Adventure characters... Tin-Tin and Co

Finished painting up - a certain nosey youth and his associates...

comprising the First Corps set, which are nice representations of Tin-Tin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus. In addition I converted two similar figures which I had, giving them bowler hats and canes to represent Thomson and Thompson.

Francis Aloysius O'Donnel, was travelling up country to the mission of Saint Mary, loaded on his pack mule Mcguffin were urgent medical supplies for Sister Sarah.
   When the two boats came into view he could see that they were in trouble, someone was bleeding heavily.
  Swiftly he dismounted from his own mule, Muffin, and went to help them ashore.
A mixed party certainly, consisting of an elderly man, currently slumped unconscious and bleeding heavily, a classically beautiful young girl, a native man mountain, and a younger native boy.
His curiosity could wait, the old man was still breathing the important thing was to keep him that way.

The well built native lifted the old man out of the boat, and laid him gently on the ground, the girl proceeded to bathe the wound, whilst Francis opened up some of the medical supplies.
Together they managed to stem the bleeding and examine the wound, the bullet seemed to have entered the upper right side of his chest, hopefully missing any vital organs.

     Having stopped the bleeding and examined the wound, it was agreed that it was too serious for any of them to deal with.
     Communication between them was difficult, the only person with a common language was unconscious.




  With the camp site set up, they discussed what to do.
Francis and Junior kept watch whilst Ser tried to explain that he needed to find some Kupotee, a plant, a poultice of which would relieve the pain and prevent fever from weakening the old man.
    Francis explained that the mission was a full days travel up river and with night time travel highly dangerous, they would have to spend the rest of the day in camp before an early start the next morning.
    He would spend two days travelling cross country.




Ser and Junior duly set out to find the plant, known to his tribe as Panoseyah.
 Whilst Francis and Sophia talked.
She found his brogue difficult to follow, and he found her English pronunciation rather quaint, but they managed some form of dialogue.

     She told him of their quest, which he found an interesting concept.

     He in turn told of his childhood in Dublins fair city, and although the reference to his nickname of sweet  f a, meaningless she did come to think of Frank as rather sweet.


Ser and Junior had spent some time  searching, when they came across a juju sign barring the way.



Warily, knowing that such sign was often reinforced with physical dangers, they circled the site.



More juju sign barred their way and alarmed they turned back.




Frank and Sophia were anxiously awaiting their return.



   A rustling in the undergrowth had them reaching for their weapons and the alarm on their faces turned to relief when Ser and Junior stepped into the clearing,  clutching a bundle of green leaves.

Whilst Ser prepared the poultice and a drink made from the leaves he told them of his discovery and that they must leave as soon as possible, but accepted that they must spend what was left of that day where they were.





Night fell, an uneasy one for all.


The professor remained unconscious, the others remained awake watching the jungle fringes.

At some stage Drums started, the rhythym ,rising and falling, building to a crescendo which had them on edge before dying away then restarting.

New Arrivals...

During a flit through Ebay last week I noticed a couple of job lots of pulp figures - mostly 1920's gangster period, but including a number of generic figures that would work nicely for story lines and in adventure games and for WW2.

I managed to get all three lots, currently sorting through them ...

that stocks up the lead pile a bit 😁

The Journey Continues

Next morning after a hasty breakfast, the intrepid explorers set off.
After an hours peaceful travel they were enchanted to see a herd of giraffe browsing at the forest edge,






and motored quietly towards them to enjoy a better view.






Just as well.

A party of natives appeared on the left bank.
A flurry of spears fell around them.
Long range fortunately, and all missed.

A second, more accurate volley.

Better aimed this time, several hit the boats.
Stores were damaged, but the only casualty was to Ser, their guide who received a large splinter in his upper arm.
A 6 foot cube of a man, he showed no sign of pain as he increased speed to move out of range.
Ser was only the last syllable of his otherwise tonsil strangling name, but suited his personality and bearing.


 Quickly they moved into an even greater danger,
 lining the bank was a group of very angry Arab traders ,whose own ambush had been ruined by the noise of the boats.
A flurry of shots rang out even as the heavens opened in a sudden downpour.

Perhaps the gods were smiling on the party.
Not a single shot came near.







Moving rapidly away in the poor visibility, another group of traders appeared, one of whom armed with a more modern rifle, fired.
The others could only look on.

Black Powder has its limits.




This time their luck was not so good and the bullet ripped into the Professor.

He slumped down, bleeding heavily.









As the rifleman raised his weapon for another shot Fortune again smiled on the party.

Disturbed by the noise a Rhinoceros charged out of the undergrowth,
The rifleman had time only for a hasty shot before being hurled to the ground by the angry beast.



Moving hastily away the party reached a calmer part of the river.
Giant dragonflies flitted at the rivers edge, silenced reigned.




Searching for a good spot to land and tend to their injuries, the party scanned the banks for a safe place.




On the left bank two more rhinos were peacefully grazing, on the right ,movement could be seen through the bushes.Was that a person they could see?





Hopefully they moved closer.


It was.




They gratefully moved towards the bank to land and recover from the morning.


What the afternoon had to offer everyone would have to wait and see.

Into the Mists.

Professor Compiagni and his niece Sophia were embarking on their latest quest for that mythical creature Homo Sapiens, so called Thinking Man.

All of his years working at Universities and for Government Departments had done nothing to prove that such a creature truly existed, but his lifetime quest went on.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       April 4th 1918

Somewhere in East Africa

Leaving the trading post at Port St James, the adventurers set off.

     They knew that the journey would be a dangerous one,The Terrain was hostile, The flora and Fauna likewise, Some of the Native tribes were rumoured to be friendly, but others  like The Ama Zoni, and the Sushi, who were rumoured the eat their victims raw, were not. 

Very little was known of the Pygmy tribes, The Neehi and The Nowusime,   Much of their journey would be where no man had gone before.

The first part of their journey would however follow the trail of Hans and Heinrich Doppelganger, the Twin Archaeologists who had  come this way looking for the elusive mojo, possession of which was thought to grant great power to the holder.

After a few hours they came across a small herd of antelope.

A native hunting party had also spotted the antelope and were herding them against the river bank. The party eased off on their engines,not wishing to alarm the herd and draw the wrath of the natives.       
 


As the party drifted past the Sophia waved and the natives more interested in the hunt responded with a quick wave before commencing their kill.

    A little further on and a Buffalo could be seen drinking, Notoriously bad tempered, The party watched warily as they steamed past.

 Continuing on, very little could be seen. The jungle was alive with sound, and they knew that their progress was being watched by many unseen eyes.

      By mid afternoon the party had settled in to a routine of watching as the banks of the river lazily drifted past.

 When they were beginning to look for a place where they could safely camp for the night, suddenly the engine on the second boat began to misfire, and they were forced to drift back downstream until a spot could be found to moor and repair the fault.
   As it turned out a simple enough job, cleaning out the fuel line.
But it was almost dark by the time the task was finished.
Camp was made and a restless night followed.


The Journey will continue.

Musket armed natives....

slowly working my way through bits for this project - few musket armed natives completed