"Was The Blob Creature Some Sort Of Giant Amoeba?" Topic

It sure seemed to behave like one, don't you think?

Anyway, how would you represent the movement and spread of such a creature on, say, a terrain board for smaller scales (like 15mm or even 10mm)?

Would you just use the top section of a vinyl or rubber toy jellyfish? Would you just add more of those, next to each other, as the blob grows? Or would you have other suggestions?*

Anyone ever tried gaming The Blob?

Dan
* My lovely wife suggested simply using colored plastic wrap. :)

Here was a game…

link

Chalfant

And here was Doc Merkury's method for building his Globs…
link

Chalfant

play dough with wires in it should do fine. Jello might be better but cleaning that up would be a nightmare

Chalfant

Those look incredible! Genius!!!

Dan

:)

Chalfant

It's just a big glob of snot.

They sacrificed the "wino" to the globs. Classic !

YouTube link

In our blob games, as the creature is successful with close combat kills (mostly the only way the blob kills in most games), it grows.

The basic blob is a wadded up ball of coloured cellophane wrap. (You can get lots of colours at Christmas and Easter, or any time if you have a big enough grocery store.) As you progress, wrap more cellophane around it until you get the right diameter. You can also occasionally embed a figure or small terrain piece in it.

Some blobs can split. We make those as multiple little balls of cellophane, and wrap them up in a larger sheet. Then you unwrap them and split the bits.

This also works for bits of cotton batting as "The Mist" kaiju.

Etotheipi: "The basic blob is a wadded up ball of coloured cellophane wrap"

Lol. That's exactly what my wife suggested! She said it needed to look like it was still a single organism whenever it grew.

Maybe I need to listen to her even more than I already do.

Dan

I'd say corporate Slime mold.

But I'm a biologist :)

maybe try making plain finger jello I know we made jello shots takes 3-5 gelatin mix to water to make vodka shots go solid

Hmm. What if … instead of metal washers or standard bases like in the picture, one were to use clear acrylic ones?

auction

Also, does anyone make truly clear hot glue? Or crystal clear silicone glue? Or are all of them cloudy/milky?

Dan

It creeps,and leaps,it moves and slides across the floor….;^)

My grandkids play with a substance called thinking putty. For my birthday they gave me a can of it. It works great as a blob for D&D and I don't see why you could not use it for "the Blob" of movie fame. It does not stick much to stuff so you can have it around your figures.

puttyworld.com

Wow! That putty is a strange material for sure.

The idea of "tentacles" or tendrils makes even more sense, as I watch clips of the blob movies. Here's the 1958 one:

link

Dan

This is the REAL blob!

Landorl

That's exactly how I feel too. The 1958 version is THE only one that matters to me. :)

Dan

Every year they have a Blobfest in Phoenixville, including a movie run out….
facebook.com/BlobFest

they close a street, have vendors, music, costume contest.
I mean its a simple thing, but we are close enough to it that its worth going to. Not that any of that helps your game.

Chalfant

I recall reading about a "scientifically plausible" Blob years ago and they figured it would be a colony creature (Yes, the jellyfish analogue is not far off) made up of several organisms living in harmony, some produce stuff like acids and other chemicals to break down organic matter while others provided motility and the system absorbed organic matter, recycling it into new organisms that helped to make it grow increasingly larger without straining it like it would a single creature.

So it has elements that make it move, a "digestive" system and probably some rudimentary "sense" like touch and maybe microscopic tendrils that allow it to sense nearby movement through air currents and has a reflexive move to reach out and grab anything that isn't a steady air current.

Jellyfish can be extremely complex with advanced features so the Blob is an unlikely but not impossible monster. It's still far more realistic than bus-sized ants for example.

The Blob wasn't supposed to be analyzed. It was a satire. I saw it when I was a kid, and I knew that it wasn't supposed to be really scary when I heard the lyrics to the song that played during the opening credits. I understood it for what it was and had a lot of fun watching it. Similarly, "Invasion of the Saucer Men" was a satire on "the little green men from outer space", but it took me a little longer to catch on.

Shadow: "The Blob wasn't supposed to be analyzed. It was a satire."

I also watched it on TV as a little kid, of 7 years of age or so. However, because I didn't know a word of English at the time, I had no idea what the song was about. We wouldn't be moving to the States yet for another 4 years.

So the Blob was all very real to me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

Dan

I wonder … Here's a couple of questions for you hot glue experts:

What if for the "tentacles", instead of using a solid stick of "clear" hot glue stick, one were to inset a long thin sandwich of stick slivers, with a red color glue stick sliver at the core of that?

Would that come out any better than adding paint to the surface of the hot glue? Would it come out looking like some sort of swirl pattern?

Dan

Another option would be to use some of the clear/translucent silicon sealant (the stuff you use for sealing plumbing joins), possibly with a little ink swirled into it.

Good idea! Hopefully I'll find a crystal clear sealant.

Thanks

Dan

We got a cheap green and glitter glue stick at a local emporium. I mix it with normal "clear' glue sticks from the $2 USD Shop. Just squirt it out in blobs and because it's cheap, it stings easily.
Goes well for the Green Goo figs from Khurasan
YouTube link

Deflatermouse

That trailer is hilarious. I love it.

Dan

Made me the man I am today…