Mark Stryker Old West Theme (Characters)

For anyone who may recall I mentioned wanting to do Old West themed characters and storylines, and that I always thought I should have been born in that time period; I haven't made my minime yet for this series, as I'm still gathering all the stuff. It's taking a VERY LONG TIME to gather the characters I want, and the items I need to flesh them out. I don't have the room for environments, and I don't live anywhere that would suitably work to shoot outside for an Old West them, so I have to come up with a way to make "breakdown environments" and backdrops big enough to shoot street scenes, saloons, houses, landscapes, etc.

Anyway, I started gathering the figures I needed and some of their clothing, so I thought I'd start a thread to show off the characters (as I could end up being unable to finish all my ideas before my time runs out). So here's the start:

Logan Pollard

Not much for me to do here as this is the Thunder Toys Hell Ranger (without all the Hellish accoutrement). His character becomes a surrogate "father" to a 9 year old boy (minime) who's father was killed by Apaches during a wagon train raid, and as the boy grows up, he teaches him everything he needs to know to survive and to handle a gun, etc.




Maudie "Mama" Malone

Owner/operator of the town saloon, that has a barkeep/handyman and saloon girls (probably only able to make one of those). (Made from Star Ace Minerva McGonagall; the entire outfit is from AJ Clothiers; not happy with the "fat suit" that the doll came with, as it peaks out at the neck line -- not sure I even want to keep it, but I was hoping to -- maybe I'll just trim the underlying suit at the neck to hide it better. She has her standard cornflower dress, and her work apron; she also has a bonnet for outdoor scenarios; if anyone knows how to tie those damn ribbons to make a bow where the tie ends lay flat, please let me know).






Hannah Maragon/ Hannah Stryker

Wife of US Marshall Mark Stryker. (Haven't decided what her "job" is going to be, since we all know opportunities weren't that variable: seamstress, school teacher, baker, homemaker, mercantile...) Here she is in the Wolford Dress -- 1st of 2 -- based on Dolores Abernathy from the HBO series Westworld. Might replace the waist belt since it has the blood stain, but then it sort of goes with the tattered and worn dress -- so that could just be a storyline to work on. (Damn those ribbon ties!!! If anyone knows how to tie a bow and have the ends lie flat I would greatly appreciate any tips.)



I have 3 other characters mostly finished, but I'm waiting on shoes/boots to fill those boys out. (Not to mention the VTS & Lim Toys cowboys, and some of the previous Redman/custom cowboys (still need to put together my Wild Wild West James West & Artemis Gordon).

Great to finally see them! The modular dioarama sounds interesting.

Logan looks like a real archetype. I guess he says "Kid" a lot in strict but loving way.

Maudie looks like she went through a lot until she finally settled down. The Bonnet is super adorable, but she still looks dangerous.

Hannah seems like a good and intelligent person, so I think teacher would be a fitting job. I can imagine the class calling out "Good Mornin' Miss Stryker!!"

I'd like to help you with the bows, but think I have some kind of mental disability regarding tying bows. I think everyone else is cheating with their fking perfect bows.

Sometimes I have fun aging other peoples' Western pictures in Photoshop Express to look like they were taken with an old timey camera back in the day. If you interested I'd play around with some of yours .

Very promising characters, Mark. Love the Sam Elliott, Maggie Smith, and Ms Spetsnaz heads adapted to your purposes and the glimpses into your intended story. Apart from the several cowboy characters, it's an uphill battle finding sufficient sources for western figures, especially female ones, so I look forward to seeing what you get to after this promising beginning. AJ Clothiers, to which you have referred me, too, is indeed a viable and rare option.
As for tying bows, I found this tutorial shared by Gary useful:
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1419-miniature-ribbon-bow-making

That's a very nice start indeed! Great to finally 'meet' some of your characters, and looking forward to more.

As for the bow..... maybe not ideal, but I wonder if you could sort of 'fudge' it a bit.... maybe gluing the bits that refuse to lie flat in the back using the tiniest bit of fabric glue or something. This would be in order to make them lie at the angle you preferred. It'd be a tricky operation, but that's where my mind goes. I'd say tack it down with thread, but that seems even more difficult given how tiny the ribbon is.

Great looking characters Stryker2011.

 Indeed, I'll be looking forward to seeing more too.

They look awesome so far, Mark!

Great thread, I will follow it with great interest. Excited to see your project unfold. I'm liking this trend of showing the cast of a project like you and other have done recently. (I will join in with a project in the future, but need to go on vacation first )

Already some cool characters here. That Dolores dress looks good and the blood isn't distracting to me.

Those are some excellent looking characters!

Thanks, All. Appreciate it.

Ovy, feel free to fool around if you want, that would be cool. I’m hoping when I finally get my mini-me together, and a few more outfits for Hannah, I’ll do a “wedding portrait” that’d look cool with that filter effect. I still need to figure out that characters overall look (I could easily throw the head onto a Blondie/Eastwood body with all his clothes, but that would be too easy, and I’d rather come up with something more his own “style” — plus give him more casual clothes and “Going to Church” clothes — same as the misses, which could also be used for the wedding picture).

A wedding portait would be great!

