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100. The Big One-Zero-Zero!

Hello, thrill-seekers and conversationalists.  Or should I say, "Howdy," since this is going to be a Western-centered post.  And I do say, "Howdy," quite a bit in real life, what with being a Native-born Texan who routinely wears cowboy boots to work.

This is also my post #100.  Yippee!  Yippee-ki-yay!  Others have surely reached this milestone many times over by now but  I don't post very often, since Life©® tends to get in the way, and it also seems like Blogging has diminished compared to it's heyday.  Now everyone vlogs or does the Tube-o-You's.  But back when I posted my first placeholder message on August 11, 2009, I didn't really even know what I was going to do with this little corner of the Web.  (My third post, wherein I attempted to solve that age-old problem of painting more really works, but ask me if I live it.  Physician, heal thyself, right?)

Anyhow, on to this post's subject:  the Old West.  I've fallen in love, for the first time, all over again, with the Old West.  I've been watching lots of old movies, many that I've never seen before, thanks to the streaming service Tubi.  They've got lots of really good stuff on there, and not just Westerns, but Westerns are what I've been watching.

And painting.  What really got me started was when Too Fat Lardies debuted their new game "What a Cowboy!"  I watched their videos and thought that looked like it captured the feel of a Western gunfight pretty well.  I already owned Great Escape Games' "Dead Man's Hand" rules, but for some reason they never captured my interest.  Then shortly after "WaC!" arrived, GEG Kickstarted a new version of DMH, which I backed and that got me keen to play their game too.

In between, I had purchased six buildings from GEG to make a small main street and spent several fun hours putting those together.  That was a new experience for me, working with laser-cut, pre-painted MDF wood.  Somewhere in there I "discovered" the rules called "Gunfighter's Ball," from Knuckleduster Miniatures, and more importantly, their own line of miniatures.  I still don't have a copy of the rules (yet!) but I absolutely love their miniatures; they are some of the finest sculpted figures I've ever seen, ESPECIALLY since they're made to look like famous actors from the movies.

So I went deep in on several sets of Knuckleduster's miniatures, buildings from GEG, GEG's Kickstarter (which included 3 new plastic buildings, among other things), *AND* I bought some more Western laser-cut, pre-painted MDF buildings from Black Site Studio, from their Tomb Canyon range.

I'm set for a while.  I've played a few games of WaC! with my son and we enjoyed it, and now I'm ready to try DMH Redux.  One of the nicest things about Old West gaming is that you don't need a lot of figures to play.  The buildings are the most expensive and time-consuming part, but once they're done then you've got all you need.  (Mostly.  What miniatures gamer can ever truly say they have all they need?  AmIRight?)

And now, on to the pictures, which is enlarge if you click on them.  These are all from Knuckleduster, unless it says otherwise.

Fresh off watching "Tombstone," I painted these Earp brothers.  L to R:  Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday.

Lots of dark colors, those Earps (and friend).  Black can actually be a very difficult color to get right.

This is the image from the movie I used as reference.

These are two Cowboys who end up helping the Earps, Turkey Creek Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion.

The real history of the West is just as fascinating as the movie versions, if you ever get the chance to read some of it.

It was very difficult to find good still images of these guys, so I made do with what I could.

These are the Cowboys.  L to R:  Curly Bill Broscious, Johnny Ringo, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Ike Clanton.  The McLaury's and the Clantons were the ones at the O.K. Corral.

A slightly different angle.

I tried to copy the correct colors as much as possible.

That finished off Tombstone.  These were enough for me to play a few games of WaC!

Next up, The Man With No Name; and "Once Upon a Time in the West."

On the left is Harmonica; and Frank.

I'm pretty happy with how Harmonica's jacket turned out.  However, it was after taking this picture I discovered that I had missed painting his hair!  So I went back and fixed it.  (Something about not seeing the forest for the trees....)

Here we have the Spaghetti Western icons:  L to R:  The Man With No Name (although sometimes called Blondie, etc, he never GIVES his name) as seen in all three of his films but here he is primarily "The Good"; Angel Eyes "The Bad"; and Tuco "The Ugly."  Rounding out the foursome is Ramón from "A Fistful of Dollars."

I always found it interesting that the same actors were in the two of the three movies, in different order, but playing different characters; only Clint was in all three and he played the same character.  In other words, Angel Eyes was in #2 & #3, Ramón was in #1 & #2, but Tuco was only in #3.  What's more, film #3 was meant to be the first in the story order, but was filmed last.  That's why Blondie only wears his classic look at the very end of the movie, when he takes the items off a dead soldier.

I think this is enough for now.  I do have more painted figures that I was waiting to finish to add to this post, but now I think I'll wait.  Which means I could have posted #100 a long time ago.  Oh well.  I want to end on a high note here, and the next set of painted figures...well, you'll see.

But for now, THANK YOU for reading, pardner!