It Seems like forever since I painted a Reaper mini (Dec 2021 to be exact). I've had this one trapped shipwrecked in the painting queue for quite a while.
Another simple and evocative sculpt from Julie Guthrie makes you wonder what this guy's backstory is. What's in the treasure chest? How good is he with that cutlass? That knife looks like it's got it's own story.
The House of R'yleh is a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in London in late November 1923. The Games Master is Mark and play takes place at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in South East London every Friday night.
At the Chelsea Art Club, the mystery deepens, more names are added to the list of the missing but the chums still don't have any solid leads to follow.
Chester decides to break into the concierge's office and try to get addresses for Davies, Draper and Thewlis. He narrowly avoids being caught by Percival the concierge. Ginger decides that what they really need to know is what the papers said about the whole affair. She takes a cab to the British Library in Kings Cross, arriving just before closing time.
The friends meet at their favourite spot, Jenny's Tea Rooms in the Strand. Armed with Draper's address, Yoshi, Ginger and Chester head to Kensington leaving Ryan to see if his police contacts can tell him more about the case.
A large detached house which appears to have fallen on hard times. The rose beds have been untended for some time and the windows are dirty and curtains closed. Chester knocks oin the door and is suprised when a man fitting Mr. Draper's description opens the door. Clearly a lover of the demon drink, Draper seems distracted and apologises for not paying his club dues on time. They sit him down in the drawing room and after a little questioning manage to extract some useful information.
Draper was given the locket by a man called Peters who uses him as a go-between. Whatever money he gets he uses to buy art supplies for Peters. Draper struggles to describe Peters and Yoshi detects that there is definitely something Draper is witholding either out of fear or some other psychological reason. They convince Draper to take them to Peters. Draper insists that they will need to take Peters a gift of some brushes or paints.
Ryan's investigations begin at the World's End Public House on Victoria Street, an old haunt and a regular watering hole for the constabulary's finest. He is immediately recognised by one of his former colleagues, Constable Tim Barley. Ryan is not shy in asking about the Chelsea School of Art missing persons case and Barkley complains that they don't have the manpower to do a search of the riverside, they are effectively just waiting for a body or three to wash up on the banks of the Thames.
Barkley mentions that these are strange times, in fact he had a chap come into the station the other day. He claimed that someone had dug up his dead mother, stolen her locket and sold it to a pawnbroker on the Fulham Road. He didn't know what to make of it, but the man seemed a little out of sorts.
Ryan leaves the pub and as he ruminates on the case he realises he is near to his informant and sometime errand boy Jim. Jim is a greasy looking young ruffian and is more than happy to help Ryan out for a few shillings. Ryan tells Jim to go to Stokes Pawnshop and see if he has a silver charm bracelet with butterfly charms on it.
Freshly furnished with art supplies the friends and Draper take a cab to Lambeth. The dereliction and squalor of the tightly packed ramshackled tenament buildings an anathema even to Yoshi and Chester whose rented rooms in the East End were still classified as comfortable.
The cab sped off as soon as the four alighted. Draper led them through narrow alleys and passageways to a boarded up half ruined building. Opening the door with a key he led them inside the dark confines through corridors and down stairs until they entered a basement room with what looked to be a well.
Leaving the art supplies against the low wall of the well, Draper was keen to leave. Chester and Yoshi shone their lantern into the well. Something caught Yoshi's eye, a glistening in the light. They climbed down into the well for a closer look. The bottom of the well clearly entered into the subterranean warren of the London sewer system. The ground at the bottom of the iron rung ladder was dry, poking out of the earth was a silver butterfly which matched the description of the charm bracelet worn by one of the missing girls from the art school. As Yoshi turned the charm over in his big hands he could hear the sounds of someone sloshing through the water from down the tunnel. Chester and Yoshi scampered up the ladder and the group cowered in an adjacent room leaving one of the lanterns on the floor next to the well.
As they watched a long withered hand and arm reached out from the well grasping at the bag with the art supplies. This horrifically contorted creature, they presumed was Mr Peters...
The House of R'yleh is a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in London in late November 1923. The Games Master is Mark and play takes place at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in South East London every Friday night.
Tuesday 13th November 1923
Six weeks had passed since we buried Freddie's mother Josephine at the Kensal Green Cemetary. She finally succumbed to the polio that had made her final years a struggle. We had arranged to meet Freddie, who we had not seen since the funeral, in the Princess Victoria Public House on the Uxbridge Road and were looking forward to spending some time with our ebullient chum.
