Batman Chess Set - Red Robin, Huntress & the Bat-Signal

Big, big box arrived and in it these three beauties. I'm not doing anything to any of them - Red Robin's red is metallic but not very noticible, Huntress' is a tad garish but it works at this scale, and the bonus Batman on Bat-Signal hasn't any metallic to it at all. And a very nice sculpt it is too.

This week in 1980 - Batman 330

Let's have a look what was going on 32 years ago shall we?

EXCELLENT cover by Lopez, looking like a nod back to the late 60's issues, what with the poses, positioning and speech (chum indeed). Although Talia from the back looks like an awful lit Black Widow from the Avengers here. The cover promises a "special 25-page shocker!" and they're not wrong - shockingly awful. A load of tripe involving a villain putting out a bounty on Batmans head to anyone who can kill him before he's sent to Death Row, its a long drawn out mess, with rubbish bad guys:

and some pretty poor art. Irv Novick could do a decent Bat-tale, but not here - telephoning it in, with a downright odd looking Batmobile amongst the mess:

Talia pops up for all of two panels and then exits again:

Which makes the cover a nonsense as that scene, nor anything like it actually appears here, leaving the suspicion things are being set up for a larger, more important development to come. Not read any of these around this time for 32 years and i sure don't remember it. Poor. Bat-rating - 2/10

Modern Master Vol 5 J.L. Garcia-Lopez

If you're a fan of the artsist - and why wouldn't you be? - i urge you to track dwon a copy of this brilliant book on the brilliant artist:

Soft cover A4-sized, its a very indepth interview covering the artists long career, lavishily illustrated and, for Bat-fans, some excelltn and real intertesting examples, be them pencil layouts:

Prelims:

Character style sheets:

and, something i didn't know he did, concept art for Batman Returns:

Highly recommended. Bat-Rating - 8/10.

Batman Chess Set - Bane & Hush

Two new arrivals yesterday. Bane's a real nice sculpt and all i'll be doing with him is to wash and highlight the metallic bits. Hush too is a lovely bit of sculpting but... oh dear, the paintjob - bright metallic pink for the straps etc that should be red, and gold instead of the leather coat. Luckily, the face and rest are ok, so will be a quick remedy.

Batman Chess Set - Scarecrow all done

That's him finished then and, apart from Mr Freeze, he's my favourite figure from this range so far.

Two-Face by Marc Lamming

Was at Demoncon4 yesterday and, is my wont right now, i was after a specific villain from a specific artist. I knew Marc would be there and his gritty, moody B&W work just screams Two-Face to me, so that's what i asked him for. Boy, was i glad i did - not only did he come up with this STUNNING piece (love the bald evil side, which makes total sense - if your face is sprayed with acid, you wouldn't have a full head of hair after would you?)but Marc said he really enjoyed doing it as he'd never done the fella before. Happy to help Marc!

Batman Chess Set - Harley Quinn & Black Canary

These lovely ladies turned up today and, yet again, it looks like they're reigning in the metallic paints as there's hardly any on either. So, no need for a repaint here, which is just as well as i don't fancy trying those tights (if you see what i mean):

And the faces are pretty good too. Yeah, Harley's eyes are a bit wonky, but i couldn't get anywhere near as good as this paintjob here: