My Works-in-Progress and Future Project Ideas
“Primeval Frontier” A
Sci-Fi Adventure Novel
This writing project was one of my early 2021 resolutions to
finish. Thankfully, without the distraction of my other hobbies and the fact
that I work remotely on my laptop, I can hopefully have more time to focus on finishing the
complete draft this month (phase four of my five phase creative writing process). Currently
I’m on Chapter 18 of 36 though I’m always in danger of splitting chapters into two
as well as adding new ones as “buffer” chapters and deleting others entirely.
Not going to go into any plot details here, but it’s heavily
inspired by the Men’s Adventure paperbacks of the 1970’s (Death Merchant and
Mack Bolan in particular), the historical Longhunters of the 18th
century and the legendary Gurkha fighters from Nepal, as well as the video games
like Spec Ops: The Line and the Monster Hunter and Lost Planet series.
After finishing the complete draft, my plan is to edit and
proof the chapters one by one and post them on a site like Wattpad and/or
Honeyfeed as I go in a serialized format (which I've never tried before). I also have another novel in the
works that’s prepped and ready for its complete draft (a science fiction
detective epic) that I hope to start by November.
Ninja Commando (Part
2) – The Painting Phase
I’m still very much intending to paint my first “premium”
action figure customization project, the Ninja Commando, so here’s a little update on that front.
After I primed it (first with Angelus Leather primer and
then my usual Rustoleum flat gray spray primer), it was very sticky and still
wasn’t fully dry after several days. In a blind panic, I rewashed the figure,
scrubbed it with nail polish remover on an old tooth brush, gave it the baking
soda treatment, and reapplied the Angelus primer. I can probably start painting
it when I get home (honestly, it was probably already ready for painting after
I applied the Angelus but I’ve gotten into the habit of priming all of my
customs in a uniform gray), though the whole thing has forced my hand into
ordering some Dupli-color adhesion promoter spray for future projects and I’m
still on the fence about whether or not I want to plop down $25 for Bulldog
primer. I’ll probably see how the Dupli-color works out when I eventually get
to try it.
Aside from my primer woes, I’m definitely going to trim off
that one piece I added in his chest plate when I get home. Only after priming
him in all one color did it made me realize that he’s a bit too heavily armored
for a ninja or a commando, but the torso armor is a nod to the Night Creepers
from GI Joe so I don’t regret its inclusion. I also filled in some of the
remaining gaps with Milliput which I hope will give the armor pieces a more
unified look. All in all, I’m still really excited to actually start painting
this figure and I have a really good feeling about how it’s going to turn out.
The Next Wave of
Fireteam X
In my push to try and use up the last of my bootleg toy
soldiers and Iron Man parts (as well as some other action figure parts to mix
things up), I decided to kitbash a handful of Fireteam X figures at once. I’m
planning on adding one more hero character to Fireteam X (I still haven’t come
up with a name for that guy) as well as two bad guys (Vanguard Zeta and Headcannon).
Each will get their own separate articles, but for now, here’s a little
preview.
These guys probably won’t be a priority but something to
occupy me in-between some of the more ambitious, less free-form action figure
customizations and miniature conversion projects that I’ve been itching to
start. Ideally, I still want to do a vehicle for them, two more bad guys (I’m
thinking maybe an “army builder” type character and a big bad who will serve as
the Cobra Commander/Skeletor of the line), and possibly an accessory pack
before I fully close the book on my Fireteam X project.
Some More Beginner
Miniature Painting Kits
I’ve finally acquired Reaper brand Layer-Up kit (which I alluded
to in my article about their basic Core Skills set) which I already started on,
beginning with the first of three miniatures that it included (as you can see
from the red wood elf), but I obviously didn’t finish yet. I also have another
beginner’s kit from Vallejo with an awesome selection of paints and my first
ever miniature made out of metal (which is a little daunting considering I’ve
only painted on plastics and whatever resin Reaper uses for their non-metal
minis).
Hopefully, I’ll continue to learn a lot from these and elevate
my mini painting game. I’ve leafed through the instructional booklets of each
and they’re quite thorough.
But Wait, There’s
More!
Here are some more proposed crafting projects that I’ve
listed out in my crafting projects notebook that I plan to dive right into once
I get home, but I figured I’d regurgitate them here.
·
Ghostrunner-inspired
Cyberpunk Ninja Figure – Using the body of a Star Wars Cassian Andor figure I got on
clearance (adding a hood to his jacket), a pair of robot hands from my Armored Puppet Ryuen model kit (it came with a lot of them), and a spare Iron Man head
that I plan to heavily modify to look more in line with the face design of the
Ghostrunner character and/or Grey Fox from Metal Gear Solid. Should be a fun
one.
·
A Ryu
Hayabusa-inspired Ninja Figure – So I recently acquired a handful of dirt
cheap loose Fortnite figures on ebay. I don’t play Fortnite (or have any plans
to) but like I said, the figures were cheap and they were in the 4” that I’ve
gotten so used to working in. My tentative plan at the moment is to put a Raptor
figure’s head on Carbide’s body, using Bandolier’s exposed arms and then heavily
modifying the head so that it resembles more of a ninja mask rather than a ski mask and using
a modified model piece or using Green Stuff to sculpt a Ryu Hayabusa-esque “metal” headpiece that goes on
the upper part of his mask. It will be interesting taking these figure apart.
