Nurikabe

Nurikabe (ぬりかべ or 塗壁) is a yōkai whose origins are from the coastal region of Fukuoka. In folktales, it typically manifests itself as an invisible wall that impedes the movement of its victim. Like many yōkai, it is not particularly dangerous, and seems to be satisfied with causing fear and confusion until its victim gives up trying to move.

The most popular representation of Nurikabe, created by Shigeru Mizuki, takes on the appearance of an animate plaster wall.

I like the earlier one-eyed version, but the iconic Nurikabe from GeGeGe no Kitaro is what most people who are familiar with the creature will recognize.

I suspect that Mizuki was influenced by various pictures of haunted walls from Japanese paintings when creating Nurikabe.

However, in 2007, a painting that showed a different vision of Nurikabe surfaced from a private collection in Utah. I'm guessing that prior to this discovery, there were no actual paintings that definitively showed what Nurikabe looked like.

Author/illustrator Matthew Meyer created a version that blends the two types at Yokai.com. I also like the version of Nurikabe from the PS2 game Ōkami, which takes on the appearance of a much more elaborate wall.

Regardless, the only miniatures of Nurikabe represent the version from GeGeGe no Kitaro. The large Nurikabe is from the GeGeGe no Shigeru Yokai Emaki Series (ゲゲゲのしげる妖怪絵巻) produced by Kabaya, while the Nurikabe performing the leg drop is a glow-in-the-dark GeGeGe no Kitaro Attack Swing keychain mascot from Bandai.

There are a couple of other Nurikabe toys I'm trying to find, but overall, I'm not terribly fond of the typical Kitaro version of Nurikabe. It just looks too much like a giant piece of gray toast.

As far as size goes, I'd estimate Nurikabe is portrayed to be about 10' tall in the Kitaro manga. However, it can make itself as large or wide as necessary to impede its victims, so pretty much any size works.

I also decided to have a go at making my own Nurikabe out of clay. After all, it's just a rectangle with arms and legs... I think I'm going to use it as a master so I can create various versions of the creature.

Mimic

The Mimic is one of the classic trap monsters from D&D. In the AD&D Monster Manual, they are described as capable of taking on the appearance of any type of inanimate object made of wood or stone, but they are sterotypically portrayed as medieval travel chests.

Another take on the Mimic that I've always rather liked comes from Dragon Quest, but these Mimics are more akin to tsukumogami (possessed/animated objects) than shapeshifting D&D Mimics.

Mimics are actually fairly scarce in miniature form. Ral Partha made a set of three different Mimics (chest, barrel, bed) for their AD&D Monsters line. More recently, Otherworld has produced some Mimics in metal, while resin Mimics come with the Super Dungeon Explore boardgame.

The Otherworld Mimics (left) are of the more traditional variety, while the SDE Mimics are of the DQ type (right). Both of them are pretty big for chests, but given that Mimics are supposed to occupy a volume of 150 cubic feet, they are pretty close to 1/72 scale (if not undersized).

Another creature related to the DQ type of Mimic is the Pot Devil (壺魔人 or つぼまじん) which attacks by swallowing anyone looking inside of it. I believe that they may have first appeared in DQ, but the only image I could find is from Final Fantasy where it is known as a Magic Pot.


These are dollhouse miniatures that I picked up from eBay, some of which I plan on using as Pot Devils. The first five are ceramic, while the last one is metal with a separate lid.

The typical Pot Devils seems to be colored in earth tones, and may often have an unglazed finish, so I'll probably add some surface details to the pots, and refinish with a rougher surface.

The last two types of monsters are also closer to being animated objects than actual Mimics, but it felt appropriate to include them in this post.

First we have the Maneating Casket from Castlevania and the Deathgrasp Sarcophagus from one of the newer incarnations of D&D. The Casket hops along, chasing it victim with the intent of eating them whole. I believe the Sarcophagus behaves similarly, though it merely imprisons its victims rather than eats them.

The Maneating Casket on the left is built of basswood. I'm going to see if I can get moulding and a cross made of strip styrene glued to the wood. If not, I'll have to buy some thicker plastic card to remake the casket. On the right is the Deathgrasp Sarcophagus (Demonweb #10) from the D&D CMG.

Last is the Creeping Coin, taken from Sir-Tech's Wizardry. These were animated piles of coins with a "breath attack" consisting of firing coins at the party. They were weak, and did almost no damage, but they could call for other wandering monsters (nothing more alluring to wandering monsters than the sound of jingling gold coins), which made them very dangerous.


