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Xiang Lung, 50170, is listed as a "Chinese Villain," but can anyone with a cuddly monkey be THAT villainous? A master of terrible sorceries, most assuredly. Bob Murch's Pulp Figures includes a set of Dangerous Dames, and this one is a Dragon Lady. Don't take my word for it; look at the embroidery on the jacket! They make a good Power Couple.

Good old Mac's, home of the Cheap Rotgut Special and the Slightly Less Cheap Rotgut Special! Meet all kinds of folk in a place like this. Specifically, you can meet 50155: Mickey O'Doul; 50319: Olav, Dwarf Gambler; 59034: Muckraker; a couple more Pulp Figures Americano Mercenarios (including the incredibly suave Tucson Juan and the grizzled Brazos Pete); Margarita, the Nolzur's barmaid; and a female Law Dog from a line whose name I can't recall. This is the last of my Weird West series, until I find and paint more (such as Old Man Buzzard, or an ogre converted to a Cannibal Mutant Hillbilly). Hope you've enjoyed this strange, picture-heavy trip! I for sure have.

Bit of a change of pace--here are three Drawing-Room Detectives from Pulp Figures. Each of them was a delight to paint. The fastidious, inerrant Anchises Merlot, the keen-eyed and ineluctable Willis Wen, and the shrewd and inquisitive Joan Myrtles. (The body is a pulp newspaperman). Murch knocked the faces out of the park on these. Side note--there should more minis with double chins and/or jowls. Miss Myrtles's cable-knit jumper effect was done in mechanical pencil.

Its been a busy year and I haven't managed to get in much painting at all. I finally picked up some brushes and painted up a couple of minis for the the Back of Beyond Paint Club on the Lead Adventurers forum. They are from Pulp Figures and sculpted by Bob Murch. I went with an Indiana Jones type from PHP-02 Rugged Heros and a Big Game Hunter type from PHP-019 Dangerous Dames 2. Certainly not my best work but perfectly suitable for gaming. Now i need to get moving on my entry for ReaperCon. Lots to build and lots to paint for that! I need to do something with that whip. I should curl it up more so it doesn't look quite so awkward. There are more pictures on my blog: http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2016/09/lead-adventure-back-of-beyond-painting.html

I enjoy painting exchanges, I really do. In the past the suggestions from peoples' surveys have been fairly straight forward to get my head around. "I GM Pathfinder so monsters are good, but no goblins.", Things like that. Things that fit fairly well with what I normally paint. This is good, and comforting. I go into it thinking, "I can do this, and make it look nice." Low stress. So for this spring's exchange, I was matched up to send to Dontfear, and got his survey. "Paint in a theme: Rhapsody in Blue, however you want to interpret that." Luckily no one was near me when I read this at work, as I'm fairly certain I swore....I had no clue what to do. I went through a few options, like a bard in blue, and the lead character from the The Symphony of Ages series by Elizabeth Haydon. I wasn't keen on those. I went back to work and pondered. I slept on it. The next day I had an idea. I'd always wanted to try monochrome. So I was picturing a 20s/30s era female dancer done in blues. Turns out Reaper's options when it comes to 30's era dancers is fairly limited. But I knew I'd seen something that would work, so I kept searching. Deadlands: Noir held the answer..and more.While looking at the Femme Fatale I noticed Hourgan. It looked like they were made for each other. The arms matched. Perfect! (well, except for the gun....and the cane....and the snake.....). So I ordered them. While I was waiting on the order from Reaper I started getting nervous. What if they didn't actually match up? What if they looked crappy together? What if I mangled them doing the modifications? What if I can't do monochrome....especially in blue, one of my least used colours? Time for a backup plan!! Sadly Reaper's selection of Jazz Bands is, umm, non-existent. Someone get on that, please. So after exhausting my google-fu looking for a miniature Jazz Band, I went to a better source: Ub3r. Within 10 minutes he sent me three different links to Jazz Bands. I went with Bob Murch, as the figs looked awesome AND he's Canadian. Thanks Ub3r!! So, long story....less long....I started on the band first, while still modding the dancers. They were very fun to paint! How often do you get to paint powder blue jackets? For the dancers, I was happy with how the modifications went. They looked pretty good together too. I went through all my blues and decided on my colour range. Three colours. Desert Sky was the middle, Nightmare Black for the dark and a blue white sample that is fairly close to Ghost White (which was at work that day) for the light colour. (I did use a bit of Pure Black to darken a few shadows, but otherwise everything on the dancers piece is done with those colours.). I have to hugely thank Corporea for answering all my questions on monochrome and light sources and shading metals and everything else. She was amazingly helpful and friendly and wonderful! So, in the end the dancers came out ok. But I wanted to finish the band too. So I did both, pushing right up to the deadline to get it done, And here's the results. This project was so far from what I would normally paint, and was such as challenge to do. But I'm extremely happy with how it came out. I learned tons doing it, and pushed my painting more than I think I ever have. The only problem is that my wife REALLY liked it, so I have a feeling I need to paint her something nice sometime soon....