Mark Stryker Old West Theme (Characters)

Holy cow! That's quite the commitment!

But beautiful choice. It looks really good.

Hannah approves of her new stove -- as she should (this thing cost as much as a boxed HT figure). wrote:

Suddenly I feel absolutely no guilt for just buying a 2nd SSC brand new on sale General Grievous! My other was 2nd hand and missing all the accessories including the split arms option. I also seem to have a lot of random Hasbro and Kotobukiya GG parts in a box.. must make him his repair room.

PickleMunkey wrote:Dang that stove is a beast! Fire 'er up, time for some mini flapjacks.

Also time for some stew!

skywalkersaga wrote:That looks awesome! Congrats, I know that was something you were after for a while.

Thanks. Yeah, it was a real treat to stumble on this, considering there were plenty of smaller versions by other manufacturers, but they were all much smaller. These things were actually salesman samples that they would bring with them to give to potential customers of their REAL wood-burning stoves. When I was about 10 my parents bought an old farm that had not only a wood-burning furnace, but a wood-burning stove (what a pain in the ass that was).

GubernatorFan wrote:Very cool. I'm glad it works scale-wise with your Hannah (and I agree -- although I think you mean 1/5 scale if it is a little larger than 1/6 scale). Looking forward to you making the missing pieces.

D’Oh! Yeah, I meant 1/5th (my dyscalculia is showing).

shovelchop81 wrote:Very cool! Make me think of Westworld, well the first couple of seasons anyway, nice to see Harker 'out in the wild' as it were, was thinking about picking her up to go with my 1800's gentleman Dracula custom. Great sculpts on the elderly looking figures, love the weathering of their clothes too.

Thanks, Alex. I’m really trying my best to find appropriate “faces” to fit the Era. So far, I’ve had some luck. I received 7 other head sculpts to add (4 women, 3 men), but I still need clothing. I received one full figure to use for my Town Doctor, but he needs some work, and a satchel.

Diana wrote:Holy cow! That's quite the commitment!

But beautiful choice. It looks really good.

Thanks, Diana. Yeah, when I go in, I GO IN.

shovelchop81 wrote:

Suddenly I feel absolutely no guilt for just buying a 2nd SSC brand new on sale General Grievous! My other was 2nd hand and missing all the accessories including the split arms option. I also seem to have a lot of random Hasbro and Kotobukiya GG parts in a box.. must make him his repair room.  

Haha! This is definitely an expensive hobby when you want to go big, that’s for sure.

The man himself makes his appearance!  Looks excellent, and well geared up for any trouble.  The stove is perfect too!  I've heard they were originally salesman samples (and later, reproductions of those).  Did you ever notice I have one in the loft?  I'm not sure how accurate, but I spray painted a pipe elbow to "vent" mine outside.  

That’s pretty cool, Alex. I guess I was just so focused on the characters and the posing that so many details escaped me. I like the idea of the plumbing elbow for the stove (might have to steal that).

Aww, that´s so great. I´m a big fan of the old pictures and this timeline. Maudie is spectacular. She looks very authenitcal as a person of this time. All the Characters and the Storys behind them are fantastic. I can feel the spirit of the little town they live in. Kathleen Yorke reminds me at this little sneaky North and South monster.  
I really loved this north and south movies. This two ones could be some more rich and schemer characters of the series.  

Thanks, Ephi. Sorry I missed your post earlier. I have an idea for a storyline involving "Bankers" and their attempts to stop robberies (got the idea from an episode of the old Henry Fonda series "The Deputy"); anyone else have INSP on their cable/satellite providers? Been having fun watching all these old shows when I have the chance.

Anyway, here's another character. Have no idea who she is at this point, or even her name, but I received a bunch of period Barbie clothes in today from a seller in Texas. Finally found a use for that scary skinny Jiaou Doll body that I hate (still had a hard time getting that skirt over her hips and butt; and the bust was problematic for that top button, but I managed). I think it looks pretty good.

Very cool theme and thread. Love following it.
That stoven looks really cool even if a vit oversized, but it will work

Congratulations on squeezing her into that. Looks good.

Thanks, fellas. Ian, I was surprised to even find a period dress that would work (especially from Barbie). It’s called an 1880 Bustle Dress. It looks a bit awkward in my photo, but aside from the train and bow in the back, it’s very slim.

It's a very impressive dress.

Nice customs and recreations from the old west, it's like a blast from the past seeing all of the authentic-looking formal and casual wear and furniture. But that gunslinger mini-you really steals the show. I should probably continue watching Westworld soon, I really dig the concept of recreating an artifical old west (which is essentially what you're doing too, just on a smaller scale, hehe).

Thanks, fellas. I know this isn’t exactly most people’s niche, but I’m a huge Western fan (old movies and TV shows mostly), but have been reading a lot about the “real” thing, and then fiction books by (mostly) Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, etc. (guys who were born early enough to be able to still talk with and be around people who lived through the times, and they themselves got to see it come to an end). I’m trying my best to stick to historically accurate period clothing as possible, but it hasn’t been easy — well, it’s easier to do the men, as there are a couple stores that make stuff for this time period, but women’s clothing is a bit harder, as aside from some of the above purchases through Barbie stuff, there’s only one store that makes clothing for the women (AJ Clothiers), so it comes down to limited options, or custom route — my sewing skills are not up to the level to be able to make reasonable things for the ladies.