To make the coins I sliced sections from a 0.02" plastic rod, glued them to a metal washer, and painted them gold. Next time I'll start by painting the rod gold so I won't have to worry about painting the edges of the coins.

Achaierai

The Achaierai is one of those odd monsters from the Fiend Folio that I have always found rather fascinating and whimsical (primarily because of the art by Russ Nicholson). They are fierce predatory birds from the infernal regions that are 15' tall, and that can breathe out a cloud of toxic black smoke as a defense mechanism.

There have been many people who have dismissed the Achaierai as a silly monster, but I like them because they look like something that you might see in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

Still, despite their relative lack of popularity, it was one of the earlier monsters featured as a miniature for the DDM CMG (Aberrations #26). The miniature scales out to about 12' in 1/72, which is shorter than the size given in the Fiend Folio, but even so it does not look undersized.

One of the things that I wanted to do was to create a flock of Achaierai, and my solution was to use artificial craft store birds and add legs made from paper clips. Unfortunately it is not easy to find artificial birds that match the size of the DDM Achaierai. Also, many of the artificial birds are made with their heads turned to one side, which is not good for me, since I want my Achaierai to be facing forwards.

Recently though, I came into possession of a couple of smaller birds that could be used as Achaierai chicks, so I cut up some paper clips, bent them a bit, stuck them into the artificial birds, and glued them in place.

I'll use Kneadatite to create some feet for them later, but even as they are, I think they look pretty good.

Backbaird

Backbaird (バックベアード) is a yōkai who appears in the manga GeGeGe no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki. The name has been said to be a transliteration of "Bugbear", and has also been rendered as Buckbaird, Backbeard, Bugbeard, and other variations. Other than the name, the creature has little, if any similarity to either mythical or D&D bugbears.


You damn lolicons!

Unfortunately, there seems to be very little interest in releasing GeGeGe no Kitaro outside of Japan, perhaps because of its 70's aesthetic, so the only material I have regarding Backbaird has been taken from the internet.

From what I can tell, Backbaird attacks by lashing out with the projections surrounding his body. He can also create additional copies of himself, and possibly induce dizziness in people who are in his presence.

Some sources suggest that he is a type of tree spirit based on the root-like projections that surround the eye, while others claim he is an embodiment of smog or shadow, but I'm not sure if these are canonical interpretations.

Unofficially, Backbaird has been invoked as a protector of young girls because of his phrase "このロリコンどもめ!" This phrase became an internet meme via the character Beako (ベア子) who is sometimes presented as being Backbaird's daughter.

Controversy over Backbaird emerged in 2008, when the photographer Masatoshi Naito leveled charges that Mizuki plagiarized the design from his photomontage Shinjuku-boukei・Chimera (新宿幻景・キメラ). I'm not sure if Naito had a backstory associated with his work, but the evidence seems to weigh heavily in his favor as far as the design of the creature goes.

Anyway, below is a Backbaird figure from the GeGeGe no Shigeru Yokai Emaki Series (ゲゲゲのしげる妖怪絵巻) produced by Kabaya.


I don't think Backbaird has a set size, but he often appears very large. This particular figure seems to be intended to be roughly 1/8 scale, but I think it works perfectly with 1/72 scale figures as well.

Backbaird seems to have become associated with cyclopean eyeball monsters in the Japanese videogame world, with appearances in the Wild Arms video game series, and also the Castlevania series.

In Castlevania, the Buckbaird is a tougher version of the Peeping Eye. There are a couple of different designs depending upon the version of the game it appears in. One version seems to be able to shoot eye beams, while the other has some sort of electricity based attack.


This is an in progress shot of my attempt to model the Castlevania Buckbaird. The main body is built around a plastic pearl bead, while the end of the tail is built around a smaller spike bead. I'm still trying to decide whether the chain should be permanently affixed to the body, or if I should make it detachable.

Boooooooyyyyyyyy!!!

For my Halloween post, I've decided to debut my near-finished first complete sculpt. The figure is the Tall Man from one of my favorite horror films, the 1979 cult classic Phantasm. I've always wanted a miniature of the Tall Man to use as one of the baddies in gaming, but I could never find a figure with the right look. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and sculpt a figure myself.


More John Houseman than Angus Scrimm?


