'Comedic' from KevinH - 'Alien Exotic Dancers'

First off, my apologies to the Ladies in the Challenge.  I don't normally do "cheezecake" figures, but some years back, I painted the Copplestone Castings "Grey Aliens" pack.  So when I saw this Reaper pack of "Alien Exotic Dancers" at the FLGS on Boxing Day, I had to get them!  I checked the list of Fortnight Challenges, and spotted "Comedic" and thought this set would make a great entry.

First off, is the "Grey Alien" dancer.  I never knew the "Grey" women were so... "well developed!"  Maybe getting Abducted ain't such a bad thing after all!  ;-)

The next dancer was fairly "human" looking, so I thought I'd paint her like a STAR TREK "Orion Slave Girl."  Then, as I got painting, I noticed she had three breasts!  I never knew that about the Orions!

I wasn't sure what to do about the third dancer...  She had one big eye, and three-fingered hands, but otherwise, wasn't too unusual (then again, there is that "mouth" in her chest!).  I started poking around for "one-eyed alien" pictures on Google, and eventually came across the "One-eyed, One horned, Flying Purple People Eater."  So that decided it - the third dancer was going to be Purple!  I thought there was something in the song about Orange hair, but looking up the lyrics showed no mention of Orange.  I decided to go with it anyway!  It made a nice contrast with the Purple skin.

All the ladies have their gold "la-mae" shoes and dance thongs, and I tried to get the Dance Pole as "chrome" as I could with brush-on paints.  I think it all turned out reasonably well.  If I'd had more time, I would have painted the 'ball' at the top like a Moon or Planet!  It would have been cool if Reaper had made the "stage" look more like a retro, '50's Flying Saucer, too!

As some of you might notice, the piece is still on a painting block.  Once again, I had been pre-occupied with Life this weekend, and had to SCRAMBLE like an RAF fighter pilot to get this piece finished!  I might as well say - I've been dealing with my Mother's deteriorating physical health over the past two years, and over the last few months her mental health has started showing signs of deterioration also.  Saturday was a good day, but Sunday not so much.  I had to "crash paint" this piece, so I could continue to keep to my Fortnight Challenge pledge.

(And I don't mention my Mother for a "sympathy vote" - I just wanted folks to know that it's something serious that is keeping me from participating in the Challenge as much as I would like to be, rather than me just skiving off and not getting painting done)

This should be a great Fortnight Challenge!  I look forward to what everyone else presents!

Thanks for looking!

'Comedic' from ScottB - 'Radagast the Brown'

Radagast the Brown, one of the five Istari, and a wonderfully characterful friend and ally to Gandalf the Grey.

His portrayal by Sylvestor McCoy was simply inspired I thought. Certainly not how I first imagined him, but a brilliant rendition none the less.


He brought drama, and also a slight comic relief, to the grim tale of the dwarves of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield in their Quest for the Lonely Mountain, in The Hobbit.

Seeing him scampering about on foot was wonderful... but then to see his transport, was a bewilderment!

When I first heard the rumors before the movies release, I shook my head in disbelief... but as soon as I saw it in the movie... it just worked! Hilarious, fun, inspired, novel. Great stuff...

It quickly became one of those must have models upon its release... not that I envisage using it in every LOTR game I play, even if it is remarkably effective on the table top!

The model itself is a 28mm scale multipart Finecast resin kit, from GW, and took some trimming, and greenstuffing to have it ready to paint. I decided to paint the component parts, then assemble the the whole and base it at the end. It would have been just too awkward to do otherwise.

The minor niggle I have is that some of the rabbits have the void between them and the next rabbit in the line, filled... I trimmed away as much of this as I could, but for a couple of the connections it was just a necessity as with just the sides reigns joining otherwise, would not have been stronger enough to support the model. But if you can see past these minor effects its a great model :)

It is mounted on a large oval base, that lends itself to a little diorama work in its own right, and the kit includes two small side features; broken tree stumps, one with a small spider at the base, the other with a bird, looking startled into flight as Radagast zooms past, to add to the overall effect.

The bird I decided to simply paint black with a little dark grey drybrush to represent a Raven as these birds are mentioned throughout the tale, so it seemed appropriate to use. The thrush is also in the tale, but the bird on the model looked far too big to be a thrush.

So there you have it...my Comedic bonus round entry... if a nutty old wizard riding a sleigh through the woods pulled by giant rabbits doesn't make you grin, nothing will!

'Comedic' from MichaelA - 'Somebody Give That Man A Hand!'

"Somebody give that man a hand!"

