Two Doctor Who Companions: Leela and K-9

Continuing Will's Doctor Who miniatures with two iconic and beloved characters: K-9 the robot dog and Leela the prehistoric woman.

K-9 is a snarky robot dog (little to do with the short-lived Australian TV-show of the same name). K-9 was a multi-purpose dog that had a laser in its "nose" and could scan many things. Now K-9 was a fun character who alternated between a super-useful tool and another damsel-in-distress. K-9 later returned in the modern era where he was part of the cast of the Sarah Janes Chronicles.

Leela is a woman from the future descending from a space expedition. She was a tough woman always ready to stab people with her knife. She played the role of a savage/prehistoric woman. Her violent side contrasted sharply with the Doctor in a fun and interesting dichotomy.

Doctor Who Companions: Nyssa and Romana I

Continuing the work on Will's Doctor Who collection...

These two are characters come from late in the 4th Doctor's run. Nyssa and Romana I.

Romana (I) was a female Time Lord who travelled with the Doctor for a few years. She was played by two actresses: Mary Tamm (Romana I) wanted to have a tough woman as a counterpart to the Doctor. However, most of her stories made her a damsel in distress. She was later replaced by Lalla Ward (Romana II) who played the character lightheartedly giving Romana a playful aspect. Romana is one of the characters many fans are hoping will return to the show.

Nyssa was a scientist from another planet who was to be a one-off character but who enventually stayed on as a companion. I will admit to prefer Romana to her as she did was drowned in that massive amount of companions (sounds familiar?). Unlike the modern "Fam," Nyssa's background and training as a scientist gave her something different (until the much-reviled Audric showed up).

I did not realize how uneven her eyes were until I was done... :(

Doctor Who Minis: The 4th Doctor

After finishing work on Will's Tau army, he handed me some "surprise minis". When he pulled out that white USPS (US Postal Service) box, I was a little wary. What was he going to pull out there? It took only a second for me to recognize the models.

Is there someone more Iconic as Doctor Who than Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor? Okay, okay, David Tennant. But is there anyone else? Okay, I can give you Matt Smith... But is there anyone else? No. No, there isn't. His big floppy hat, the scarf, the jacket, the smile, the jelly babie.

This miniature from Black Tree is awesome and capture the energy of the character perfectly. If I am truly honest, I dreaded painting him because I was afraid of not doing a good job. But the end result looks awesome. The scarf came out great and full of movement. Really proud of this guys

[Tau] Will's Commander

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

The commander of a Tau army, if they have a crisis suit immediately made me think of a Gundam. When Will gave me the "80s cartoon" I immediately knew what his commander would look it. It would be a Gundam.

I took pictures with an RX-78 I bought in Japan. The final work is much to my liking. I really liked it.

I put my old '03 commander... Will definitely got the best of this one!

[Tau] Will's Shadow Commander

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

This is a stealth suit commander. I chose to paint him in a muted version of all the other stealth suits. The colors are very muted with the cream (white) serving as an accent. I never saw this model before and really liked it, the dynamism make it exciting while not having a million different trinket hanging everywhere. I think this guy is my favorite of these new Tau models.

[Tau] Will's Heavy XV-88 Suits

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

Now when Will gave me that whole army, he told me he wanted a color palette based on the classic cartoons like Mazinger.

As I looked at these guys, I kept thinking these guys I thought the first batch looked like a trio of guitarists, like Iron Maiden... After chasing away that idea from my mind, I decided to paint them using a blue base roughly inspired by the GMs from Gundam. The end result was much bluer, but they look cool.

The other group with the missile-launcher arms were painted in green, using the Zaku from Gundam (one of my favorite Mobile Suit of all time). The two are posed next to a Zaku I bought in Japan in 1998.

[Tau] Will's Stealth Suits

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

The Stealth Suits are always some of the coolest models in the Tau army. They remind me more than a little of the elementals from Battletech, units I always thought were interesting.

I painted the two units using different "cammo": one is a more typical green and the other follows the marine theme I used on many other models.

Finally, my original conversions for stealth suits. Although the painting not great... I still love this conversion... The pulse rifle used to make "wings" and large cannons.

[Tau] Will's Crisis Suits

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

These guys were painted by using some of Gundam's GM mobile suits for the Earth Government, with whites and reds. The scheme formed a sort of alien camouflage that I really enjoy. These were fun to paint.

After the suits, I put some of my '03 Tau. The difference is mind boggling.

[Tau] Will's Devilfish

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

A devilfish! I will admit I has NO idea what color I wanted for it. So I left it in the back as I worked on the other models.

It was only later that I decided to use a mix of the colors of all the infantry units, so he could chose which unit would get the transport. The end result is a ecclectic mix that works.

I added a picture of my 2003 devilfish at the end for comparison. My style has definitely improved with time.

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[Tau] Will's Breachers

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

Now this is a unit I never knew about... Breachers. They are fire warriors with carbines. Nothing overly exciting as a painter. Different helmets, bah.

