Bleaseworld

Well it took a little longer than anticipated due to Operation Birthday Fairy but I managed to finish my Knights Models Penguin today.


This is a really very nice miniature with some lovely subtle details. Using such a dark palette I employed the old trick of lightening the black with cream to avoid the contrasts being too cold and stark. I'll start work on the Penguin's gang soon...

Painting Target: 106/1000

Well I needed a bit of inspiration to get on and finish my Penguin miniature...

I managed to finish my first Knight Models Batman miniature at lunchtime. This is the Batman from the Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns story, well the second half of it, in the first half he has the old yellow and black oval bat on his chest and the classic blue cloak, boots and gloves.


A bit bleak, I didn't "warm" the black up by using cream to mix up highlights, I wanted him to have a cold look to him. Not the best paintjob I've ever done, but he'll do. Penguin next...

Painting Target: 43/1000

Another of those pesky days were I have had to work for a living, but I did manage to make some slight progress on the painting of my Batman figure. During the joy of one phone conference I started pondering terrain ideas and didn't really get anywhere.

A bit of Google-fu when I got home uncovered these lovely Sarissa Precision MDF kits. They look lovely but the large factory is £50 and I'm not sure how they would scale against the 35mm tall Batman figures...



Another idea was the old Robogear range, but I'm not sure about its availability anymore. The chemical plant does look like the sort of place the Joker might have a disfiguring accident...


Perhaps I need to watch some of the old animated series for some inspiration?

Following on from my post about the New 52 Batman titles, I was perusing Amazon and noticed they were selling the Kindle version of Suicide Squad volume 1 for just 49p (the paper vesion is £7.69). Suicide Squad, if you are not familiar with them from the comics (or the Arrow TV series) are a group of super-villians, used by the US Government for deniable covert black ops - the first mission in this book is to kill all 60,000 people in a sports stadium, I won't spoil the why...

The squad has a changing membership, the rumours of the film in production includes the Joker, but here we have Deadshot, Harley Quinn and King Shark amongst others.

Obviously this means you can potentially use any bad guys in your DC superhero collection for Suicide Squad games, and although I am only half way through volume one, there certainly is a lot of potential here...

Been a busy work day today so I've not managed to do anything other than buy a load of cans os spray paint in the local models shop! However, the Eaglemoss Bat-tank arrived today so I have quickly snapped a picture of it next to an unpainted Knight Models Batman...

Bearing in mind Batman first appeared in comic book form in 1939, it can be quite a daunting prospect to decide when and where to get on board given the volumes and volumes of material and the fact that Bats has appeared in a variety of different titled comics, many published at the same time.

Back in 2011 DC Comics decided to revamp and relaunch all its comic book series, including the Batman comics, launching fifty-two new series in September of that year (the New 52 series). Of these 11 were Batman orientated titles, including Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman: the Dark Knight and Detective Comics.

Unlike some series, the Batman reboot was a soft one and classic tales like The Killing Joke and A Death in The Family remained canon, however the New 52 series make a decent starting point, even if some of background might not be immediately explained (like who the current Robin is!).

The comics are regularly collected into graphic novel format and if you are seeking for inspiration beyond the films and animated tales, this is a good way of getting into the universe.

Batman volume one starts with The Court of Owls storyline, concentrating on Batman's discovery of a secret society in Gotham City that dates back to the time of Gotham's founding.

Batman and Robin volume one features the new Robin, Damian, Batman's son and an assassin called NoBody (he leaves no body behind).

Batman: the Dark Knight volume one, starts with a breakout from Arkham Asylum and features a host of popular villains. It also includes one story from the Court of Owls story arc (DC have a habit of crossing stories over into different titles, telling episodes from different perspectives).

Detective Comics volume one contains two stories, one involving the Joker and Dollmaker, the other the Penguin. Not as good as The Court of Owls storyline, but decent enough.

As I said the New 52 provide a good jumping on point for anyone interested in Batman gaming and the collected volumes will provide lots of ideas for scenarios.

Following on from Sunday's purchase of the Bat-Tank (when this arrives I'll take some photos up against a Batman figure) I decided I needed something a little more "regular" for opponents less challenging than the Mutant army!


