Red Martians

Here is the first batch of completed Martians from Barsoom, Edgar Rice Burrough's world of John Carter. Burroughs is one of the best fantasy/science fiction adventure writers and his tales of Tarzan and other planets, which were written early in the 20th century, inspired later writers of both SF and science.

The Disney film, was never pushed to the extent of the Star Wars films which is a pity as I find the Burroughs stories much more entertaining than the Star Wars ones.

Most artistic interpretations of the Martian garb errs on the side of modesty as, admittedly, do my models, mainly because of the difficulty of cutting away so much plastic to make the Martians virtually naked! Many artistic interpretations also give the Martians helmets and boots but the main items of apparel or equipment were leather 'harnesses'; the Martians were not completely naked but fairly close.

The Martian weapons were swords, daggers, radium pistols and radium rifles. Burroughs did not describe these in enormous detail so there is room for leeway in adapting Earth (or Jassoom) weapons.

The sort of figures convertible are retro spacemen such as the old Airfix ones, American Indians, ancients, Zulus, pirates and basically any figures with bare chests, and preferably bare legs. Some spare Warammer 40K pistols also come in handy. A weird paint scheme on historical rifles. or even muskets serves the purpose off making radium rifles. I have also experimented with adding small bits and pieces to the weapons.

                                           The two left hand figures were ancient Greeks; the second one has a new HK swoppet Indian head with putty hair and equipment and chest gem. I also added a round pin head which was easier to put on the side but I think it would be better underneath the rifle.Pistols are 40K. John Carter, as mention in the previous post, is made from a Kinder Egg Hercules. I decided to give him a sword in his hand as I couldn't remember John Carter taking his colt revolver to Mars.

                                     
                                      The figure with power shoulder and big gun is a Hin Fat pirate with a metal arm and gun from a 40 mm robot figure. The arm and hand are undersized but I could aways say they are cyborg additions as there is some very advanced science existing on Bassoom although access is patchy, usually involving a lone mad scientist. The pirates has had his pants trimmed off to represent bare legs; this has resulted in fairly massive and muscular thighs.

        On the right is the other Hing Fat pirate. he has been given a putty hair transplant and chest plate, as well as comb prong for a scabbard.

 These ladies are from 'True legends', a nice set of cheap fantasy figures. Previously I had painted some of these as Dark Elves.

                              The Airfix figure has had his armor painted to represent flesh.

That is a real bone from poultry, I think. I hot glued it to an old CD, along with stones and PVA plus sand.

  I should credit where I found this flag; I forget but it is the flag of Helium, the city which Carter champions and leads to victories over its enemies.

 I have been collecting reddish small stones or adding red brown washes to other stones placed on bases and scenic pieces.

As for figure colors, blue was the color of the city of Helium so any cloth items I tend to paint this color but the main items of apparel are the harnesses that I have mainly first painted black and the red-brown, leaving thin black lines for edging as I have just painted the straps onto the figures.

For skin color I have mixed red brown with sand or flesh colors. In reality it doesn't look too much different from a suntan. Burroughs describes the color as a light coppery color. Comic books tend to depict it as a kind of dark pink or Caucasian  sunburned color rather than tanned. The movie had blue eyed Martians so I have done the same.

The Red Martians are the main humanoid race. There were also Yellow, Black and White Martians. The White Martians seem to have been slightly sinister figures who are control freaks but not really warriors. I haven't read a great deal yet about the other races. There are also the 15 foot high Green Martians who have four arms and two legs. They could be converted from various toy science fiction figures, including action toys. In the absence of figures with four arms extra arms could be pinned and glued on. The same goes for Martian lions and white apes. Another interesting race or creature is the plant person, vampiric and looking a little like a cross between a cyclops human, kangaroo and plant! The humanoid and Green Martians lay eggs.

I'm going to add more to my Martian army with the intention of using it against human Victorian or Edwardian invaders from Earth. Of course, the whole idea is based on an alternative history and alternative Mars. If you tried to run around near naked on the Real Mars you wouldn't last long.