·
Heroclix
Miniature Conversions – I bought 25 random Marvel and DC Heroclix on ebay
recently since I’ve been watching a bunch of youtube videos of talented
crafters taking random Heroclix and converting them into the various fantasy
monsters and characters for D&D and tabletop games. While I don’t play
D&D or tabletop games, I still think converting these Heroclixs into custom
miniatures is going to be a lot of fun and as well as a pretty interesting
running series of articles for the blog.
·
Dead
Cells-inspired “Beheaded” Figures and/or miniatures – While I’m pretty rotten at the game Dead Cells (and roguelikes in
general, though I’ll never get tired of playing them) I’m kind of enamored with
the look of the game’s protagonist, the enigmatic Beheaded. I have three
potential candidates for creating my own custom Beheaded-inspired figure:
o
My aforementioned Heroclix (several characters
in the lot I ordered have huge fireball effects I can use easily for the head,
maybe add a bead for his cyclopean eye).
o
A Batman miniature I got from the Dollar Tree
(his cape could be trimmed down to resemble the character’s ragged cloak). Plus, I've been watching some youtube videos about sculpting flames and fireballs using green stuff, so it will be interesting to try it out here.
o
One of several fully articulated figures I have
in my bits bin (the bits box has officially expanded to a full-sized bin that I
found at a garage sale). I have a 6” Power Rangers figure I got on clearance
quite some time ago but thought his proportions too weird to do anything with
at the time, but they might just fit the kind of angular, cartoony style of the
Beheaded. Ideally, it might be fun to do all three skews with a different deco
as a wink and a nod to the various outfits the Beadheaded can unlock throughout
the game and a different color for the flaming head (yellow/orange or blue fireball for one, a black shadow flame for another, and maybe an ethereal green flame for the other).
·
A set of
custom Microman/Micronauts Inspired Figures? – I have some translucent
plastic figures that I might kitbash with other figures to make an homage line
to the Microman/Henshin Cyborg/Micronauts series. I always liked the look of
the silver heads and translucent body parts, as well as the amusing cosplay themes a lot of the Japanese Microman figures have, and it might be fun to try
out something similar.
·
A Series
of Dieselpunk Toy Soldiers – So a while back, I got yet another bag of
bootleg toy soldiers from China, this time in a more articulated 3.75” scale that
looks to be a knockoff of the older Lanard Corps figures (where are, in turn,
kind of a knockoff of the GI Joe: Real American Heroes). I stuffed them in my
crafting cupboard until such a time that I could come up with an idea of what
the heck to do with them. Recently, I’ve become a bit fascinated with the Dieselpunk
genre after seeing the trailer to the video game FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch
(though I’ll probably wait for the PC release of that one) and I’ve begun
reading some Dieselpunk anthology books. And since a lot of Dieselpunk fiction
deals with war (particular WWI up through WWII with crazy anachronistic weapons and
tech), I might be able to come up with some fun ideas.
·
Futuristic
Samurai Figure from a 6” Nightwing – So I bought a 6” Spin Master Nightwing
figure for parts a while back but like the knockoff Corps figures, I couldn’t immediately
think of anything to do with him (plus he was only 5 points of articulation,
which kind of sucks compared to Spin Master’s excellent 4” line of Batman
figures). But since he has a kind of anime-type hair and look to him, I figured
I might be able to kitbash him into a custom futuristic/cyberpunky swordsman
type figure along the lines of Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4 and MGS Revengeance
(and maybe even sculpt or kitbash him a Ronin-gasa or Jingasa-style samurai
hat). Just a spur of the moment idea if I don’t think of something better for
the figure.
·
Demonic
Biker custom figures I really like the look of the Black Skulls bikers
from the film “Mandy” (one of the few modern movies that I actually like) and their spiky, demonic aesthetic could lend itself well
to kitbashing. I have some derpy looking toy soldiers I got off of Amazon that
didn’t scale with my Fireteam X line or anything else I had in the works, but I
might be able to transform them into a line of black clad occult bikers, using some Green Stuff and spare Lego visors to potentially turn their oversized looking army helmets into motorcycle helmets.
Plus, toy motorcycles for these scale of figures are pretty cheap as well, so I
might be able to do something there if I’m feeling up to it.
·
Kunoichi/Ninja
Sisters – So in my stockpiling of various parts and accessories, I have two
or three identical Dollar Tree Final Faction Shift figures and no real plans
for them (or any of my other Final Faction toys for that matter). Since their
overall character designs and body patterns might lend themselves well to this
sort of thing, it might be worthwhile to kitbash them into kunoichi (female ninja).
Though the figures are identical, their decos would follow a different theme
with as “gender-swapped”/cosplay homages to famous ninja (Strider, Storm
Shadow, Raiden from MGS, Cyber Shadow) or each one having a different
environmental camo theme since I’m so fond of painting camouflage (urban ninja,
jungle camo ninja, night camo ninja). I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
So as you can probably guess, I’m someone who is never bored when I’m at home. I have writing projects and crafting projects to lasts me for a long, long time to come.
Oh and don’t be too disappointed if one or several of these don’t actually come to fruition and appear in an article since I'm nothing if not overly ambitious with my creative projects and I never know if something will work out until I really get down into it. This is just me taking stock of the materials I have on hand and spit balling ideas on what I might be able to do with them. Until then, I might just post a few more writing-related articles over the next few weeks (if I can think of anything) and then hopefully we can return to our regularly scheduled crafting.
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