The World According to Tom

I'm definitely going to auction off the Superheroine, probably in March or April, whenever Carin gets around to setting it up on EBay.

Also the picture taking apparatus has gotten an upgrade, now with LED lighting and so a color closer to reality. Below are some shots of the SH.

Theo has pressed me to make some more monsters for him. The tall fellow is an Octopto or Optocto I'm not sure which. They don't always have eight eyes, this example has nine, but eight is a good average. Despite their fearsome appearance they aren't particularly aggressive and tend to be a bit confused, not to say dimwitted. The result of too much information and too little processing power.

The other is the outcome of Theo watching 'Jurassic Park' and realizing their fundamental error in using frog DNA to fill the gaps in their dinosaur reconstruction. Dinosaurs were, of course, much closer to birds and since chickens were conveniently to hand...well you can see the result.

Theo has since understandably tried to distance himself from this particular experiment refusing to so much as give it a name. It is sometimes called 'Tyrannickinus Rex' but not when the boss is listening.

Unlike the somewhat distracted Optocto the Tyrannickinus is ferocious to a fault, though perhaps even more lacking in mental acuity.

Posted by Tom Meier at 11:45 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

My wife Carin, who manages this website, has decided to change hosts and my blog posts will have to be brought over in some way. I thought it might make sense to consolidate them into a few subjects that I’ve posted on rather than just lump them all up. For example.

Common anatomical mistakes of small figures.

Why it makes no sense to measure a figure to the eyes.

What makes figures compatible.

Theoland and Noraland.

Here are some pictures of the result of a suggestion by Jim Ludwig of Darksword miniatures. He thought I should do some female anatomy studies. He knows I can’t resist that sort of thing, like telling the computer in Star Trek to Calculate the value of Pi.

The Undine is natural anatomy, also a study of wet clothes and hair.

The Steampunk Girl is possible anatomy, perhaps with a bit of plastic surgery and a lot of time at the gym, also a study of stressed clothes .

The Superhero Girl is freakish anatomy and a study of motion.

The Undine is about 32mm overall height, the Steampunk Girl about 33mm (if she stood up straight) and the Superhero Girl about 35mm (she's super).

Superhero Girl

Wet Undine

Steampunk Girl version one, the handguns were changed for version 2 because these were thought not steam-punky enough

Steampunk Girl version 2. She will also have the long gun, I just didn't attach it for the photo.

Posted by Tom Meier at 13:14 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Just some news, I’ll be working on the Fox WW2 figures until the end of October. I had originally planned to spend the summer working on them as well but my wife, who usually takes the summer off to care for the children took a new job in May which required her to work the summer, so I was child-minding the whole time.

I don’t know if two months will be enough to get the Fox figures wrapped up, there will be over 50 figures as well as accessories and an equipment sprue for each one so it’s a very big job just to get a grip of.

Here are some shots of extra heads for conversion, they are made for 1/48 of course and so are just a bit under 5mm but since ‘28mm’ figures typically have over-sized heads which are larger than that they would probably work for that size as well.

Also a French and Indian War figure, another French infantryman.

Posted by Tom Meier at 18:28 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

I’d like to address a couple of myths which seem to keep cropping up in online discussions about figure proportion the first is anatomical distortions in Michelangelo's ‘David’ and the second is more generally that sculptures on high pedestals or raised parts of buildings consistently have their anatomy distorted to make them look "right" when viewed from below.

The ‘David’ myth is the easiest to debunk. In picture #1 a shot of the statue from about waist high so there is very little distortion of the upper part. The head is nearly 1/8 of the overall height. The hands are large but this ‘distortion’ is perhaps one standard deviation from average, that is to say about a quarter of men have hands this large or larger. The statue is obviously of a young man with narrow hips as is the Donatello David. The differences of proportion are small and all within normal variation, the hands and the length of the arms and the proportion of leg to torso length. The striking difference produced is due mainly to the massive muscular development in M’s David through the shoulders chest, neck and arms. M. David’s face with large, highly resolved eyes, which would be normal on a child, here placed high on the head as in an adult, is also a contrast between the two versions of the same subject. Picture #3 is a comparison shot of M's 'David with the eyes moved to the position they occupy in an average face, the illusion of an over-sized head vanishes.