The penultimate bonus theme round of the 'Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge' saw me scrabbling around the lead hillock for something vaguely 'Comedic'.  Bag after bag of shiny loveliness was rediscovered and just as quickly dismissed - why have I got a set of roller-skate wearing waitresses?  After a couple of abortive ideas my mind turned to those halcyon days of summer when, with the release of 'Osprey Publishing's' On the Seven Seas, it seemed that all the hobby community chatter was of a piratical nature.  Not really looking to start yet another period, I did, briefly, dip my toe into the salty brine of the seven seas and plundered a box of Captain Hood's crew, for no other reason than they bore a striking resemblance to famous pirates of literature and stage.  The miniatures duly docked at 'Awdry Towers', but have since laid abandoned - until now!

What could be more comedic than a grown man, a pirate captain at that, being relentlessly pursued by a crocodile, whilst his first mate, a man so wonderful kind and yet completely incompetent looks idly on?  Yes, Disney's vision of Captain Hook was to create an archenemy for our ever youthful hero, Peter Pan that had the potential for menace, but ultimately, the inability to scare the children!  This, then, was to become my inspiration for the 'Comedic' round - an encounter between Captain Hook and he is nemesis, the crocodile.  Taking  a 'Warbases' 120mm MDF disc as a starting point, I set about trying to conjure up a possible scenario for my players to act out.  I have to confess that I really enjoy this process and in the back of my mind I am always considering that the area itself should go on to form a piece of terrain or become a 'set' for future painted miniatures.

So to the build, I was channeling shoreline meets hideaway and combined some stone slabs with my usual pumice gel and some miniature seashells to get me underway.  To this a rather splendid set piece, in the form of a 'Reaper Miniatures' Dead Man's Chest sculpted by Kevin Williams, was added along with other bits of flotsam and jetsam to create some depth.  The rest of the miniatures were all from 'North Star Military Figures' with the 'not' Hook and Smee from the aforementioned 'Captain Hood's Crew' and a the crocodile from their African range.  Working on miniatures of this quality is a joy, the sculpts and casting just make the whole process thoroughly good fun and I hope that this sense of fun is apparent in the final creation.

So in numbers the entry consists of four 28mm miniatures, two very much prone, a ship's cannon and a crocodile!  

'Comedic' from AnneO - 'You Do Da Hokey Pokey'

Da Hokey Pokey Tribe

One night, many years ago, Sir Nigel Fatbottom and Lord Snot met at their club The Raging Bore. Somewhere between a load of  "quite right, quite rights and jolly goods" Sir Nigel said "I say old chap, it's time I made a name for myself as an explorer" Before replying, Lord Snot took a careful sip of his Sherry. (Which was no mean feat as he had an extreme overbite, most likely caused by hundreds of years of inbreeding). "I daresay Fatbottom, that's a jolly good idea. What do you propose?"

"I'm willing to bet you 5p that I can discover a new tribe deep within the Amazonian Jungle" said Fatbottom.  "I'm willing to take that bet" replied Lord Snot. The two men exchanged moist, flaccid handshakes to seal the deal.

Months later deep within the Amazon Sir Nigel awoke from a fevered dream to hear the sound of ominous drum beats. After heaving his considerable bulk out of his tent, he awoke his retainers and forced them to carry him towards the sound.

"Savages!" squealed Sir Nigel when he saw three Pygmies in a clearing. Hearing the cries of the overweight white man, one of the Pygmies approached and said "No mon, we ain't no savages. We's da Hokey Pokey Tribe. Come, dance with us."

The tribe began to dance and sing. "You put you're right foot in, You put you're right foot out."

"You do da Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. Dat's what it's all about"

Sporting a big grin on his happy face, one of the Pygmies approached Fatbottom. "What you so uptight about mon?"

"Don't worry, be happy" said the next Pygmy.

Amused by the silly white man's reaction the third Pygmy rounded on him and cried "Boo!"

Well, this frightened Fatbottom so much he soiled himself as he ran past the Pygmy shrine.  As he retreated into the jungle, Sir Nigel could hear the sound of laughter behind him.  And the words "Skittles, taste da rainbow" followed him as he ran. 

These figures are from Reaper Miniatures, stand at 30mm and were sculpted by Bobby Jackson. The masks were quite flat so I free handed the dots and some of the squiggles in order to give them some life.

'Comedic' from MartinC - 'Lions, Tigers and Bears. Oh My!'

In Kansas a young girl and her dog get caught in a hurricane and crash in a fantastical land where she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Man  and the Cowardly Lion on her journey down the Yellow Brick Road.

Only this isn’t the 1930’s and music ain’t on the agenda. This is the 21^st Century and Dorothy is here to kick ass.

These figures are from Hasslefree. Dorothy is tooled up with two .45 automatics and ruby red biking boots. The Lion is wearing a mascot outfit that I’ve just found out goes with the LA Kings, but black is so last year. Tin man is fully armoured in a dust bin and the Scarecrow is a hobo with a pitchfork. Toto meanwhile will not take kindly to being carried in a wicker basket.

