State of Decay: A Favorite Doctor Who Story

"I never drink...WINE"

I enjoy gothic stuff a lot, so a recent request to my brother to pull the classic Dr. Who episode 'State of Decay' from his vast library and pay a visit proved to be particularly satisfying during this pre-Halloween time of the year (in spite of me falling asleep on the last episode).

(Oh, by the way, this post has got sod-all to do with minis)

I like this one so much because of the tasteful blend of science fiction and gothic themes, and its ability to conduct the combination so well into the final product. The design is particularly neat and the Vampire Lords who feature as the first-tier villains would made excellent minis (Uh oh, in addition to the Gibbering Mouther I'm trying to make progress on now I ponder the idea of doing my first humanoid sculpts of the Vampires...).

The above screen-grab came from the Doctor Who Reviews page on this episode.

Creature Comforts, the Overall Environment

My fanaticism with miniatures goes back a long way, to childhood, and because of that the hobby factors into a larger suite of similarly themed creature-comforts (no pun intended) that make me feel right at home, giving a sense of security. But many are all inspired to the same theme, a fantasy, swords-and-sorcerer type environment that was really heavy in the 70s and 80s.

Just imagine an Autumn night in an American suburb, homework done, Judas Priest on the record player, a little time spent painting some minis, watch a movie like Dragonslayer or Conan on the VHS, eat some cookies, fall asleep dreaming about medieval weapons, types of dragons, how a crossbow works... etc.

If you share this same type of sentimentality you need to buy and read the book Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf(and if you're reading this you've probably already read the book).

His story is his own, and gets a little heavy at times because of his situation growing up, but everyone who has ever rolled some dice and drawn a dungeon on graph paper is going to find something poignant in this book. I read it a few years ago actually, and never really thought about posting this until I got a nice comment on my recent post - - - . I should probably read it again. It's fun and interesting, I'm glad he wrote it.