Now one thing that upped the game was that Will added these gun blast from GF9. This was something different and exciting. My original idea when I got these minis was to paint a bluish fire.

I decided to go with a "marine" theme and paint these in blue/dark blue with red and white highlights. As I selected ith blue scheme, I had to change my direction for the blast and go with a regular yellow/red/black flame.

The blasts made gave the unit a "blast" of color (see the pun there?) that made them fun to paint as a unique unit.

[Tau] Will's Drone Army

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

A collection of drones! Each drone is different on purpose so they can be identified and recognized.

I put my own drone, which were pretty monochrome...

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[Tau] Will's Fire Warriors

These Tau are a commission I did for my friend Will. Last I painted tau was back around 2002 or 2003 when I lived in Quebec City.

The basis of every army is its infantry. I often joke that the Tau Empire was the only empire that was won by retreating. Their fluff is cooler than the implementation.

For this unit, I chose a fairly dull and simple color scheme: shades of green with a light green. Highlights were made with red and white. I made them have a dirty and grimy appearand for their weapons. The result is pretty effective.

With them here is a commander figure that gets attacked to the unit. For added contrast, I made him cleaner, less grimy that the troopers.

[Kinda Book Report] 52, vol 2 (but a different one)

Having read the second part of the story and wanting to read more, I decided to bite the bullet and get volume 2.

But JP, you say, didn't you already read and reviewed that volume already?

Well yes. However, this is volume 2 of 2. This book has the equivalent of volumes 3 and 4 of the series. In short, the final of the year.

So how did it do?

Well the story started out pretty good, but the plots go down from there. Most of them just drag on and on without any really full interest. In the end, the world is changed but it's not that exciting. I liked the ending of the plot with Doctor Fate/ Elongated Man and the new Question, they were "fine". But the space travel story with Lobo, yawn. The plot with Black Adam was okay... it dragged on a little too much. The EggFu and his island of mad scientists was okay. But the one thatleft me angry was the Booster Gold plot: after an interesting reveal, the rest was just exposition and talking, including time and dimension traveling (while talking).

Instead of having action, they talk. They talk. They don't do much but talk and talk to the point where it get boring. I expected they do more than build machines. The art was good but the story fizzled out and that, more than anything else left me with a bad taste.

My final rating is 2/5. I found myself bored and looking forward to the end. The endless exposition "look how clever my story is, here are three pages where I explain what the bad guy did instead of doing stuff." I like action in my comic. This is a modern comic and why I am not a fan. Good start, no idea how to finish. Too bad, I paid good money for that book. Got ripped off.

Demonic Forces I: The Blighted released!

During the work for the upcoming Witches of Pikemaster, I came up with a number of monsters that can easily be bunched together in a collection I call "Demonic Forces".

The content of this small product is a set of five monsters to serve as low-level nameless faceless hordes of the Abyss. Blighted look like monsters whose flesh has their armor welded directly on their skin. Vile, disgusting, near-mindless, and malevolent, they were designed to serve alongside the bigger demon, surrounding them with mobs of creatures.

I cannot wait to use them against my party. Again and again...

You can now get Demonic Forces I: The Blighted on DM's Guild.

[Kinda Book Review] Spectacular Spiderman Vol 1

I have to admit that in my youth, I did not follow Spiderman too closely. I was an X-men guy. However, he was the subject of multiple TV shows and crossovers. He just wasn't my favorite.

When making my list of potential gifts for Christmas this year, I added a number of "Marvel Essentials" comics. I really dig that line of 25-30 comics from one series reprinted in black and white on newspaper paper. The great part is that you can get a full story, and more all in one place. I mean, isn't that what I love best? A full story.

I was really happy that my secret Santa (aka Kitty) chose that book! Excellent news. I placed it on top of my read pile and wait. The one book over that one was The Man with Two Names. Having finished that one, I dived directly into Spiderman with great gusto.

Now let me explain what I got from reading this book (and later confirmed by making a Wikipedia search). The stories focus more on Peter Parker and his entourage, the "normies" that surround Peter Parker: MJ, Flash, Betty, and Hector Ayala/ White Tiger are pretty important to the stories. I could say it is something akin to what the team-up series is but instead of Spidey meeting super heroes, he deals with his friends.

The story has one notable exception: it serves as an epilogue for the Champions title that was canceled a short time before. Appearing here are Angel and Iceman, founding members of the X-men. That story and seeing those characters hit a soft spot and I was really intrigued and devoured that story. I really liked it. Some of the other stories weren't as strong and some (the Brother Power/ Sister Light) were overly convoluted to provide a rewarding conclusion. Other characters, like the Arkansas Razorback (this is a wink to the mascot of the University of Arkansas' mascot, the razorback) were funny but became tiresome in his bad stereotype of a southern man.

Still an enjoyable read, that leaves me in a lurch between a 3 and 4. So to break the tie, I looked at the 3s and the 4s I rated on this blog and it is closer to the other 3s and 4s. So I rate this one a 3/5 because of the uneven nature of some of the stories.