Stuff to listen to while painting: H.P. Lovecraft's The Rats in The Walls read by David McCallum

Here's what I'm listening to as I sit here putting the finishing touches on the Bad Moon Clan.  It's a fine reading of one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories.  Excellent for background noise while you're working on that Chaos warband, Skaven horde or dungeon nasty.  I've been enjoying this old recording for the last twenty years or so.  It occurred to me whilst sitting here that it's the perfect season for sharing it so good listening and Happy Halloween!

80s-style Cthulhu action figures by Warpo toys

These old school-style action figures by Warpo are fantastic by themselves, but they become awesomer still when plugged with an 80s-style toy commercial like this.  Since my friend John showed me this earlier this evening, we've been running around the house singing "KA-TOO-LOO!  KA-TOO-LOO!"  Our wives pretend to be annoyed by the display, but we know they actually love it...

Wait until I buy these for the kid & me and we're all running around the house yelling "Cthulhu!  Cthulhu!"  Yeah!  I dig the old-school vinyl cape on the cultist- just like the cape on the original Tusken Raider and Darth Vader action figures.

Waggh!  The Great Cthulhu figure looks like its almost as big as my five month old son!

The soul-less, saucer-eyed gaze of the Deep One...

Deliciously nostalgic promo poster for the figure line...I simply must have some!  I've told Mrs. Mouse that the boy and me will be needing them for Christmas!  Some future Christmas, anyway.

                                "KA-TOO-LOO!  KA-TOO-LOO!  KA-TOO-LOO!"

Nyarlathotep - The Crawling Chaos

 Nyarlathotep.  The Crawling Chaos.  I will tell the audient void...Spent the last week or so of painty time squinting down the brush at a batch of Black Skaven and had to take a break. Said break consisted of  Maiden's Strange World on repeat on the ear buds and working on Nyarlathotep, here.

Very possibly my favorite Lovecraft story.  Not sure what use I'll have for him on the table top, but I like him.  He makes me happy.  The Grenadier Cthulhu miniatures were much more compact than the RAFM line that followed them.  RAFM's minis were more appropriately weird, alien, horrible, and sculpted on a grander scale, but the Grenadier line still has a lot of charm.

Bossk about to have what has got to be just about the worst day imaginable on The Planet of Very Bad Things.

Back to work on the Black Skaven tonight.



For your listening pleasure...the tale read by the quite enjoyable Nick Gisburne...

Stuff to Listen to While Painting: Star Wars Radio Drama Episode 1: A Wind To Shake The Stars

 I somehow managed to accidentally post an outline of an article I'm dreaming up, and for a while you were all seeing some meaningless scribbles under Tales From the Big Board in your blog lists.  To cover
up my goof, I've got to post something, so I'm sharing this. 

 It's the first episode of the Star Wars Radio Drama released by PBS a long time ago.  The Material is all story from Lucas' Star Wars novel, and embraces some scenes which were shot, but which were, sadly, deleted from the final cut of the film.

The whole radio play is over 6.5 hours long, and includes hours of newly written material, all of it approved by George Lucas, in addition to dramatizations of scenes which never made it into the theater.  Mark Hamill plays Luke, which is nice, but you get stand in voice actors for most of the other parts.  Too bad, but oh, well.  A detailed break-down of the radio play is available at the amazing Star Wars Wiki if you're interested in pursuing it further.

Great stuff to listen to while painting minis, hopefully, it'll get me inspired to get to work painting my stack of classic West End miniatures.  If you've never heard it, enjoy.

Mewlip

THE MEWLIPS
by
J.R.R. Tolkien

The Shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.

You sink into the slime, who dare
To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river-strand
The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
Croaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,
In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,
By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,
Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door.

 

They peep out slyly; through a crack
Their feeling fingers creep,
And when they've finished, in a sack
Your bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,
Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed,
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

...Got my hard cast off but I'll be wearing a brace on my wrist for a really long time which makes it challenging to take on really big projects, so I'm going to stick to painting up individual monsters for a while, like this wonderful old MITHRIL Mewlip, here.  Always loved The Mewlips.  I wonder where the Merlock mountains are, exactly?

                                                                  Peeping out slyly...

MST3K - Patrick Swayze Christmas

A little bit of nerdy tomfoolery for you this holiday season.  Only very questionably in the spirit of a holiday dedicated to peace and goodwill, but this IS primarily a wargaming blog, isn't it?  And anyhow, it's damn funny.  Merry Christmas and see you in the new year!

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

                                                  Hear da lamentations of da wimmin!!

WildSpace

Some of you may be familiar with this already.  I first discovered it a couple of months ago while burrowing into the archives of  Cyclopeatron's engrossing RPG blog.  I was so stunned, amazed and somewhat slightly frightened by what I was seeing that I immediately had to share the experience with my wife. But it wasn't enough so I had to share it with some other folks I knew who could also appreciate its magnificent stupidity.  But I still haven't quite been able to get over it, so now I'm sharing it with you..
Spoiler Alert:  David Coverdale death scene at 1:38!

Inspiration: Icelandic Folk Music - Íslandsklukkur

This is what I'm listening to as I push on into the final phase of painting my Dwarf artillery regiment.  Truly an amazing and inspiring piece of music.  I hope all my friends enjoy it as much as I do...

The Hobbit read by Nicol Williamson 1974

I know that everybody has been trooping out to see the new Jackson movie, and I'm happy for anybody who can get some enjoyment out of it.  I'm not going to launch into some rant about why it is that I'm avoiding the film like a disease vector.  Let me just recommend, to those old-school Tolkien enthusiasts somewhat disenchanted with the Jacksonian take-over of Middle Earth, or to those of the newer school interested in seeking out and absorbing more Tolkienish approaches to Tolkien, this audio book.

When I was quite young my mother bought me a copy of this reading, recorded a year after my birth and Tolkien's death on an arcane piece of technology called the LP.   For thirty years now I've known large passages of the novel by heart, and I attribute that to my obsessive playing and re-playing of that old LP set.  I loved it that much.

Audiobooks can really be hit-or-miss, depending on the reader's grasp of and appreciation of what he is reading.  Happily, Nicol Williamson was not only a fun actor, (some would say an over-actor, but I like him), he was also a studied and passionate devotee of Tolkien's work.  Obviously intimately familiar with the spirit and with every detail of Tolkien's world, he plays both narrator and the entire cast of characters to perfection or nearly so.  The snatches of mood music are quiet and delicate, played on one or two instruments, as music would be played and heard in Middle Earth, (no thundering orchestras) and they accent Williamson's dramatic and humorous performance splendidly.

The edition is unfortunately abridged, (An unabridged version was thought to have been impractical for the LP format).  This  isn't really a problem except around the Mirkwood chapters where a few important scenes are left out (The white deer, the river of sleep and the elven feasts), but that's the only gripe I have with it.

And because its all audio, with no brain-blasting visual effects or cheese-laden acting performances to distract you, you can sit and let your ears soak it all up while you paint little Dwarves and Orcs, which is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the day.

MST3K - 5,000 Piece Fightin' Men and Monsters Set

I've accepted my posting this here as an inevitability so I might as well just do it now...wonder if the mst3k guys could have imagined that there would be a whole subculture out there who would see this and think  "Great Scott...that would make a fantastic WARGAME!"


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