And it all started when a father gave his son A Princess of Mars when he was 11 years old . . .
I grew up with the Martian series of Edgar Rice Burroughs in addition to Tarzan, Pellucidar, Lands that Time Forgot and innumerable other worlds by Burroughs and others. While researching for my forces for the Battle of Cowpens, I "accidentally" discovered Bronze Age Miniatures and their stunning reproductions of figures from Burroughs' Barsoom. Marketed under their "Dead Earth" line of figures, these are by far the best reproductions I have seen. When I saw the Green Martians (I mean "Wasteland Mutants") the shiny new toy syndrome popped up and I purchased 6 of them to include one character that would be John Carter. My only complaint about their line is that all of the female characters are topless - even the warriors. Sorry guys, I'm not going to get those.
Two of the Green Martians with my John Carter figure with base coats applied for the skin.
Most of the Green Martians have one or two arms, some weapons and the occasional head that need to be glued on. The animation of the figures are stunning to me.
As you can see, the Green Martians are big! I think they are at least 54 mm tall. This one is next to my 28 mm Allen Quartermain for comparison.
Ole Captain Carter is starting to look like Captain Carter. Bronze Age Miniatures has another figure with a more distinct harness and weapons for John Carter, but I love the way this figure is advancing low on the attack.
Another view.
This guy is just awesome: Large sword, small sword and radium rifle - plus he's so darn big I have to practice taking pictures just to get the entire figure in the frame!
Note the detail on the harness and sword hilt. Pretty cool radium rifle too!
This is going to be Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark. Tars has a long sword, short sword and radium pistol.
Another view and you can see more of the detail of the harness, wrist gauntlets and helmet.
Talk about getting distracted and going back to my youth! This is going to be a great project and they will definitely be showing up in my games.
I played a wargame, in 54mm, where Blusia (read France)invades Carter's Mars. The red Martians included female warriors. The covers of the Burroughs books are relatively sanitised but the 'harness' worn by the red martians really left them practically naked. it is amazing how little they wore considering mars' distance from the Sun. But then it is amazing to, that the air is breathable, there are canals and eight legged lions roam.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you with the descriptions of what the Martians wore; even Dejah Thoris complains that John wears too much clothes! It's a great saga but I'm going to keep my army (and) blog PG. I would love to have seen Blusia invade Barsoom.
DeleteThese figures look great! I was introduced to John Carter of Mars in about 1968 as wee lad myself. The hardback book with the terrific illustrations was a favorite of mine. It was a double feature with Skeleton Men of Jupiter included too. I still have that old book around here somewhere...
ReplyDelete1968 was about the same time as me. I'm currently starting to read the books again for the source material and Honorable Son #1 has my original copy.
DeleteLove the John Carter books. Discovered them quite late and only due to the 'League of extraordinary gentlemen' graphic novels. I was so disappointed in the Disney effort. Great looking minis by the way.
ReplyDeleteThe movie was visually stunning and the special effects were stunning - but they tried to add too much to the story which muddled the plot and to me Carter was not portrayed as the never say die character of the book. I watched it again recently and it was better the second time but I have to still give it only ⭐️⭐️.
DeleteSplendid work on these amazing figures Neil. Back in the mid 1970s there was a small range of Barsoom inspired figures made by Hinchliffe - they were primitive by todays standards but had "character"!
ReplyDeleteI actually had about 5 of the Hinchliffe Red Marian's and maybe Carter. I'm not sure what happened to them.
DeleteI used my 60mm Ancient Egyptians as 'Synthetic Men'. Representing the Green men is harder, the closest I could find being my orcs.
ReplyDeleteModipheus makes some Synthetic Men in 28mm scale in resin.
Delete"My only complaint about their line is that all of the female characters are topless"
ReplyDeletePaint sparkly pasties on them.
Ditto for me, when I have almost-nekkid Barsoomian females, I just paint crop tops or bikini tops on them. I'm not bothered by the nudity, but nudity is mostly boring.
DeleteI agree.
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