Back to eBay and I managed to pick up one of the Eaglemoss Batman the Movie Batmobiles (ie. from the Tim Burton 1989 film). It featured in The Dark Knight Returns as well, albeit as something for Batman to lift using his power armour suit!

Of course eBay being what it is I also won a cheap bid on an Eaglemoss Batmobile Tumbler as seen in the Christopher Nolan films. Not my favourite design but it was cheap and makes for a useful contemporary Batmobile.


Both have apparently been posted, so I better hurry up and paint my Batman miniature up!

One of the iconic images from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is the Batmobile...


More of a Bat-tank, it fits perfectly the dystopian background Miller paints of Gotham and is pivotal to the Dark Knight's confrontation with the mutant gang.


I didn't imagine in a month of Sundays that this monstrosity would be available as a model, but Eaglemoss released it with a special edition of their Batman Automablia magazine and thanks to the wonders of eBay I've now managed to acquire one.

Watch out Mutant gang, the Bat is coming!

Son and heir popped home from Uni today, not sure if it was to see us or catch up with The Walking Dead! When SWMBO fell asleep in front of the TV I dug out the two The Dark Knight Returns DVD's, an animated movie version of the excellent Frank Miller graphic novel of my youth.

I must say that I was really impressed (as I usually am with WB animated films) and they have done an excellent job of recreating Miller's superb tale. If you have any interest in Batman games, this is well worth watching with lots of scenario ideas. Son and heir, who has not read the comic book, was impressed too...

One of the great things about the Knight Models Batman figures being 35mm is that they not only fit in perfectly with the thousands of 1/43rd / 1/148th die-casts cars and trucks on the market, but also the licensed Batman ones!

The main source for most things vehicle wise for Batman is the Eaglemoss part work which has practically every version of Batmobile you can think of, and many you can't! :-) However there are other sources including ETRL who aside form some Batman vehicles produced a useful Joker van, one of which I have just picked up off eBay for a snip...


In other news I finally, at long last, finished block painting my first regiment of Confederate infantry, so I'll be digging out the dip tomorrow!

Well, after some prevarication and watching my favourite animated Batman movie (Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero) again, I have taken the plunge and ordered some of Knight Models Batman figures.

For Bats himself it had to be the Frank Miller model. I know the all black movie look is popular, but Miller managed to make the Adam West Batman look the business, so I had to go with that.

For the bad guys there is far too much choice... I love The Joker, Two-Face is great, Bane (the comic book version) awesome and even new ones like Victor Zsasz appealing, but if I wasn't going with The Joker, there was only one other villain I could start with - Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot aka The Penguin!

To reign in the temptation of miniature range I am restricting purchases to just one character and one crew pack which must be painted before I buy anymore. This has worked well with the Rogue Trooper Kickstarter and I wish I'd taken this approach on other subjects. Let's see how it goes...

This is all John Lambshead's fault.... and Ian 'Hendybadger' Henderson's. It goes like this - I am a Batman fan. It's not an addiction but I do have a shelf of Batman graphic novels and a pile of DVD's including the excellent animated series and movies (animated, Burton and Nolan). I might tell SWMBO that they were bought for the kid but truth be told there was a secret agenda - the Dark Knight rules and has done since I read Miller's seminal graphical novel as a teenager and realised it wasn't all Adam West going Kaa-Pow!

So what has this to do with John and Ian? Well it started with the latter posting on his blog an attempt  to justify (no doubt to his credit card) the cost of Knight Models Batman: The Miniatures Game with an interesting claim that it was cheaper than other games despite the average miniatures price being around the £12 mark. It wasn't totally convincing but I like Ian's more is less approach and would like to recommend him for Chancellor. As for John, he has started posting photos on his blog of the miniatures which not only appear in this blog's sidebar but also my Facebook stream, tempting me like a bacon butty for second breakfast.

Part of me is still baulking at the individual miniature cost (despite Ian's economics) or maybe I am baulking at what SWMBO would do to me if she found out that I paid £12 for one toy soldier. But they are very, very pretty, Rolls Royce standard and it is Batman.  I am struggling to resist...