be reckoned with.  He's a nigh unstoppable Agent that has NEVER failed a mission.

Why did Franks cross the Road?
Classified.

 Franks is described as 6'5" and built like an NFL linebacker.  He really shines in Vendetta, especially with his epic fight against the Oni Ogres, (Force and Violence). By the end of the book Franks cemented that 'favorite character' status to me (but not so much favored by the Dread Overlord he help kill)

Finding a model to represent him was a bit of a challenge.  I like the size of this Foundry one (above pic) as he towers over my other MCB Agents, but not ridiculously so.  He is a bit on the ugly side, which worked well.  If you look closely, you'll see I painted one eye blue and the other brown.

I had also found yet another mini I liked in the form of a Heroclix Tombstone mini.

Give me a witness to intimidate

 As you can see, he towers over the MCB dudes, but the pose of this minis just screams 'Franks' to me.  He'd rather punch you in the head than speak to you.  I sculpted the sunglasses on and even attempted to tattoo his knuckles with HATE, but that looked horrible., so I repainted it.

Franks gets his very own story in the fifth book of the series called MHI: Nemesis, and that novel is another blast.  We learn more about his incredible backstory, and find that he is the basis for the Monster of Frankenstein legend.  So, having multiple versions of Franks makes sense, as he can basically change his body shape at need (more or less).

I'll eventually want to do a Agent Franks in his tactical gear, sporting his FN2000, but I'm still on a search to find just the right model.  I may even attempt my own sculpted kitbashed version.

What do you call a group of Franks?
Classified.

Anyhow, Franks is such a great character and I wanted to get him added to my MCB faction.  Soon, he'll have Agent Myers and his latest boss, Doug Stark to join his ranks.

And just a couple of items I've started on:

There just aren't a lot of female werewolf models, but this one I found from Reaper will do quite nicely for a certain Red haired lycanthrope from MHI Alpha.  Also from that book, I've began my own sculpt (admittedly in a VERY rough state) of one of the Diggers, a very bizarre species of creature.   More on these characters as I progress with them.

So far just putty and paperclips..

Please don't hesitate to subscribe and leave any comments or questions you may have.  I'd love to hear from you, especially if you have any suggestions of what minis would work great for anyone in the MHI universe.

  I can also be reached directly at supervike@yahoo.com

It's beginning to look a lot like Fishmen.

Something Fishy is going on here

 Deep ones, those aquatic Lovecraftian fishmen, are only briefly mentioned in Monster Hunter International.  They serve as the badguys in a mission previously mentioned with a SEaL team and a cruise ship.

Turns out that the Deep Ones aren't just interested in mindlessly attacking humans, they also prefer to lay their eggs inside a human host.  I'm assuming the outcome (other than the obvious madness) would be something like these guys.   These are Deep One Hybrids, the spawns of such an unholy union.

These minis come from Rattrap Games, except for the one to the far right, who comes from Black Cat Bases.

Gil

Mrs. Gorton

Finn

Kermit

Sticks

Eventually, I'll want to game with the Monster Hunter International setting, so, my plan is to use the Deep Ones/Hybrids/Etc as a faction looking to overtake a town, boat, or some area.

Here's a couple of other figs I've had painted for a while, that will fit into this faction:

Squid for the Squid God

The hooded one is from Fenris Games, and I think the other is from RAFM.


But, enough of the distant background characters, lets get to some of the main characters!!

Here's some works in Progress.

First up, heres where I am with the Owen Pitt character.  If you recall, I used a Heroclix pre painted Drax as my basis, and have been working on the body armor.  So far, I've added a bunch of pouches, ,a side arm, some hair, some MOLLE straps, and a little flashlight.  On he back, you can also see the drag strap on the armor.  I'll need to smooth out many of those areas, as they look pretty rough (especially in a blown up photo).  Sculpting is HARD!!  But, very very fun.  It's a very slow process as well.

Why the Hell am I still GREEN??

Eventually, he'll all be painted a primer color (especially to get rid of that green!), and painted properly (or as proper as I can do...)

Also started on several main guys from the Monster Control Bureau.

The Thing photobombs MCB

From left to right (if you ignore the Thing) The beginnings of Special Agents Myers, Franks, and Stark, representing some of the fine leadership of the secretive organization.  And since I can't quite decide on a great mini to represent the indomitable Agent Franks, I've chosen two.  Here's the Tombstone Heroclix I started on a few posts ago.

I'm not Tombstone anymore

Small WiP update...Owen Pitt

From last post, I decided to use the Heroclix called Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy as the basis of Owen Z Pitt.  To make Drax look more like Pitt, I figured I needed to do some sculpting to convert.

I had done a really rough sketch of what I wanted Pitt to look like.  This was before I found the Drax figure, so I was happy he met all the basics, big dude, knife...

Still pretty rough

He's also too sexy for his shirt.

I needed to add an armored vest (with lots of ammo pouches), change that k-bar knife to a big Kukri, add either some hair or a helmet, and convert that sci-fi gun to the automatic shotgun.  A bit ambitious, given my very limited sculpting skills....Like I mentioned before, this mini was cheap as dirt, so I figured I have nothing to lose.  

So far, this is what I've come up with.  First off, let me apologize for the quality of the photo.  I've been working on this during my lunches at work, and all I had was my ancient Ipod for a camera.  However, I wanted to get a pic before he got too far along.

If you squint just right...

The kukri is huge, as all I did was use putty over the top of the existing one.  I may clip it off and do a new one, but I'll wait to decide.  I've added the basics of an armored vest, and that little box out front will eventually be some ammo pouches.  It's turning out better than I thought, but I still have time to muck it up...

More next time!  Hopefully I'll get time to do some painting this weekend.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that I started another blog!  Since I'm using this one to chronicle my Monster Hunter International setting, I thought I'd keep a separate one to keep track of my comic book inspired miniatures.

It's called supervike's super stuff so please visit and subscribe if it interests you!

Thanks for reading!