The arms are actually removable at the moment, because I wanted to cast up the body by itself so I could have the figure with different arm poses. I initially scaled the figure to 6'8" in height, because that was Angus Scrimm's actual height with 4" lifts, but I decided to go a little taller because he just didn't seem tall enough in 1/72 when compared to other figures. To go with the Tall Man, I rolled up some 1mm balls of Kneadatite to create sentinel spheres. The ball in his hand was glued to a short segment of clear sprue that was stretched over a flame.


Below is another silver sentinel spheres on a longer piece of sprue. Follwing it are two gold sentinel spheres which are just round head map pins painted in gold. I would have liked to find some 1mm round head pins for the silver spheres as well, but I couldn't find any (I know it is pedantic, but the silver spheres are smaller than the gold spheres). The paint was somewhat of an issue because I could not get the chrome-like finish on the spheres like in the films. I discovered that my "chrome" silver spray was not chrome silver, and that the metallic golds that I used was too dark. I gave the gold spheres a wash with a lighter colored gold, but it made the spheres lose their metallic luster.


This final picture is of Star Wars MicroMachines Jawas, which can be used as Lurkers - the compacted reanimated zombie slaves of the Tall Man. The first four poses of Jawas comes from the Jawas figure set (66076). The fifth Jawa came from one of the Mini Head sets, but I don't remember which one, and the final Jawa came from one of the large MicroMachines playsets, again I don't remember which one.


Now what do I do for a balding ice-cream man with a ponytail and shotgun?

Sdh. 234 Progress

I decided to cast the forward hull of the Sdh. 234 that I was working on since I would be using it for modifying a number of different models. I poured a one piece mold, and mixed up some resin to cast the part. It was my first time casting resin, so imagine my surprise when I came back after pouring and saw that the mold looked like a pot that had boiled over! I pulled out the part, and saw that it was filled with bubbles, but I decided to use it anyway.


The hull will need some more putty work, but I don't think that it is too horrible for a first attempt despite the interior being rather like swiss cheese. In any event, I realized that my original plan to add a second piece to the mold for casting a plenum chamber into the hull would be more problematic than I had first anticipated, so this piece will become a new master hull for subsequent models.


Using the hull pattern, I cut two pieces of thick plastic card, and one thin piece of plastic card into the proper shape. I cut away the middle of the first piece, and glued it to the bottom of the second piece. I then cut away the middle of the second piece, and glued it to the bottom of the thin piece.


A Matchbox SdKfz. 234 will undergo the transformation into the Sdh. 234, but first it had to go through a little reconstructive surgery. I'll probably still have to lengthen the upper hull to make it the right size.

Sdh. 234

I was planning to scratch build the Maschinen Krieger Sdh. 232 in 1/72 scale, but had reservations about sacrificing my Roden Sd.Kfz. 231. I remembered that I had several Sd.Kfz. 234 kits in 1/76 scale (Airfix & Matchbox), so I decided to make a Sdh. 234 variant. I'm not sure if the Sd.Kfz. 234 hull is canon, but a troop carrier based on this hull has been built by Run Chicken S (presumably with input from Kow Yokoyama if I read the copyright information on the bottom of the page correctly).
The first thing I did was to try and determine the exact dimensions of the Sdh. 232. Using the image above as a template, I reproduced it so that the Sd.Kfz. 231 portion was 1/72 scale. I can't remember the website where I got the image from (is it from the 1/76 Zionel Westen Sandstalker box art?), but it looks comparable to the actual models shown in the Ma.K Encyclopedia. However, when compared, the dimensions given in the Ma.K Encyclopedia don't really correlate with the dimensions of the real world Sd.Kfz. 231. If I combine this image with 1/72 Sd.Kfz. 231 dimensions, the model I plan would be closer to 1/64 in Ma.K universe terms. That's okay though. I'm still going to call it 1/72 for my own purposes.

Using some Evergreen plastic card, I cut out some patterns to get started.


Somehow I messed up my measurements so the ribs were too tall. I had to move them backwards, which affected the distance to the edge of the base.

Sandbagged Sherman

The Hat Shermans are not bad, but they look rather plain when built up OOB. I decided to spruce this M4A3(76) from the Armourfast line (99012) with sandbag armor.


The sandbags were created with Crayola Model Magic. The side cages were built with Evergreen (white) and Plastruct (gray) plastic strips.


Unfortunately the Model Magic shrank a lot more than I expected, so the sandbags don't press up against the cage as I wanted.