Forgotten Heroes 2021

It was with more than a little bit of panic as June began passing by, and the model I ordered for the 2021 Forgotten Heroes languished between me and RAFM Miniatures. Which, I had forgotten (much like the heroes in the challenge) was in Canada. Even in normal times, shipping from the Great White North is a crap shoot on speed of delivery. Some items seem to take an appropriate amount of time, while others disappear for weeks before suddenly appearing in the post. With C19 here, all bets are off. Things just vanish into the ether and sometimes stay there. I have avoided trades and purchases from Canada for over a year after a much-delayed package took three months to arrive.

With Jez’s challenge over at Carrion Crow’s Buffet rapidly approaching, and me without a model to convert/paint, I was in a bit of a rush and ordered from Canada by mistake. I didn’t actually pay attention to the originating location until it had been three weeks with no mini. Many of the minis I order are from the UK, and I often get parcels in about a week. Once two weeks had passed, I checked, and to my dismay realized the mini I needed was probably not arriving in time. And because of the delay I might be out of the challenge.

Another model I ordered that had a connection to two previous Forgotten Heroes challenges did arrive, though it wasn’t a mini so I wasn’t sure if it would count, though I was willing to try. The model was an actual plastic model of a Grumman Goose from Lindberg.  Before I had a chance to build the Goose the RAFM model showed up. Stoked. Chuffed. Excited. This model would be a key ally to a pulp model I painted a couple years ago, and now I can get to business.

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(goose model, box from rafm, and open model)

Of course, my model bench is completely covered with parts from a project right now. So, despite having the model, I wasn’t able to immediately start the minor conversion work I needed. I’m the middle of more Dark Angels builds and painting for my son’s Warhammer 40K army, and models, parts, DA paint colors, decals, and bases are everywhere…

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My entry for the year is Sallah from the Indiana Jones movies. I have a really cool Indy model painted and lording over my workbench, but no Sallah. There hasn’t been a rush to paint a model for this import ally since I haven’t been laying many games lately. The Forgotten Heroes challenge was perfect to get him done.

This image is what I had in mind when I think of Sallah, the faithful Egyptian ally to the famed archeologist. Of course, I started sculpting without looking at an image, and went for a full beard. Thicker and more full than this image, Typical of me. I really do need to make sure I print source photos and have them sitting in front of me BEFORE I start working. Ah, well, I guess my Sallah is a bit younger and less likely to trim the beard. I also realized I failed to take a pic with green stuff on metal, before priming. The rush.

I added a beard to a mustachioed Turk cultist from RAFM Minis. And sorta a tie like in this photo. The stock mini has a buttoned-up coat and there isn’t much space for a tie. The right arm is at an angle the meant I couldn’t do the heavy carving I did last year on Corky. No way I would try to recreate a perfectly good arm. Its hard to see the little blobby tie, but I know I tried, and that’s good enough.

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Burred pic to give a idea of his beard. I need to experiment with cranking up the resolution of my phone camera for closeups. That might help with the cropped pics. All I k now is i do not have the ok to buy an expensive camera just for pictures of “your stupid miniatures”, so poor pics it is for a while longer.

Jez has a good writeup on the challenge here: FH 2021. This is the third time I have participated, creating Jake Cutter and Jack, and Corky in previous challenges. FH Pt1, Finished, 2020. I don’t sculpt my own minis like some of the gang do. I do a bit of conversion with green stuff, and then paint them to match the character.

That’s it. The Dark Angels project is ongoing. I’ll probably do a blog post on it at some point. A quick tease. I built ten models while I was on my last deployment. I had anticipated getting some painting down as well, but mandatory sixth work days meant I barely recovered from a grueling schedule enough to just get the models built. Then returning home meant a month’s worth of catchup work on the house and yard. The flyers are done finally, and the bases for the four flyers are partially complete. This is one project I really can’t wait to be done with!

The only other models I squeezed in this month were the crew for a great cannon for my Empire army for WFB. This time, in the livery of the Imperial Gunnery School of Nuln.

And nothing like getting this done at the end of the month. Matte coated in the wee hours of this morning. Blog post finished just before lunch. All still in June, though!

BG out