I just love looking at people on very old photos (+100 years).
It's like seeing ghosts. I also like how "authentic" they often look, unlike modern people highly trained from birth to flirt with camera, they just stare serious or annoyed haha. And there are no cheap snap shots, it's a staged and important/precious moment.

I kill the saturation and add a tint, either reddish or yellowish. Then I play around with the contrast, exposure etc.
Then add a vignette effect, not sure if I like the dark edges or the white faded edges more. Don't know the physics/chemistry/science behind it but it both exists on old photos.
Also a little grainy effect. I didn't add scratches or dirt etc.

Portraits

Yellowish tint with dark edges


reddish brown


and light faded edges






This one looks like something Mr. Stryker would have in his locket.





Full figure





I like this one the most somehow with the faded effect over the figure.

Those are excellent, Ovy. Very cool.

Nicely done, Ovy.

verycool pictures Ovy!

You can also try scanning a crumpled paper/stain texture and throw it on top as an overlay to give it that used photo or poster look.

Edit: I didnt have a crumpled paper scan, but had a stain texture somewhere. Just playing around, hope you guys don't mind, but something like this.

That’s a pretty neat effect as well, Craig. Nice addition. Thanks for doing all of these, fellas.

Now I know I’ll have to give my mini me a pocket watch so I can put Hannah’s portrait inside.

These are some great characters and photos!
Miss Spetsnaz is ridiculously gorgeous in that dress, and Maggie Smith always looks good it seems.

Thanks, Diana. It is a lovely head sculpt (the 2.0 works better without the extreme lipstick of the original). I was originally thinking of using that head for a custom Lara Croft, but it seemed "too young" for the character. It works perfectly, I think, for a "young bride" in the days when women were often getting married in their mid to late teens.

Very cool, Mark! You picked nice headsculpts for your characters. The outfits look all very nice. Maybe Maudie's dress could be a little bit wheathered to make it look more worn.

I love the photo edits, especially the last pic with the additional overlay looks fantastic.

Looking good! The American West is not an era we see a lot of modeling interest in anymore. Seems like "comic book post-apocalypse" is the current trend, along with modern military. It's fun to see something different. I'm sure it's fun to do something different. Nice to see this much effort put in to creating a realistic older female character.

Randam Hajile wrote:Very cool, Mark! You picked nice headsculpts for your characters. The outfits look all very nice. Maybe Maudie's dress could be a little bit wheathered to make it look more worn.

I love the photo edits, especially the last pic with the additional overlay looks fantastic.      

Thanks, Ralf. And yes, Ovy and Craig did some really cool work on my mediocre pics. I love all of them how they look with that aging patina; my knowledge of Photoshop is too limited to be of any use to me.

davidd wrote:Looking good! The American West is not an era we see a lot of modeling interest in anymore. Seems like "comic book post-apocalypse" is the current trend, along with modern military. It's fun to see something different. I'm sure it's fun to do something different. Nice to see this much effort put in to creating a realistic older female character.

You’re right, the Old American West doesn’t seem to get enough attention in the hobby. fire03 over at the Old Site seems to be one of the last members still doing Western figures; perhaps because finding the right accessories and clothing is a bit of a pain. You can generally find things that “could work” but aren’t always accurate to the period; but, it’s fun trying at least.

Cool pictures! Especially the last one of 'Miss Spetsnaz' is really true-to-life.

I missed Craig's rendition, but saw it now and it looked really evocative of the period.

These are looking fantastic! All of them have such a grounded western look, gritty and realistic. I love the bits of background, and look forward to seeing Stryker himself, and to see everyone come together and interact. And all the old photos look so awesome!! I was gonna say, the pocket watch with Mrs Stryker's picture is a must, and I see you already came to the same conclusion.

Amazing work Mark! They all look so good! The spurs in particular are terrific! Are there any others??

ElBundy wrote:Cool pictures! Especially the last one of 'Miss Spetsnaz' is really true-to-life.

GubernatorFan wrote:I missed Craig's rendition, but saw it now and it looked really evocative of the period.

Thanks. I can’t take credit for how cool the photos look — that’s all Ovy and csyeung.

ReverendSpooky wrote:These are looking fantastic!  All of them have such a grounded western look, gritty and realistic.  I love the bits of background, and look forward to seeing Stryker himself, and to see everyone come together and interact.  And all the old photos look so awesome!!  I was gonna say, the pocket watch with Mrs Stryker's picture is a must, and I see you already came to the same conclusion.

Thanks, Adam. Finding a proper pocket watch (one that opens) is proving difficult…

BAMComix wrote:Amazing work Mark! They all look so good! The spurs in particular are terrific! Are there any others??

There’s more coming. Lot of work to get them put together yet to be done. I made the mistake of buying a bunch of “cheap” WorldBox bodies (turned out, if they’re cheap, it’s because they’re bootlegs, and absolutely $#@t), so I have more bodies coming. Plus, still gathering clothes, accessories, etc.

Hannah finally has her dress (I think I need to iron that skirt). (I forgot to take a picture of her new shoes):




John & Kathleen Yorke

The Bank Owner, member of the Town Council, and his wife.

(edit: Obviously I didn't have to do much for Kathleen as Redman did it all for the Mina Harker figure. John's clothing -- all of it, including the watch chain -- is from AJ Clothiers, the shoes -- or Brogans -- are from Battlegear Toys).