It was quite the shock when the normally dapper Freddie burst into the boozer looking somewhat worse for wear. Ginger immediately ordered a double whiskey for Freddie and he gulped it down, desperate to tell us his story...
"I can't believe that they would do such a thing, to my poor old mum who never hurt a fly. I was just browsing in the pawnbrokers for a bit of something for my girlfriend Sophie, you know the one from the bank I was telling you all about. Anyway, I popped into Stokes Pawnbrokers, the one on the Fulham Road, and there I spotted it... My mum's silver locket... the one I put in the casket with her when we buried her. I had it out with the bloke, questioned him, but all he wanted was 15 nicker. What sort of man would steal an old woman's locket from her dead body?"
Freddie's story gripped us all and we all agreed that we would solve this mystery and bring the culprits to justice. We shared a few drinks with Freddie and decided to take a cab down to the pawnbrokers to see if we could get to the bottom of it. It was about 10pm when we arrived and the place was closed. We vowed to take up the case in the morning and meet at the undergound station at 9am.
Wednesday 14th November 1923
Another damp day loomed as the gang trudged along the Fulham Road towards Stokes Pawnbrokers. Yoshi went in first aiming to distract the fellow behind the counter with his oriental guile. Briefly looking around, he turned his attention to the jewellrey case behind the counter.
"Sivur Rocket, Arigato"
The man, presumably Mr. Stokes (or one of his employees) took the bait and was pleased to take advantage of this foreigner and charge Yoshi the princely sum of £50 rather than the £15 he charged Freddie. Incensed with this blatant display of price gouging, Yoshi grabbed the fellow under the armpit and tried to hoik him over the counter. Sadly Yoshi's best days as an Ozeki were behind him and the chap was a little too heavy for The Great Wave.
Yoshi's friends came to the rescue and shooed him out of the shop. The perfect ruse to act as saviours and get some info out of him. After some questioning it turned out that the man did not know the locket was stolen and that it had been sold to him by one of his regulars called Mr Draper. A clearly wealthy man Mr Draper dressed shabbily and exhibited the signs of drinkers palsy. He did sport a lapel pin from the Chelsea Art Club and Stokes commented that he always brought him tasteful objet d'art from time to time. According to his ledger Draper's last visit was 5 days ago.
Stokes gave Chester a small discount as thanks for saving him from the oriental beast.
Their next port of call was the grave of Mrs Brydon located in the Kensal Green Cemetary.
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| Kensal Green Cemetary |
The grave was undisturbed, a dead end. The friends considered that the locket must have been lifted before she was interred which left only one option. The undertakers. Perhaps Draper works there or has a man on the inside. They headed to the funeral parlour.
This week, I are mostly been enjoying printing free pre-supported files I found on the interweb.
Truth be told they found me really. I was approached in a random email by CustomMiniatureMaker.co.uk who run an email newsletter called Free Files Friday. Seriously peeps if you aren't subscribed to this smorgasboard of STLs then you are missing out. Join now at https://www.customminiaturemaker.co.uk and maybe even join their latest kickstarter campaign.
All the cool kids seem to be sticking it to the man (Games Workshop) these days with their "proxy" models for WH40K so I thought I's jump on the bandwagon. I've always loved the chunky aesthetic of the WH40K vehicles and been a fan of the dreadnought's since the early days of Rogue Trader.
This is a wicked model and has so many possible weapon options that I thought I would have a go at magnetising my loadouts (ooer sounds a bit rude!!).
For old skool gamers the Broo were the iconic bad guy minions of the Runequest franchise and I fancied printing me out this great double axe wielding bad boy. Worth the download.
I've been hearing about these chaps and their patreon but I wanted to try out one of their files for myself. It came unsupported but I put my new found support skills to good use and she came out a treat. And lets face it, who doesn't like a bikini clad warrior woman?
In our last D&D game we ventured into the underdark and encountered a water weird which almost ripped our party to shreds. This one is a slime varient and I love it's animated pose like it's trying to smother you.
In Episode 18 of Jessie's Prints I printed of a couple of models which, as the Spice girls once sang...
This is a head swap of a sumo wrestler onto the King Pin's body. A perfect marriage IMHO for my next Cthulhu character. Hai!!
This was another exercise in using the Army Painter Speedpaint over a zenithal highlight. The suit about 4 layers of Gravelord Grey and the flesh tones are Crusader Skin with my usual blend of Army Painter Tanned Flesh and Vallejo White. Black accents are Scalecolour Black. The base is Speed Paint Hardened Leather with a light dry brush of a couple of other Army Painter browns.
