the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic...

recently on Channel 4, there was a thing on called Gods and Monsters that covered the mythology and folklore of England... the frankly embarrassing to watch bits with Tony Robinson aside, it had some interesting nuggets of information covering fairies, plague and possession and one such nugget was the Munich Manual... a 15th Century grimoire written in Latin that covered Necromancy and Demonology... of course, being written in Latin, it could only really be read and used by the learned of the age and none were more fluent in Latin than the Church...

I had thought of doing something similar with the Warlord's Archbishop Laud figure, dressed as he is in a scholarly fashion, so the Munich Manual fitted in perfectly. I'd actually done the cassocky thing a while back, but had got put off with yet another black and white figure for this and another nudge to get this chap done was when I stumbled across one painted with a purple cassock on the Warlord forums... I don't think I've ever painted anything purple, the 6th Doctor's waistcoat was about it, and it had the bonus of not being black, but still ecumenical or not depending on my mood...

the figure had a hefty integral base which I couldn't be bothered to file down, nor could I be bothered to cut the slotta and sink it down... as the devout trooper started me on the uneven moorland look, I thought that would work quite nicely here and I added a fallen gravestone to the base as something a bit different - disused or abused graveyard just perfect for ghoulish things... the book I painted using leathery flesh tones to give it a Necronomicon feel... oddly, the shading on the black lining looks a bit clumsy in the photos, but isn't in the lead...

annoyingly the grass doesn't seem to work, did everything the same as the others in this range, but it doesn't look right to me... very annoying...

of course, this wasn't anything I had otherwise been working on in December, the purple gown kind of prodded me on with this one... hey ho...

December is rather running away from me...

and I'm not likely to have anything finished to post up... the ghouls have some paint on them (but not enough) and my first attempt at a fairy ring hasn't quite worked so need to have another bash at that... Angel's gang has slowly been getting some recruits as well, but they need a bit of a g/s session.

It's all very Folk Horror at the moment, especially as I've been given the Lore of the Land as an early Christmas present - lots of bits about English folklore that has given me some ideas... to hell with brooms, I need some hurdles!

+++INPUT+++MECHANOIDS+++INPUT+++

some classic Who Mechanoids...

from an admittedly not so random question now I think about it to a 3D print to this, now available from Ainsty as the Mechanot... and it's the same shiny silver problem I had with the Giant Robot, shading and super shiny are beyond me so they have more of a lived in air to them...

I've change a bit from the Ainsty model/original design (which has three sensors in a triangular pattern) - I want to do some identifiers on the front panel, so filled that in with g/s - need to work on those decals at some point... another divergence is the area below the antenna... I did toy with paint in the white balls (or could have done some conversion work to add them in), but decided to inject even the slightest bit of colour in there so tried for a pale blue glow to suggest a power source within...

have also left the bases for now, as I'm entertaining ideas on doing a space station build again... so they could be deck plate or they could be dirt/gravel and grass...

so, pending decals and deciding on the base, done for now...

ECW Ghouls...

have been slowly g/s stuff to get some ECW ghouls from the Warlord placcy stuff and the Mantic placcy Ghouls...

first off Mantic Ghouls with g/s puffy trousers and shredded Llewellyn-Bowen shirts, some of the orginal rags should make for decent enough shredded stockings...

a mix of Mantic and Warlord bits for a more recently departed (or more careful) ghoul... sadly, the Mantic stuff is a little too big for the Warlord plastics, but with the more action poses you can get away with the head and arms ok... I do have some more planned, but the pose means they may have to use the original Warlord head and I'll need to be a bit more creative... but I've g/s'd out at the moment...

and finally, the above, mixed in with some standard fantasy rag Mantic ghouls...

introducing the Mechanot...

remember this fella?


now in resin with some lovely brasswork...


I have to say, it looks great, the brasswork has really brought this up to another level... even if I do say so myself ...

I should be getting hold of some shortly, so painted versions to follow, but it's available from Ainsty now.

Angel Blake again...

Angel Blake now with added prongs...

removed the old crown, losing the top of the hair in the process, and added a new one made from some etched brass cedar twigs from Hasslefree... replaced the missing hair with greenstuff, slight superglue accident and then was regretting my choice til it got painted... looks much better now... the heavy handling wasn't much good for the nipples though, so they got painted again and heavily glossed before the dullcote...

have noticed a few other spots of dirt now on the skin, and I've dullcoted, so need to have a worry at those... dammit...

and also been working on getting some of the Mantic ghouls upto the 17th Century...