Me, Myself and I

Converting gaming miniatures is great fun.  Sometimes it's through necessity, if the exact figure you need isn't available for whatever reason.  Sometimes it's to tiake advantage of a spare figure that isn't *quite* what you need as it is.  Sometimes it's sheerly for the hell of it.  In this case, it's a little bit of all three.

Gentle readers, allow me to introduce Little Dr Vesuvius.

And I will call him.... Mini Me.

I had previously used Design 28's Chinese Gordon figure for Dr Vesuvius, the mild mannered and deeply misunderstood scientific genius with barely any ambitions to take over the world.  But sadly in that first game he died, pounced on by a mob of unruly Boche.  And anyway, the figure resembled neither the traditional image of Dr Vesuvius that I've used on various web fora since adopting the handle (slim, shaven headed, red business suit) nor my own real-world self.  Clearly it was an imposter/stand-in who fell in battle that day.

The base figure used for this conversion was the Marvel character Kingpin from the Heroclix game.  in real life I am somewhat "broad and tall" so this made a good starting point.  I decided to model the figure loosely on my outfit at the 2011 Asylum steampunk festival.  The spectacular moustache and mutton chops were added with greenstuff, and Kingpin's dinner jacket was extended into a greatcoat. The figure's cigar was trimmed from the left hand, and a pith helmet borrowed from the Wargames Factory plastic Zulu War British set.

I've taken a bit of a liberty painting him with a red gloved hand, in homage to the classic Nick Cave song.  It was only after I'd put the final coat of Quickshade on the figure that I realised I'd missed out the golden epaulettes that I had on my real-life costume.  I might come back later and add them in, but for now I'm happy enough with the figure that I don't want to risk messing it up.

Little Dr V isn't the only other conversion I've been doing recently.  This figure started out life as a Perry brothers "Defenders of Mafeking" figure.  It arrived with a badly miscast rifle.  Since the figures hadn't been bought for a particular unit but to be added into the generic "armed militia" pile, I didn't feel it was worth the hassle getting a replacement, so I put this one aside for future tinkering.

The head was quickly lopped off and replaced with one from the Lead Adventure Miniatures Steampunk Heads set.  The faulty rifle was snipped away and replaced with a spare aether weapon from Black Pyramid.  The result looks to me like your typical backyard inventor, showing off his latest creation.

For some reason, this guy really reminds me of Wilf Lunn.

The two inventors side by side, gives you an idea of just how big the Dr Vesuvius figure is.

Finally, Dr Vesuvius is going to need a new place in the country to conduct his evil... I mean his perfectly legitimate lines of scientific inquiry.  It's funny but every time I try to look for pictures online of the Amera Plastic Mouldings Ministry building painted up, Google keeps directing me back to the Axis of Naughtiness.  In which case I don't expect the following will help matters.

Not quite finished yet.  The doors need painting and the base needs texturing.  I'm toying with the idea of going all the way and making frames for all those windows, but that'll be a heck of a lot of work.  But so far, so good.