I think the most telling debunk of the M. David being distorted for viewing from below is the fact both his hands are the same size (the lower one actually looks a hair larger to me, which would make sense if he were right-handed). If he had truly been distorted for that purpose the higher hand would be noticeably larger than the lower hand when viewed from level. One could also point out that other statues by Michelangelo meant to be viewed from below, the Medici tomb for example, exhibit completely different sometimes directly reversed variation. In picture #4 leaving aside the strangely elongated neck the statue of Guiliano de' Medici has a head 1/10 it's height (which can be estimated within a few inches from the length of the lower leg) the exact opposite of the 'David's supposedly over-sized head though both are obviously to be viewed from below. If there is anything consistent about Michelangelo's work, aside from the painstaking exactitude, it's that he plays with proportions to make striking, even disturbing effects not to make them look more 'right'.

Far from making a correction the ‘distortions’ in M’s ‘David are variations which have no value in making it look ‘right’ from any particular angle but rather are designed to make it look slightly 'wrong'; that is to give it an unusual character, a boy-man hero, combining the characteristic features of an adolescent with those of an adult athlete.

Now to the more general case of statues distorted when they are set high on plinths or columns. Picture #2 shows some well known examples. As with ‘David’ this is a myth as applied to naturalistic statuary, modern sculptors starting with Rodin perhaps practice some such, it’s hard to tell because they use distortions whether the statue is on a column or not.

The lesson here I believe is ‘never trust what they tell you in art school’, art instructors and theorists are, on the whole, not inclined to scientifically test a hypothesis, or even formulate notions which can be tested.

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Picture #4

Posted by Tom Meier at 07:04 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Even though I have no use for the figure it seemed a shame to leave the female HO (1/87) figure broken. So I patched up her gams and here she is, all 19mm of her.

Posted by Tom Meier at 17:20 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

After accidentally coming across the old prototype HO sheriff figure I took some trouble to see if I could find the other figures I made at the time and met with some success. The figure below I believe was one of the ‘Call of Cthulhu’ samples, though it seems to be a bit confusedly co-mingled with gunfighter elements. I can’t recall what I was thinking at the time. In any case I found it with the woman in a fur trimmed coat who is definitely 1930-ish. she is not pictured as unfortunately she is broken.

In other news we have finally got a new casting machine, a very solid and robust device from Conquest Industries so we expect to be restocking and getting back to normal next week.

Posted by Tom Meier at 10:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

When I made the British Colonial line at Ral Partha, figures were still being cast in a mixture of lead and tin. This metal was quite soft and so it was necessary to thicken ankles and extremities like weapons. The line was also an attempt to design figures which would be easy to cast and paint. The technical level and precision of the figures was deliberately simplified so it would be easy for other sculptors to add to the line. In the event no one did but it made them quicker and easier for me to sculpt.

The range is now available from http://www.greatendeavours.co.uk and they have asked me to make some more figures which I’m struggling to fit in with my other work. While I am trying to make the new figures as compatible as possible with the old, I saw no reason to continue with the simplified style or oversize ankles and bayonet. It was important to keep the slightly oversize head and helmet for compatibility and I made the straps a bit more prominent.

As you can see these are true 25mm, a good deal smaller than the 35mm ‘28mm’ figures made nowadays. A 35mm figure has nearly twice the surface area of a 25mm one.

Posted by Tom Meier at 18:15 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

I was rooting around in the chaos that is my workshop and I came across a figure I made in the early 1980’s, it’s pictured below.

In about 1982 Chaosium had published ‘Call of Cthulhu’ and some time after had approached Ral Partha with a view to making a line of figures to compliment their game. I suggested they consider the scale associated with HO gauge in the US (1/87) rather than the ill-defined 25mm size-standard then dominant. There was very little at that time in the way of supporting products like vehicles or buildings for 25mm which would be useful to realize a CoC game table I argued. The folks at Chaosium were concerned about being able to get enough detail and character into figures so small (about 20mm) so I made a few models by way of demonstration. A professorial type with a book under his arm, a figure in a duster and fedora with a Webley .455 (the iconic ‘trembling Webley’) and a woman in a fur trimmed coat. The only one molded was the Professor.

They didn’t get back to RP for six months (they decided they liked the idea in the end) and by that time the management of Ral Partha were frying other fish so nothing came of it. I was much taken with the idea of using 1/87 for periods where model railroad accessories would be useful and so I tried to drum up interest in a western gunfight line by making another few samples. This is one of them. There are a few others as I recall but they weren’t in the box with this one, though I expect they are somewhere around here. Ral Partha didn’t like the western gunfight idea, they were never molded or produced.