Fascinating experience, however, studying about the Old West. Even found out about two brothers born in Illinois, who killed a lawman in Wisconsin— became famous nationwide as they traveled around the Midwest robbing and killing as they went (mostly taking out lawmen). These two brothers killed more lawmen than any of the other (more famous) outlaws of the day, which sparked the largest manhunt in US history at the time; they fell into obscurity in the nationwide press due to the assassination of President James Garfield. I had never heard of these two until recently. Weird.

Excited to see your western world come together. Are you planning to make like a saloon facing or anything like that? (larger diaorama type piece)

csyeung wrote:Excited to see your western world come together. Are you planning to make like a saloon facing or anything like that? (larger diaorama type piece)

I’d like to do something like that. Street scenes, some interiors, etc.., but they’d have to be something cheap and easy, and able to be broken down and “stacked” to cut down on space. I’d even settle for large “photo” backdrops of exteriors of buildings at different angles. The trouble is finding images of Old West buildings (even if just movie sets) that don’t have a bunch of obstacles to throw off scale, etc., and can show the same street at different angles. Very difficult. Even if they have people and objects in them, getting different angles that have the “same” people and objects from those differing angles probably wouldn’t be possible. Might have to settle for single individual building fronts at a time. Interiors could end up being massive and a lot of work. (I mean, I’ve started with buying that stove), and I’ve seen saloon interiors done in the past (probably close to 20 years now), and even a street scene — but as I said, they were both massive and probably took a long time to build.

if you grabbed RDR2, you could grab screenshots heh. There are some cool building/background backdrops you could print from that. They have a photomode too. Maybe when it goes on sale hehe. I'm sure there are a ton of youtube videos as well you can source a ss or two.

That sounds cool. I don’t have a game console anymore, unfortunately/fortunately— I gave up on them almost 15 years ago.

A saloon or some facades of wooden western buildings sounds very cool for your setting. I know of the space concerns though.
Maybe a connection of Diorama and poster for the background to make it look huge/wide like you already discussed. I've seen some using that technique like this one from a friend:

 

That doesn't solve the different angle problem of course, but with some two wooden facades left and right makes for some nice display scenes.

I was going to put these latest head sculpts that came in under the "Latest Purchase" thread, but I figured since I already came up with names and occupations, I figured I put them here instead. (Both of these gents need a body and clothes, of course.)

Clemmons Usqubaugh, Undertaker




Thorston Bromley, Owner/Operator of the Mercantile

An Old West Undertaking Parlor sounds like a fun future diorama to work on!

Excellent sculpts for these purposes. I hope you make a couple of pinewood coffins to go with the undertaker, and you can use them to store accessories -- or wayward figures, as needed. I'm all for weird old-timey names, but isn't Usqubaugh a little too weird? Or maybe it has a special rationale...

GubernatorFan wrote:Excellent sculpts for these purposes. I hope you make a couple of pinewood coffins to go with the undertaker, and you can use them to store accessories -- or wayward figures, as needed.  I'm all for weird old-timey names, but isn't Usqubaugh a little too weird?  Or maybe it has a special rationale...

Haha. It is weird, but it was the name of the Undertaker in an old black and white western with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck called The Moonlighter. I liked it enough, since it was unique, to steal it for mine.

Stryker2011 wrote:Haha. It is weird, but it was the name of the Undertaker in an old black and white western with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck called The Moonlighter. I liked it enough, since it was unique, to steal it for mine.

I see... thanks for the explanation. Those weird names are one of the things that makes that past come alive.

Those sculpts have SO much character, excellent choices!

Especially liking the undertaker. This hs works really well

Thanks all. Yeah, the second I saw that particular head sculpt I knew he was going to be my Undertaker. Not sure I’ll ever make a diorama of the funeral parlor, but I’ll probably have to make some “Bone Boxes” for sure. Can’t have some dead outlaws without those.

Great choice of headsculpts, that stove is fantastic even if it's a bit larger and the new lady is looking good. I remember when I was about the age of 6 or 7 I saw an original "stove" that was used by my great grandmother, it was made out of brick like something from the 1700's or something, it was sadly in disrepair by the time I got to see it.

Thanks, boo. That’s funny, I had that experience when I was ten and my mom and stepdad bought an old farmhouse/farm — it had a stove like the one in this thread, a wood-burning furnace and a bathroom the size of an outhouse (we used to joke you could take a crap, wash your hands and take a shower all at the same time because of how jammed that bathroom was — 3’ x 3’ with a sink, toilet and a “shower” — which was basically just a drain in the existing tile floor with an overhead faucet).

Finally got around to posting the pic I took of the Bambino/Bud Spencer figure from Kaustic & Infinite Statue; nice figure, but seriously weak ankles. Not sure if he'll actually join my Western realm, but who knows.