One of captain Morley’s soft spots is exotic animals. As such, he keeps a small menagerie aboard The Chaste Magpie. One of his most prized specimen is Bil the radipus – a curiosity he picked up on the former penal colony of Anatinus Prime.
Radipus Bil – cute, cuddly and horribly wrong
The radipus (or Radiathorhynkhos Paradoxus) is a lethal but docile creature. A fully grown specimen can fire radioactive blasts from its snout, but will normally only do so if threatened. Their eggs, however, are highly explosive and will detonate if touched by anything not emitting the radiation signature of its mother. Fried radipus egg is amongst the most exclusive meals you can have in the sector.
Have at ’em lad!
The model is an old platypus model from (now sadly defunct) Mega Miniatures. I’ve had it for yonks but with my current interest in Pulp Alley I have actual need of little, unassuming models to fill the inevitable 1 point follower gap in the standard league of leader, sidekick and three allies.
Speaking of followers – I have enabled a few features with a new plugin (thank you Jetpack – everybody should run it if they have a standalone WordPress installation). You can now either follow the blog and receive email notifications whenever I post new content – or you can subscribe to comment threads. So far, I have two followers so please – don’t be shy! Kudos to headhead and cheetor for being the first two.
Also, speaking of platipii – check out Random Platypus. It’s to Frothers like Zero is to Coke or Max is to Pepsi. Only less vile tasting.
The best part of painting this silly little thing is I had to do some research. Here are a few examples of the great things you can find if you google for “space platypus”.
From deviantART
More deviantART – now with udder!
And some general platypus propaganda – just because it’s rather great!
And for the cute overload fan in you – shar pei with beaks!
I suspect more Spacelords in a near future – but before that I’ll do more of the “completely different” thing.
NOW you are talking my language. Brilliant. Very 2000AD and RT. Good job on the painting too. I wouldnt have had that sort of restraint if painting something called a “space radipus”. It would have ended up electric blue or acid green or something.
If you have any spare duplicates of any of those odd Mega Minis animals then drop me a line. I may have a spare flamingo once I have decorated my space rednecks trailer :D
I do miss Mega Minis, even if the shipping took the lustre off ordering from them towards the end. Stupid shipping.
Thanks Paul – glad you liked it. Not surprised though. =) Space rednecks sounds intriguing!
I agree the radipus turned out surprisingly subdued in colour. I was toying with the idea of doing blue streaks on it too – but decided not to. Figured it’d turn out too blue. Settled for a blue wash over the grey and white and then finished off with white streaks.
Next thing to finish painting is the astro badger… he’ll be a bit more colourful.
I do have a surplus platypus somewhere… I’ll get back to you on that.
A surplus platypus sounds like the job. LMK whenever.
Inspired work! Looking forward to seeing more of your Sci Fi project.
Cheers Gareth! Glad you like them. I have more crap like Bil coming up – but also a bit of fantasy that I’m finishing up that was more or less done. Then, it’s on to a few more space soldier guys.