Model railway track is a gauge, that is, a defined distance between the rails. HO for example is 16.5mm. The scale of a track depends on what larger track you are using it to represent. If your HO track is representing British/U.S. standard gauge rails, which are 4’8.5" (1,435mm) then it is 16.5/1,435 or 1/87. For some reason this has been agreed to be 1/76 in the UK. That is to say the track is 1/87 scaled to standard gauge track but the train model is scaled 1/76 to the train it represents. If you were using HO gauge track to represent track of some other gauge, Japanese ordinary (not high speed) gauge for example, which is 3’6" (1,066.8mm) then the scale would be 16.5/1,066.8 or 1/64.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Rail_gauge_world.png

Not that model railroad accessory manufacturers or most anyone else are obsessively strict about keeping scale, even when they agree what it should be.

This figure is representing a rather tall individual so he’s about .845" or 21.5mm making him 6’2" to scale.

Posted by Tom Meier at 11:25 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Our casting machine, purchased in 1990 and having seen constant use since that time, has finally broken down irretrievably. The current trouble began about six weeks ago and various measures having failed to contain the problem it has been condemned and a new one ordered which will be arriving early in the new year. For this reason there has been a delay in getting out the new Savage and Sparkle figures. We will try to catch up as soon as we can.

In the mean time here are some more greens to look at. The wings on the mole are rather flat and uninteresting for the sake of casting, they are meant to be bent into shape after production.

Sqidmen

Despite the name, sqidmen seem to have nothing of the squid about them, looking more like a compound of human, hammerhead shark, goldfish and something with long sharp claws or spines (lionfish?). Some say they were a failed attempt by Squidboy to create a cadre of loyal henchmen as a bulwark against his nemesis Whaleboy, hence squidboy’s-men or sqidmen (with allowance for Theo's somewhat less than precise spelling). Others suspect beakers were mislabeled in the lab. Whatever their origin sqidmen are loyal only to Theo and serve with enthusiasm under Whaleboy who they affectionately call ‘Big Moby’ which comes out sounding like "feeg woofy" due to the peculiarities of their oral anatomy.

They carry a variety of weapons preferring large, loud, noisome or otherwise impressive and ostentatious devices. For reasons which are not entirely clear they dress in pirate costume.

This initial Sqidman is without weapons, later versions will be armed. Theo regards this as the best and truest, to his vision, of the figures I’ve made for him so far.

Giant Saber-toothed Winged Mole with Gills

A relatively recent product of Theo’s diabolical laboratory the Saber-toothed Winged Mole with Gills is truly a creature of inescapable nemesis, a relentless nightmare from which there is no awakening - as well having snuggle-soft fur and a cute button nose.
While admirably designed to be an indefatigable agent of doom in most respects, equally at home over, on or under land or sea there was something of a design oversight in the sensory department. To put it bluntly the GSTWMG’s eyesight is poor, it’s echo-location is hampered by the lack of external ears and the strains placed on it’s sinus cavity by aquatic adaptation have left it's olfactory system less than razor sharp. Although field tests have indicated the mole to have an effective enemy recognition range of less than thirty meters they have also demonstrated a stellar sense of direction and utterly fearless, badger-like tenacity.
Theo considers the Giant Saber-toothed Winged Mole with Gills to be one of his great monstrological successes and has produced them in considerable numbers.

The model is 1.45" snout to tail, which is quite big for a mole in this scale.

Posted by Tom Meier at 13:12 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

The Werewolf-Mummy from the Black Lagoon is the first viable monster to come from the Mark II Monstermixer, successfully melding the strengths and mitigating the weaknesses of component creatures. The WMftBL combines great agility with invulnerability to most conventional weapons, good resistance to fire, rotenone, wolfsbane and both gypsy and early dynastic period Egyptian curses, reads hieroglyphics fluently and can breath underwater. In his spare time he enjoys preparing gourmet sushi, yodeling and collecting canopic jars. One distressing peculiarity is an irrepressible impulse to abduct nubile females after which he becomes hopelessly befuddled, unable to decide whether to drag them off to a crypt, a submarine cavern or just into the nearest stand of spooky woods.

The WMftBL serves in the renown ‘Almost Invisible Silent Scary Guys’ commando as executive officer.


