6mm Dr Who: The Green Death.........and Them!

Indulging myself in some more 6mm-related plastic madness at the moment, inspired by the 'Pound Shop' find of the instant army of 'creepy' ants seen above. Having done some Dinosaurs for the Dr Who project some time ago, I was casting around for some other monsters that I could add in to the mix when I came up with these - now of course they are not 'canon', although I think an early Doctor did meet some giant ants once (The Zarbi?), but are inspired by one of my favourite 'B' movies, namely the stupendous  "Them!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2PLls02gOU

You've just got to love giant ants taking over the world - I need of course,  to Anglicise it and have U.N.I.T. fighting them instead of the U.S. Army - I added in another plastic insect that came with a job lot of stuff from Ebay, and hey presto - the evil Queen and her minions:

The larger ant is a relatively hard plastic, however the small ones are made from a sort of rubber compound, and a bit squidgey, so not quite sure how well they will hold paint, but to be honest at this scale just a pair of menacing googly eyes should do the trick, rather than any special detailing.

Here's how they line up against some commonly available 6mm Sci-Fi troops, left to right, a Brigade Models Germy 6mm trooper, a GZG New Israeli, a Brigade 6mm Power Armoured chap, and finally a DRM Pax Arcadia Light Infantryman - the ants look suitably menacing, I think:

Getting back to things more directly Dr Who related, I've also dug out a plastic fly from the same old Ebay job lot - this should make a nice candidate for the one from probably the first adventure I ever remember watching as a child from behind the sofa, namely 'The Green Death' at the close of the John Pertwee era:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRafm_qw_gE

"But Doctor, it's exactly your cup of tea - this fellow's bright green apparently, and.....dead!"

Classic!

Of course, I needed some of the armour plated giant maggots to go along with the fly, and for this I could have done scratch-built ones I suppose, but then remembered that I had some 10mm Dungeon crawlers that used to be available from Pendraken in their Fantasy ranges - I think these have been superceded now by a variety of new sculpts - but these should definitely fit the bill, and scale well alongside the 6mm miniatures:

*Edit: The crawly types have popped up again in the newly re-vamped Pendraken Sci-Fi ranges, see them here:

http://www.pendraken.co.uk/SFB3-p6759/

So, just what calculating and perhaps Alien intelligence could be behind this sudden upsurge in monstrous threats to the peace of the Earth............ I wonder...............?

Just for fun, courtesy of one of the ubiquitous boardgaming spares vendors on Ebay, I am going to add in some Simpson's Monopoly pieces, namely Kang and Kodos - you've got to have some Evil Masterminds behind it all!

So, some slightly left-field but hopefully fun bits and bobs to paint up in the near future - so stay tuned for some Sci-Fi related shenanigans to come!

Latest 6mm Greek Myth Figures from Rapier Miniatures

The other day Rapier Miniatures were kind enough to send over a few samples of the latest additions to their 6mm Greek Myth range, something that I was keen to see expand, as the figures so far have been full of character and are an unusual addition to the usual military types more commonly available.

This new set includes a Chimera, a Griffin, a 'Hen Party' (!) of Harpies and a some Bi-clops - just like the previous minis, these are very well sculpted, nicely proportioned, and have some great detail, that I'm afraid these photos really don't do justice to.
I'd thought I'd take a look through them , and give some comparison views alongside examples from the pre-existing range, and also against some 6mm infantry as adversaries.
All the minis are shown in their out-of-the-packet state, and as usual with Rapier are clean and crisp castings - some small areas of flash are visible, but nothing too hard to deal with by a few quick passes of a file.

First up, the new two-headed Cyclops (making him a Bi-clops) alongside the original, about to chuck his rock:

These two-headed chaps are slighter than the original, but are similarly detailed, with raised fist, hefty club and some nice hairy goat-like legs with cloven hoofs - they certainly look like they could do some damage in a fight, and appear suitably ill-tempered - probably each head arguing with the other.....

Seen against some of Rapier's 6mm GRE002 Hoplites in Muscle Cuirass, they are appropriately monstrous in size:

Next up, the Chimera - another excellent sculpt -seen here with the Hydra from the original sets - there is really a lot of intricate detail on this new mini - and it is quite an achievement to properly model all three heads, the wings and scorpion-style tail in well balanced proportion - the faces of the three heads are particularly well done:

Next we have Medusa meeting up with the new Harpies - these are the smallest of the new sculpts, but in spite of this are nicely modelled, with suitably harridan-like faces, raised talons and some great bird legs with claws:

Against the Hoplites once more, you can see how well they fit in with the infantry figures, although I think with my level of painting skills, they are going to be quite hard to paint well enough truly bring out their character:

Moving on, we have the Griffin, meeting up with an armoured Centaur - this new monster is in classic pose, and has some lovely feathered wings - it would obviously have potential beyond the Greek Myth range - would make some great statuary if painted appropriately to go alongside other 6mm or even 10mm figures:

Having a disagreement with some Hoplites:

Finally, a group shot with, on the left, a command strip from Rapier's own 6mm Early Imperial Romans, and on the right, the same from Baccus:

You'll see that all of the new figures scale really well with the contemporary infantry miniatures, and that they don't disappoint in terms of their detail or character.

My only small gripe would be that their diminutive size will make it hard for me to paint them well, but otherwise they are a great addition to the existing range, details of which can be found here:

http://www.rapierminiatures.co.uk/page/Range/6mm_Ancients_Fantasy_Packs.html

Comparing them with a handy list of Mythological creatures that I found online, Rapier have done an excellent job with these; all we need now is a Kraaken and a Talos, and then we are good to go on a Ray Harryhausen style adventure!

http://www.theoi.com/Bestiary.html


As regular readers might have noticed, all things Blog and Hobby related have been on hiatus over the Summer, but I hope to get back and into the swing of things soon, and have certainly found these new 6mm quite inspiring, so more to come on a regular basis in the near future, all being well!


"Oi! - come back 'ere you 'orrible 'arpies!"