WarZone 1st Edition: Jake Kramer – Capitol Hero

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WarZone 1st Edition: Jake Kramer - Capitol Hero, Heartbreaker Hobbies

Today we have another figure from my archives that just needed a small amount of touching up (and rebasing) to be restored and good enough for the 2018 table. The Warzone hero, Jake Kramer. For those familiar with Warzone, and especially first edition, you may recall that Jake is a hero from the Capitol faction, which is the U.S.A.-themed one. The more observant of you will probably have noticed the great big Union Flag taking up most of Jake’s shirt, under his jacket. I can’t recall the exact reasoning behind this, though it would safely have been one of two reasons:

  1. I thought Jake was Imperial, because to me he just looks Stereotypically British to me with those muttonchops.
  2. I thought the model looked Stereotypically British with those muttonchops, and since I didn’t play Imperial nor Capitol I just painted it that way because I didn’t give a fuck about using it “properly” in one of my forces, so it was just a model to paint.

Both great reasons, I’m sure you’ll agree. 🙂

WarZone 1st Edition: Jake Kramer - Capitol Hero, Heartbreaker Hobbies

For those people interested in picking up this figure (I get quite a few messages when I post WarZone models asking me if I want to sell anything) – this guy is still available from Prince August for just a few Eurobucks.

25 thoughts on “WarZone 1st Edition: Jake Kramer – Capitol Hero”

  1. Fantastic painting on this figure, with Victorian Britain having a lot of mutton chops I can see your thinking, although in modern times seen more in the USA on bikers and wrestlers than in the UK

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    • Yeah, much of WarZone (particularly 1st & 2nd edition) has a strong WWI-era vibe, especially in factions like Imperial and Capitol, so it’s part of that early-20th Century look.

      Muttonchops on wrestlers aren’t an especially common (visible) thing with Triple H of several years ago in his Lemmy Cosplay period being the most high profile I can think of since NWA-era Harley Race. Fu-Manchu moustaches on the other hand have Rick Steiner, Billy Graham, Hogan… though none of those are super current either. For bikers outside of the American Chopper guy. I’m sure there are a lot of other bikers, but they’re not exactly high profile media figures, and today they often tend to look a lot different to the 70’s and 80’s look anyway. They’re just not worn by *anyone* much these days! 🙂

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      • I missed that one, but yeah. Wearing them to be “ironic”. I did have a set myself for about a week as a piss-take a few years ago because a someone at work and I were talking about Lemmy and Motorhead, so I shaved the middle of my beard out over the weekend. Still, it was clearly a joke and then my beard grew back in, so it was all good here. 😉

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  2. On the one hand you’ve done an excellent job there, and managing to freehand that flag onto an awkward area like that is extremely impressive. It’s just unfortunate that for me, living where I do, that particular flag has such strong associations of bigotry and unpleasantness and so I needed to work quite hard to see beyond my knee-jerk reaction to it to appreciate the piece itself. Still very skillful work though 🙂

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      • I’m in Scotland. I could dig into the politics and history of it all for you if you wanted but it could easily get a bit long and political, and it’s not really relevant to the model – just to my gut reaction to the flag.

        In brief there’s been an ongoing polarisation in Scotland (existing for a long time but very much increasing at the moment) between those who seek a return to independence and those who think we should continue to be ruled from Westminster. Time was, even just a few years ago, you could find reasonable discussion and debate on both sides but latterly the “Unionist”/anti-independence side has been more and more defined by the politics of hate. A decade ago if you saw someone walking down the street wearing a Union Jack shirt you’d just think “what a tasteless shirt – did he get dressed in the dark?” whereas nowadays it feels a lot more sinister. Generally if a person wore something like that now, or flew a Unionist flag, they’re making an aggressive political statement in favour of British nationalism and almost without exception that person will turn out to also be a supporter of causes like Brexit and groups like Britain First, the EDL (English Defence League) and other causes that push a hard-right/anti-immigrant/anti-foreigner/anti-Catholic/anti-Muslim/homophobic/etc stance.

