Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Jabberwocky - GASLIGHT?

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: 
All mimsy were the borogoves, 
And the mome raths outgrabe...

A bit of a blast from the past this one...

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!

Looking through my display cabinet I glanced up this creation of mine from many moons ago, a Jabberwocky ! I am not sure but I think its an old Citadel miniatures figure... To give you an idea of size, its mounted on a GW 40mm square base.

 He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.



It always reminds of that rather weird and quirky 'Python' movie - Jabberwocky, with Michael Palin;

Jabberwocky

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

A rather characterful Beastie, I love the leering head and oddly vestigial wings...




One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.




"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

I wondered if I might be able to ally it in with my Prussians for GASLIGHT, or maybe use it as a proxy for one of the weird and wonderful EotD hirelings...?



Grrrrrr !


I can't quite recall when I painted this, probably some time back in the 90's... I have a feeling I got it to add to a planned Chaos WFB army that never materialized... I don't think its ever seen the tabletop in anger, hopefully that may change one day...


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe. 

 from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872
Lewis Carroll

14 comments:

  1. Interesting creature. I really like what you did with the eyes.

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  2. Love that close-up on the face Scott. The Jabberwocky was such a memorable character from the book and seeing it brought to life as a miniature-that's a real treat. And including the verse from the book was an excellent idea. Took me back to my childhood and my daughters childhood all at the same time.

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    1. Thanks Anne :-) Yeah its a funny little verse - I think the style is called a 'whimsy' or something like that ... I love the "...burbled as it came" ;-)

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  3. It is a citadel miniatures one, I have it as well. I also have the Ral Partha one which is a similar size and the Reaper one, which is magnificent and is about 3 -4 times the height.

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    1. Thank you Sirs! The Reaper one sounds a real Beastie!! Are you a new guy to Kapiti? I'd follow your blog but couldnt see the follower gadget...

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    2. Yeah I've just joined the Kapiti Wargaming club. I have some russians to put together for FOW, but I mostly play Fantasy. I think I met you at the open day in June or July when you were running the beach head FOW board.

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    3. Excellent! Another prospective FoW player :-)
      Whenever you fancy a game let me know - email contact is below pirate picture top right of blog, or you can get me through the clubs Facebook page.
      Theres a few other locals for FoW; Paul playes Brits and Soviets, Bret has Yanks mostly and other bits and bobs, I mostly plat germans though have some brits too. Brian (Tawa) has Brits and bits and bobs of other stuff...
      Keep in touch :-)

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  4. Very nicely done. Creepy looking beast but in a good way

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  5. Superlative paint job Scott but I cant help thinking the poor thing looks a bit geriatric and sorry for itself...if I was confronted by said beastie I wouldn't know whether to shoot it in anger or put it out of it's misery for it's own sake.

    Have those dastardly Prussians of yours been soundly thrashed by the Colonel's forces of confusion and bewilderment yet?

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    1. LOL, you do raise a fair point, though to be fair the model does quite well match the pictures I have seen of it:
      http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html

      Sadly as yet our forces have yet to meet on the field of battle, and merely content themselves with amassing forces and hurling insults and bravado across the ether... ;-)

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  6. He is outstanding Scott, I love him, but then I'm also a great fan of the nonsense verse of Carroll. You've really done a smashing job on this, I wonder if you can still get them?

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    1. Many thanks Michael. I have found old citadel catologue references for the figure though no idea if its still commercially available, probably not unless someone has bought the mold... - you may have to hunt through ebay, or perhaps put out a request for s second hand one if someone were willing to part with theirs, on somewhere like TMP...
      regards
      Scott

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