Thinking Outside The (Blind) Box

Okay, so recently I was on vacation in Orlando, and I took the time to visit some comic and game shops in the area (shout out to SciFi City, Paladin Tech & Game, and Colliseum of Comics!)  We were hunting for back issues to complete my daughter's Power Pack collection (mission accomplished, she now has the complete run.)

While I was doing this, I thought it might be fun to actually pick up a box of Heroclix with my kids.  Normally I get bulk lots on Ebay, and almost never indulge in opening a random box from a retailer.  But the new Invincible Iron Man set is chock full of classic characters, including many that my five-year-old daughter would recognize (she's been reading the old Claremont/Byrne X-Men stories from the Essential reprints,) so I thought opening a box with her and her little brother could be fun.

So I picked up a box and opened them up on a bench outside the shop.  They were excited to see what we got, and to look for their favorite characters.  Unfortunately, We got a bunch of fairly obscure characters, or characters from recent years that none of us have read.

I got the Iron Man villain The Melter, one of the Brothers Grimm, psycho contortionist Scarecrow, Bulldozer from the Wrecking Crew, and some big robot thing I didn't recognize that is apparently a Hammer drone.  Of these, the only one she had a chance of knowing was Bulldozer, because of the Avengers cartoon.  All in all, a bit disappointing.

But of course, my motto is that nothing is useless, so I started thinking what I could use them for myself.  And then I had a thought.  What if I set myself a challenge?  What if, once I got home, I found a real, table-ready use for each one of those minis, and modified and painted them up right away?  And what if I documented the entire process on the blog to make a point about the versatility of minis?  But no one answered me because I was thinking it in my head.  So I decided to do just that.

First up was Scarecrow.

As you can see, he's a pretty simple mini, with loose-fitting clothes, a pitchfork and a bag on his head.  My first thought was that he'd make a great angry peasant, once he had a head swap.  In the end however, I decided against the head swap, since the burlap sack mask look works well as an angry mob member (I took some inspiration in from the crazed villagers from Resident Evil 4.)

So I painted his clothes in drab earth tones for a peasant.  I wanted to try to evoke the burlap texture for the mask, so I stippled it with black, and I feel it worked out well.  I also painted the mouth and eyes to look human, rather than empty black pits.  Here is the result:

Next up was Bulldozer.

I took one look at his spandex and studs gimp outfit and decided he needed to be an executioner.  I could have just made him a generic leatherboy, but I felt a headsman would be more useful.  The repaint was easy enough, but I figured he needed an axe.  So I appropriated one (along with a hand,) from a Warhammer dwarf regiment, and swapped it out.  I then used a little putty to make some loose wraps for the handle and voila:

The Brother Grimm was a bit more of a challenge.

He's got spandex, rolled boots and a ridiculous disco collar.  I was tempted to make him some kind of disco avenger, but in the end, I decided to make him a native American, as I need some for my Fallout game, as well as any Western games I run in the future (and there will definitely be Western games in the future…)

So I sculpted a loincloth in front and back, and made a belt (I tried something new with the belt, and I'm not 100% sure about it, and might go back and change it later.  I sculpted hair (with a headband!) and some necklaces to cover the disco collar that I snipped off.  He then got a new hand with bow from the Warhammer wood elf sprue, and a quiver from the the night goblin sprue.  The quiver had a goofy skull on it, so rather than scrape it off, I used putty to make it into a bird skull, which seemed fitting.  unfortunately, the mini had no nose.  So I had to sculpt one, and it turned out okay.  Not great mind you, but okay.

But what to do with The Melter?

I mean look at that guy;  The rimmed bowl helmet, the pointy shoulder pads and harness/belt buckle thingy, the striped pants (which are molded on, so you can't just paint over them,) and those hang-glider boots, they all combine to make one egregious fashion nightmare.  But how to make him a useful miniature that I could use in a game?

Well I've started to gather minis to be generic, lightly-armored fantasy thugs for use as town guardsmen, dock rowdies, etc.  I figured his outré ensemble could be easily modified into leather armor, and I could amply add some weaponry to complete the conversion.

I began with some putty in front and back to make his spandex shirt into a leather cuirass.

The only other modification was the addition of a shield and a short sword from more Warhammer sprues.  The rest was all simple repaints.  As to the striped pants, I tried to figure out what color scheme to use.  Black and white or blue and white would give off a pirate vibe, and I wanted a more medieval look.  So I went with the red and blue, and I think it works nicely.  My wife says the sleeves don't really work, so I might modify them at a later date.  But for now, here is my medieval thug:

And then there's the robot.

Now I can find plenty of uses for robots; whether it's for Star Wars, Fallout,  Shadowrun, or any number of sci-fi themed one-shots, robots have their uses.  But I thought it might be fun to use this guy to make an iron golem for Pathfinder.  However, this particular robot is a little too high-tech for easy application to that purpose, what with that fighter jet wing sticking out the top.  So I wasn't sure what to do with him for a while.  But then I noticed the big rocket engine sticking out of its ass.  If that were inverted, it would look like a boiler and smokestack.  I suddenly had the vision of a steampunk iron golem.

So I started by snipping off all his limbs and pulled off the head.

Here's the rocket turned steam boiler.

I turned it upside down and reattached the legs to the arm sockets.  I used some buttons to cover the cut parts, and to make them look like big flywheels.

I then needed to attach the arms, and at the same time, I wanted to add some gears to enhance the clockwork feel.  So I tore apart an old wind-up alarm clock to harvest the gears.  The clock actually fought back; the main spring uncoiled as soon as I pulled the mechanism out, slashing my thumb and gouging my thumbnail.

Then I used some gears to mount the arms and for the head, I sacrificed a Star Wars Miniatures battle droid to use its legs for an extendible neck.  I looked all over for a suitably Victorian face to fit my mental image, and in the end I molded this from a sphinx figurine.

I added some 40K Techmarine shoulder pads to the hips to cover the bits I cut up, and some gears to the crotch to add to the clockwork vibe.  As an aside, I've mentioned before, I encourage keeping everything.  Well when I was looking for a small gear to mesh with the larger one, I remembered that I still had the tiny flanged mace head from a cleric mini I had modified over ten years ago, and that fit perfectly (never throw anything away.)  Then I painted the whole thing in metallics with a green lens in the middle.

So there you have it: five randomized minis given new identities and new purpose in life.  This just goes to show how you can look at minis in a whole new way, and with only a few minor modifications (okay, a bunch of modifications  for the golem,) you can make them into whole new minis for your games.

And that's thinking outside the box.