Safari Ltd Toys for Mighty Joe Young Pulp Gaming

The local Jo-Ann Fabric craft store in their clearance section has been blowing out toy figures from Safari Ltd. I left the fairy princess, sorcerer, and other such human figures for kids who would appreciate playing with them, but I did grab the two Lowland Gorilla Males they had, paying only .99 cents each instead of the $7 retail for each.

Being a fan of everything pulp I right away thought of the classic 1949 Ray Harryhausen movie, Mighty Joe Young. I figured the size of the gorillas would work well with 25mm-28mm figures and was right. The photo below shows the toys with some of my figures. Ok so the Soviets are not in the film, but the film sure does have enough cowboy explorers in it. (A nice part of Western gaming is that you can use many of the figures in Wild West shootouts, Africa exploration, mummy hunting, and more--something people overlook.)

I'm thinking about repainting the gorillas, but they look pretty good as they are for now. However, they are glossy toys. I've thought of shooting them with some Dullcote, but I've heard on other forums that Dullcote can have a bad reaction with vinyl figures if the Dullcote contacts the vinyl (A while back I sprayed some Star Wars miniatures with no ill effect, so take that for what it's worth.) Perhaps brush matte varnish would be just as good?

Oh yeah, over the weekend I also picked up a toy elephant from a local thrift store, paying only $1, which at the moment seems to be my favorite price point! Now all I need are the Sergeants 3 pack and some Thuggees from Pulp Figures, and I can game Gunga Din, which I watched for the first time a few weeks ago on TMC. (BTW that project is on the burner.) So keep your eyes out for cool and cheap toy animals, monsters, dragons, and the such for gaming.

I think these scale great. With 15mm pulp figures, you can use the gorilla as King Kong.