The Yellow Brick Road is made from Super Sculpty, a suggestion from Anne, and it is fantastic stuff and about £10 a pound with free delivery from USA.  It’s easy to mould and work when soft and easy to carve when baked.

'Comedic' from IannickM - 'Frog Jester'

Of all the bonus themes rounds I can remember, this one was the one I had the most difficulty coming up with a good idea. Comedic? Really, I had nothing in my big pile of lead which seemed to fit that bill. So, again, I turned to my favourite provider of weird and original miniatures, Dark Sword Miniatures. And again the small outfit delivered when after some search on their website I found a great little piece; a Jester! And what is more Comedic than a jester? Well how about a frog jester! 

So I went crazy on this little fellow, trying to cram as many colours as I could on him. Hey, a Jester is supposed to be tacky and colourful! It made for a nice little distraction.

So I used pink, 2 types of purple, turquoise, yellow, pale blue and red! And I'm quite happy with the look of this fellow. 

--
Iannick

'Comedic' from BurkhardS - 'Ankh-Morpork City Watch'

Now the Comic rounds was an instant decision for me. Back when I was in the German equivalent of high school, one of my majors was English. We had to read a lot of English literature (of course). There was some stuff that was absolutely awful in my humble opinion (like Aldous Huxley) and there was good stuff (like Shakespeare). But the best one was when we read Terry Pratchett. We read "Weird Sisters" right back to back with "Mac Beth" and I loved it! Not only was his style of writing great, but his sense of humour was right in line with mine. Seeing how much his work was actually inspired by classical literature made him an instant win with me. I was grateful for being exposed to his work this way, since I would probably have missed him without it.

Now on to the minis. My better half gave these to me as a birthday gift a couple of years ago. I started painting them back then, but was really unhappy with the results. I wanted to keep close to Pratchetts description of the characters uniforms. But this meant lots of browns and too little contrast. So I never finished them, to the understandable distress of my better half. Now seeing the topics for this years Challenge, I decided to give them another try. So they spend a couple of weeks in Acetone. And aided by the much larger collection of brown paints I have these days, I am really happy with the results. 

So here we go, I present you CPT. Carrot Ironfoundersson, SGT. Fred Colon, SGT. Samuel Vines and Nobby Nobs of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

'Comedic' from JamesR - 'A Rob Lowe Nightmare'

Hello, my shallow attempt at humor consists of a Rob Lowe zombie hunting team.  They're made from Wargames Factory male Survivor sprues.

Here's the current crew standing in a line.

"I'm Rob Lowe and I have Direct TV."  I stole fancy paper from my wife's crapbooking supplies in an attempt make a red carpet.

"I'm Super Creepy Rob Lowe and I have cable TV.  My cable's out so I'm down at the Rec Center killing zombies."

"I'm Far Less Attractive Rob Lowe.  With cable you get pictures and some sound of me killing zombies."

"I'm Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe and I can't go pee with zombies in the room."

"I'm Crazy Hairy Rob Lowe.  I have arm hair curtains.  And I don't like that."  Once again, that's my old lady's hair on his arms.  I painted it brown.

"I'm Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe.  I guess I'm not having any mayonnaise."  I made the little tennis balls out of Sculpy clay.

"I'm Meat Head Rob Lowe and I can't stop saying "Bro", bro!"  He's got GW imperial guard arms.

Here's a bunch of Rob Lowes fighting zombies.

These guys were a quick poorly done job; I didn't even have time to add Paranoid, Peaked in High School, or Bad Idea, but I will add them eventually.

I've been spending most of my time trying to teach my new grafted-on set of arms to paint.

Love and Kisses,
Baconfat

'Comedic' from JeremyM - 'Bowling Lebowski'

For this theme round I decided to carry on with some of my Big Lebowski figures. Last year I painted 'the dude' complete with his carpet that 'really tied the room together' for the humour round. 

This time I chose five characters I wanted to have milling around the bowling alley featured in the film. From left to right we have the cowboy narrator, the Valkyrie from the dude's dream sequence, 'the Jesus', Donnie, and Walter. I trimmed some coffee stick stirrers painted theme a shade of yellow and added a few lines. 

I made sure to have Walter's foot 'over the line' as I thought that might be fitting. All the mini's are 28mm and are from impact miniatures. They also included a sprue of extras like a bowling ball, bowling ball bag, a coffee can (was tempted to add this to donnie's base, but I thought it was but a bit too much foreshadowing), and some suitcases. 

The mini's will likely be used in a strange aeons scenario at some point, likely involving a cult of bowling ball worshippers or something equally silly. I have a few more that are nearing completion that I'll try and post in the near future as well to complete my Big Lebowski collection.