"An alien menagerie - painted 15mm scifi" Topic

An oddball project partly inspired by an old Traveller game, partly the result of wondering how many plausibly alien-looking bits of wildlife we had in the bits boxes around here. Turns out it was quite a few, and in digging for them I had to add a few zookeepers to go with them. Fun to play "identify the manufacturer" with them too (there's a total of seven companies represented there).

Many more photos and closeups on the ebay auction here:

auction

Very cool looking stuff! And the all seem to so friendly!
Bob

Nice doggies nice…

Awesome stuff!

Wow !!!!!

Impressive work!!!

On the top pic, what's that figure on the far left?

Dan

Dan, that figure comes packed with the RAFM Moonbeast: link

I think it's supposed to be a juvenile Moonbeast.

That looks great. The guy scratching his head is perfect, like 'How the hell am I going to catch all these critters?'

Alternately "What the heck is that thing?"

Think he's actually one of GZG's not-Firefly crew, but I might be wrong, got him in a swap ages back.

Great herd of aliens!

Are they animals or people?

Reminds me of an old Sci-fi story where the humans board an alien ship where the crew have hidden themselves in cages to blend with their cargo of exotic beasts. Nothing seems to make logic sense until a bright spark works out the alien crew are an symbiotic relationship between 2 of the "specimens".

Know the story? Who was it written by?

I remember the story, but not the title or author. Haven't read it since college. Interesting concept.

Great painting.

Very nicely painted figures. I se they are up for auction on Ebay.

Thank you for posting this. I immediately thought of CC's posting about a Ark in Space.
TMP link
crash-landing near a town near you.

I'm not the fastest thinking fellow around but it finally dropped for me.

So I picked though my stuff and can get a few movies I mean games with the stuff inspired by these two links.
Thanks again TMPers.

My son wants to throw it all into one mega game, but I'm happier with smaller linked scenarios.
I do like the idea of the crew hiding amongst the exhibits.

I also think the Moon Beast should have traits similar to an elephant or a giraffe. A large, mostly harmless herbivore.
Which can jump like a flea proportionally to it's size.
Need a few little fellows which are the real nasty's.
Thanks again.

deflatermouse, just because an animal is a herbivore does not mean that they are not dangerous, e.g. hippos, cape buffalo.

Many large herbivores are more dangerous than predator species, not less. Carnivores usually only attack if they think you're edible, and many of them have very specific dietary preferences that make them ignore animals outside their usual ecological niche. Herbivores are often viciously territorial and downright paranoid about defending themselves from anything that's big enough to be perceived as a threat.

Of course, almost animal will fight to protect its nest/mate/offspring, or if it feels cornered or threatened. That isn't likely to change in alien environments. The definition of "threatened" could be pretty weird, though. Imagine a species that communicates by radio emissions, and considers mechanical transmitters an intolerable provocation (or worse, a mating call).

I've been informed that there was a complaint regarding my posting an auction link in a painting gallery thread. I've asked Bill to remove the thread (along with several others that are formatted similarly) entirely to avoid giving further offense, but if he doesn't do so, consider this a public apology.

In the future I will restrict all my posting solely to the Market boards for the duration of my supporting membership.

Yes I know all about hippos as we encountered them closely in Ethiopia.
And where we were in Kenya was surrounded by an anti-hippo ditch.
I was tending towards to "nice" herbivores but don't get too close.
Working on the belief that the bigger it is on the table the bigger the threat it is. (Shoot the big ones first.)

I'm glad you shared here as I would have missed the market boards. Thank you.

a mating call?, now that is a good new angle.

Excellent Painting!