The figures are done! After a few sessions of the Savage World of Ghostbusters using the closest minis I had on hand, I decided I had to have proper GB minis. I took a long look at Carmen’s Fun Painty Time set of Ghostbusters minis, and while I don’t have Carmen’s sculpting chops, I am pretty pleased with the final result. For those interested in the process, I figured I’d write up some details here. You can click through any of the pics to see larger versions.
The Pieces
The miniatures themselves are mostly Heresy Miniatures’ “Inspectors” set, except for Ivan (the team mad scientist), who is Dr. Friedman from Reaper miniatures. The guns and field radios are bits from Secret Weapon Miniatures. The cyclotron portion of the proton packs are actually tiny (doll-sized) buttons I picked up at G Street Fabrics. I snipped off the magazines from the guns to make the neutrona wand for the proton pack.
Assembly
I used a pin drill to bore extra holes into the buttons, then glued them on the backs of the radio backpacks. I then glued the “neutrona wand” guns onto the “handset” portion of the field radio, so that the cable for the phone became the cable for the neutrona wand. Using greenstuff from Games Workshop, I sculpted the elbow pads, filled in the gaps in the bases, and added a few details.
Bruno’s ghost trap was simply a rectangular chunk of lead sprue cut off at the right size, with the silencer snipped off one of the guns and glued on to make a handle. For Charley’s ecto-goggles, I put a blob of greenstuff on the brim of his cap and shoved two snipped-off silencers in place, then reformed the greenstuff around them to the right shape. Finally I glued on the proton packs, using greenstuff to fill in the gaps. For the jumpsuited figs, I figured I would paint on the shoulder straps, but for Ivan the figure would just look weird that way, so I added greenstuff straps.
Painted!
Painting was pretty straightforward. Lots of washes for the wrinkly bits and drybrushing for both the highlights and the slime spatters. To make the slime look, er, slimy, I added a heavy coat of glossy finish over the usual spray matte. To create the GB logos at such a small scale, I painted a dollop of white on the figs’ shoulders, then drew the no-ghost emblem on freehand from reference with fine-tip Sharpies. As you can probably tell from the pic, it worked better on some figs than it did on others.
I tried to make the glowy cyclotron bits visible by means of colored paint inside the buttonholes, but they were too deep and it didn’t work very well. It’s a little more visible in person than it is in this picture, but not much. :P Finally, for completion, here’s the “boring” side of the minis:
And that’s it! From start to finish it took me about a month, including getting the miniatures shipped over from the UK, assembling all the pieces, and having time to work on it. They’re not showcase figs, but for tabletop play they’ll be just fine.
Aaaaand… Some Other Figs!
While I’m mini-bragging, here are some other collections of minis I’ve put together…
The Scooby Gang
These figs all came from Hasslefree Miniatures, although they’ve discontinued the dog and swapped out another.
The Whovians
The figs in the front are ones I’ve collected and painted over the years; the ones in the back came from a short-lived Doctor Who-themed miniatures battle game that I saw and grabbed en masse at Dragon*Con a year back and never saw any other time before or since. Most of the miniatures came from Black Tree Designs, although the Doc Eleven fig is Heresy’s “Nerd Lord”. The daleks are actually from FASA’s ancient boxed set, given to me for Christmas years ago, and I have about a dozen more unpainted ones.
I should also mention that the blown-up dalek was not put into that condition by a cartoon-colored pony, because as we all know, there’s no way that could possibly happen. ¬.¬
The New Batch
This is all the figs I painted in this batch. I’m actually quite pleased with Davros and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, although I doubt either of them are likely to get much time on the tabletop. I just did them for the fun of it. Also, one of these figures should look familiar to old-school Call of Cthulhu fans. The halfling wise-woman (“Olivia, Halfling” from Reaper) is a PC in my Fortress of Tears campaign– one detail I quite like about the fig, although it’s not visible here, is that she has a big ol’ loaf of bread sticking out of her backpack. So very hobbitey!
And Finally…
I like to call this one, “when fandoms collide.” Heeheeheehee.
Enjoy!
-The Gneech
@the_gneech I’ve got the Scooby gang too but need to paint them yet. Along with tons of others.