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| The Indianola Mohawks, my newest punk rocker gang, take over the local gas station |
While researching the names of manufacturers who make 28mm miniatures that would be good for street gangs, I came up on
Casting Room Miniatures. Even though I felt that I had enough street gangs already to run my game, I couldn't resist buying three of these packs. They covered types of gangs I didn't have already, and the figures had lots of characters. So, I ordered them from England, wondering how much extra time they'd take with the Coronavirus lockdown.
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| Iggy and Julius look around for some civilians to harass and intimidate - I love the hairstyles on these figures! |
To my surprise, they arrived within two weeks - faster than my Footsore Miniatures North America order which still hadn't shown up after five weeks (I eventually gave up on them, and got a refund). So, instead of painting Viking bondi warriors, I would be painting punk rockers! The three packs I bought were
Street Scumbags,
Leather Gals and Boys, and
Tedious Hippie Scum. With only five figures to a pack, I decided to break them into two gangs -- punk rockers and heavy metal heads. I split the Hippie Scum bag up, two to each new gang, and filed away the remaining placard-carrying figure for another day.
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| Ian toasts the other members with his refill on his drink, while Kira says, "Hold on, Ian, this girl is pissing me off...!" |
The Street Scumbags would form the nucleus of the punk rocker gang, which I chose to call the Indianola Mohawks. Indianola is a street running alongside OSU campus, north of downtown, and seemed a good neighborhood to locate a gang. Mohawks, well, many of the figure had mohawks, and Indian, Indianola...get it? I did some Google searches to come up with a gang logo, and settled upon a skull with sunglasses and a red mohawk. I also did lots of searches on punk clothes, hairstyles, and t-shirts.
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| Maybel (with the blue hair) is spoiling for a fight, as is Sid, who has his dukes up ready to rumble |
I really liked the Casting Room Miniatures. I did have to give most of them weapons. I took snippings of lead spears flattened with pliers for knives, a wire spear with no spearpoint for iron rods, and jeweler's chain for, well, a chain! I really like how the weapons worked into the figures, and felt they looked natural with the poses. My favorite was how the hippie girl who was holding her hands in the air worked perfect for stretching a chain over her head. In fact, she ended up being one of my favorite figures from this gang!
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| I gave tattoos, earrings, nose studs or chains and bright, punk rocker hair to the Casting Room Miniatures figures |
After looking at images online, I decided all the punk rockers would wear black, with a brighter accent color. The leather jacks and vests would be black with bright silver zippers or studs. The t-shirts, vests, jackets, and Maybel's skirt would get gang logos on the back. However, the t-shirts looked too plain with nothing on the front. So, I looked up punk bands and then added those names to "punk" "tshirt" searches. I picked out the easiest to paint -- a Public Image Limited logo, Dead Kennedys symbol, and Black Flag's logo.
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| Some of the pieces from the WizKids 4D Gas Station |
I spent a lot of time decided on hair colors, too. Bizarre hair has always been one of punk rock's most noticeable icons, so I wanted to do it up right. My favorite turned out to be Iggy's rainbow effect mohawk. I also really like how Maybel's blue hair came out, too. Once I was finished with the t-shirt logos, I decided to go ahead and give them tattoos, as well. I'm happy with how all the extra stuff I painted on these turned out.
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| Iggy and Sid check out the service entrance of my Sarissa Precision gas station, and more of the WizKids pieces |
When it came time to take pictures of the gang, I decided to set up a recent purchase of mine. I am trying to support the brick and mortar gaming stores in the area. One avid supporter of the wargaming scene is
Fun Factory Hobbies in Mt. Gilead, north of Columbus. I messaged him on Facebook, and he patiently went through what he had that I might be interested in. I ended up buying the WizKids 4D Gas Station from him. It contains 25 pre-painted pieces, such as pumps, ice and soda machines, propane tank, trash cans, air pump, and more. I may go back and add yellow trim on the pumps so they match my MDF shell station, but these images are straight out of the box.
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| Sid and Kira help themselves to some ice and soda (with a little liquor in it?), while keeping an eye out |
I encourage others out there to support their local hobby stores at this time, too -- especially the
"brick and mortar" ones. I bought a boardgame (Terraforming Mars) from the
Guardtower here in town. Dan from Game Table Adventures has some 28mm 3-D printed Viking A-frames for me, too. I essentially decided to spend my state tax refund (around $300) supporting the local game shops. I need to pick up something from the
Guardtower East, too -- this week, hopefully.