A word about Noraland army organization:

Magical Ballerina Fairy Princesses are organized into ‘Cliques’ (regiments/squadrons) of at least 3 and rarely mustering as many as 20 with the average being about six. The commander, ‘Most Popular Magical Ballerina Fairy Princess’ or MPMBFP, her executive officer ‘Bestest Bestest Friend’ (BBF)and a number of Lieutenants ‘Best Friends’ (BF’s). Regiments are distinguished by the color and to some degree the cut of their outfits, though there is individual variation. Famous old Cliques such as the ‘Twyla Tharp’s Own Interpretative Border Rievers’ have long histories and traditions. Commanding officers are generally distinguished by a feather boa and rindstone encrusted sunglasses.

Posted by Tom Meier at 18:56 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Theo’s first experiment in recombinant monstrology was an attempt to create a super-monster with the strongest and best traits of squid, whale and human. Unfortunately the diametrically opposed essences of cephalopod and cetacean were too much for the containment field of his prototype Mark I Monstermixer.

When the fire had been extinguished and the debris cleared away the infant Squidboy and Whaleboy were discovered amid the wreckage.

Both grew quickly but where Squidboy early on showed amazing dexterity and a mastery of mad science second only to Theo’s own, Whaleboy was slow and clumsy and until Theo completed his cybernetic fingers, incapable of the simplest manual tasks. Added to his hardship was the unrelenting hostility of his ‘brother’, an antipathy Whaleboy soon reciprocated with interest*.

Whaleboy however, was made of sturdy stuff. A self-imposed regimen of brutally rigorous exercise strengthened his lower body and with newly perfected bionic hands Whaleboy soon showed his mettle, becoming a master of the art of war, particularly submarine and amphibious assault. He serves not only as general of the armies of Theoland but still takes the field as head of Theo’s super-elite commando unit, the dreaded ‘Almost Invisible Silent Scary Guys’. Tough but fair, he commands the fanatical devotion of his troops and the ungrudging respect of his enemies particularly for his personal refusal to engage in cootie warfare.


We've has some inquiries about the battlefield effects of glitter wands and rainbow lasers and have put together a few remarks about them and some other weapons which will be appearing in the 'Savage and Sparkle' line:

Weapons of Noraland

Glitter:

Extracted from Noraland’s celebrated glitter sands, the effect of weaponized glitter is proportionate to the ickiness of the target. Glitter does little more than annoy Whaleboy for example, whereas the effect on Slug-eat-your-face is comparable to 00’ buckshot made of white phosphorus. It is a short range weapon when fired from a glitter wand. When dropped as a bomb it not only attacks anything in the blast area but persists, doing damage to any susceptible creatures who cross, being nearly impossible to brush or wash off. Of course it does no damage whatsoever to fairy princesses, in fact they rather like it.

Sparkles:

Sparkles have been mined and prized in Noraland as decoration for some time, it is only recently their value as a weapon has been realized. Similar in effect to glitter but with vastly increased range and penetration, though a much slower rate of fire, they are the ammunition of choice for Ballerina Fairy Princess snipers. Sparkle bombs explode rather like an aerial claymore mine. Unlike glitter they have no persistent effect on the ground as they are large discreet particles which can easily be avoided or removed.

Rainbow Laser:

A medium range weapon with a zone effect and arcing fire the rainbow laser does damage in proportion to the target’s negative energy. A furious, sad or vicious creature will experience a debilitating burning sensation ultimately resulting in a complete meltdown of the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, if it has one. The final result of exposure is a near catatonic state with spasms of the facial muscles pulling up the corners of the mouth and sometimes exposing the teeth.

Rainbow Bubbles:

A dense lavender-scented suspension which pops on impact to devastating effect. Large bubbles can be projected great distances with suitable adjustment for windage. Like the rainbow laser they react with negative energy. They are completely biodegradable and no animal testing was involved in their development…no cute, fluffy animals anyway.





Weapons of Theoland:

Goo:

Theoland’s answer to glitter, goo is a short range, environmentally persistent weapon acting on a creature’s cuteness and forcing it to retire from the field and take a hot bath.

Stinky Slime:

Like goo but with a potentially greater range and area effect, susceptible creatures avoid not only the slime itself but any creatures hit by it, sowing chaos in densely packed troops.

Cooties:

A truly diabolical creation, weapons grade cooties can be delivered as bombs, mines or projectiles. On impact they attach themselves to the target causing total panic in proportion to the victim’s sense of hygiene. Troops exposed to cooties are shunned by their fellows and require special cleansing before they can return to combat.