        I’m pro-Independence myself but I’m not here to push a political stance, just describing the way things are here now. Every issue is complex and there were plenty of reasonable, good-hearted people on the other side (including some very good friends of mine) but they feel they’ve been marginalised from their own movement by the bigots and most of them have either swung to the pro-Indy side or just lost hope (or they’re keeping quite because they don’t want people to think they’re bigots too). It’s a shame because things like that rob us all by taking away the nuance of political discussion but it’s the way things are changing across the UK now, politicians on the Unionist side are tending to abandon the middle-ground and show more support for the hardliners.

        Like I say it doesn’t take away at all from the skill of what you’ve done (seriously, I’m a bit jealous of the talent it took to do that!). Plus he’s intended as Imperial which says a lot about how the wider world regards the British Nationalists (although if senior politicians will insist on describing Scotland and Ireland as “colonies” and talking about trade relations with the rest of the globe as “Empire 2.0” then they’ve got no-one to blame but themselves 😉 ). I actually wondered if you’d done it as a bit of a pastiche or political satire.

        Anyway, my apologies, I said I wasn’t going to ramble on and now I have! 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      • Fair enough. I’m reasonably well aware of the history there for a Iayman from the other side of the globe. I genuinely thought you guys were about to secede from the Union in the past few years (or the next few, because Brexit).

        The flag part of this model was actually painted in the 1990’s, so it’s got more in common with WZ Imperial=British and Ginger Spice’s fashion choices than anything currently in the news!

        Dickheads (both left and right) try to do similar things with the Australian flag here in terms of politicising it, though I tend to think that people on the left who aren’t ashamed of being Australian should use it and not allow it to become a symbol of the idiot right.

        The ones who are ashamed to be Australian or don’t like it here should fuck off elsewhere and be happy there. Being happy or proud to be Australian doesn’t mean you need to support the dickheads in government or think the country has done no wrong in the past, but it does mean a commitment to making it better in some way and seeing that there’s a lot of good here as well rather than taking the facebook-leftist-lazy solution of simply renouncing everything while sipping their lattes and eating avocado for brunch..

        I might sound like a right-winger there, but far from it. I’m born and bred son-of-a-hard-working-immigrant and an Australian woman working class-left. Not poser-trendy-whiny-cunt left. 😉

        Liked by 1 person

      • Interesting take, I was not aware of the depths of animus in the UK (and despite having been Australian born and bred I’m a UK citizen too). I would describe myself as centre-right (or libertarian conservative) but I do have a healthy respect for the old school left wingers. At least we can all agree poser-trendy-whiny-cunt-left are wankers! 😉

        Liked by 1 person

      • They do play a lot of Assassins Creed over there, I understand. :p
        I’d hope that we can both agree that an uncomfortably large number of people on all sides of politics are wankers. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

    • I don’t have any idea if it’d be a popular figure or not, but pointing out that people can still buy it (and where) helps out those people who tend to like tracking down models from this range. Because I ain’t selling this one. 🙂

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    • Thanks Alex. I quite like painting that particular “pattern”, as it’s got a nice aesthetic look with the colours and symmetry, while being complex enough that I have to concentrate on what I’m doing.

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  6. That is great. Mutton chops have the alternate name of “bugger’s grips” as I like to tell my mate when he grows them (he is a Napoleonic re-enactor).

    Seriously though that union flag shirt is very well done.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thanks mate. When I have a dry spell I don’t end up posting much, but then when I get stuff painted I prefer to give models or sets of models their own posts rather than posting less frequent mega-posts with disparate stuff in them. Ebbs and flows based on how much I’m getting done – so the next few days will be busy!

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  8. “I’m looking for a blonde in a Union Jack.”
    “You’re a couple of decades too late, dude. He’s gone grey.” 😉

    Honestly, the Union Flag there looked like it suits him perfectly to me. I also like the flames on his gun, and then how the green on the gun and the coat tie the whole thing together. In addition to the chops, his eyebrows are so epic that it looks like he’s managed a full 360 degree ring of remaining hair!

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