Ninjas:

Ninjas as ammunition for the Ninja Cannon function rather like smart bombs or shells, assigned a target they will try to eliminate it using their mysterious ninja jitsu and then stealthily return to be 'reloaded'. Being Ninjas they are, of course, practically impossible to stop. Static rainbow laser defense perimeters seem to provide some protection but there's no way to be sure because they're ninjas.


* They have not so much as been in the same room together since the dreadful incident at their third birthday party where…well… let’s just say it is fortunate Squidboy regenerates.

Posted by Tom Meier at 08:25 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Though they share a common border no two regions could exhibit a more dramatic contrast than Theoland and Noraland. While the latter presents the contented aspect of verdant pasture, pleasant open woodland, gently rolling hills and cozy dells where laughing brooks vie with the sweet strains of songbirds the former is wholly compounded of dismal swamps, blighted heath, Stygian forests and craggy, storm-lashed mountains. The challenging terrain of Theoland has not however, been without advantage, resulting in a military equally capable of encounters on (or under) earth or water or in the air. In order to meet this threat Noraland has established the first Magical Ballerina Fairy Princess Infantry.
Recruited from the most doughty and determined ballerina fairy princesses in all Noraland, equipped with the latest fully automatic high velocity glitter wands and rigorously trained to the very acme of lethal terpsichorean proficiency these formidable amazonettes give pause to the ravages of the most depraved and demented monstrosities. Savage, gimlet-eyed, unspeakably icky abominations from Theo’s diabolical laboratories have been known to roll their eye-stalks, tentacles quaking while with slimy nostrils flaring they probe the rank atmosphere for the scent of peppermint-honeysuckle or strain auditory membranes for the tinkling of a suppressed giggle which could mean their doom.

Squidboy is the unnatural result of Theo’s earliest demented dabblings in mad science and has since become a trusted aide and manically brilliant mad scientist in his own right. When not overcome by his blinding obsession to exterminate cetaceans he can be found feverishly devoting his superabundant energy in the service of Theo’s most freakish, irredeemably depraved experiments.

Posted by Tom Meier at 14:02 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

As anyone with two or more children can testify, you can’t do something for one and not the other. So it is that having made Slug-eat-your-face for my son Theo, I am now obliged to make something for my daughter Nora.

These creations are part of a game my children play while riding in the car. Theo has an imaginary kingdom, ‘Theoland’ and has encouraged Nora to develop ‘Noraland’ as a foil for his schemes of conflict.

The game consists of Theo coming up with imaginary creatures and devices the destructive capabilities of which he enumerates at very great length. Nora, being only four, responds with somewhat less invention but being of a systematic turn of mind, creates by addition to her basic template.

And so I have had to construct Nora’s response to Theo’s provocation from a number of conversations. A synopsis would go something like this. The speakers are sometimes simultaneous.

T. In Theoland I have giant moles…

N. Well, Noraland has Pink Ponies.

T. ...with wings …

N. Well mine are pink UNICORN ponies

T. ...and gills …

N. ...and THEY have wings too and …

T. ... so you can’t get away from them…

N. ...they have fairy princesses, MAGICAL fairy princesses…

T. ...no matter where you go.

N. ...to ride them.

T. And anyway Nora, there’s no such thing as magic.

N. And they’re BALLERINA fairy princesses.

T. Well my moles have bat wings and are really scary.

N. Well … hum... my ponies have RAINBOW LASERS.

So there you have it. ‘Ballerina Fairy Princess on Flying Pink Pony Unicorn with Rainbow Laser’. The standard unit of the Noraland defense force.

P.S. While designing this piece I had some additional input. Nora informed me that lasers are very hot (an observation she made after watching a science video) and thought I should add oven mitts to the Ballerina Fairy Princess, so she would not burn her fingers.

Posted by Tom Meier at 12:54 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

Another F&IW figure which makes eight, all for this time limited release, and two wolf riders. There will be six in the release three with melee weapons and three archers. The weapon sprues will be the same as the large foot goblins though these riders are closer in size to the goblin foot archers.

Posted by Tom Meier at 10:20 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

More figures I've had on my table for awhile and have finally got round to finishing for release at Gencon. Next will be wolf riders and another F&IW figure. The wolf riders will not photograph well as 'greens' so I may wait until we have metal castings.

Posted by Tom Meier at 10:44 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)