I was just checking in for any comments when I realized that it was December 20th of last year that I made my first blog post. Time sure has flown, looking over my month-by-month breakdown for 2010, it was easy to tell when the slow and busy times at work were.
I should have a few more posts this month, later today I'll post a bare-metal shot of my space fighter fleets, and maybe some interplanetary terrain I'm rushing together to try to get in some Star Wars/5150 gaming over the holidays. I finally found a glue that works on aquarium plants!
CJR
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Pulp Monster Robot
While doing my Xmas shopping for my nephew (only 2 months old, too young to introduce to miniatures...yet), I found in the clearance section a T-700 toy from the last Terminator movie. After hemming and hawing, I decided it would make a good giant Nazi robot for pulp gaming. Here it is, with and without its gun, with the Shadow (from Pulp Figures) for scale:
If not the Nazis, here's another classic story it could fit into: The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham
If not the Nazis, here's another classic story it could fit into: The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
More from Shapeways
It's hard to tell if I should place the blame on Shapeways, for giving me a one-day 10% off coupon a few weeks ago, or Steelonsand for his recent blog posts about his Battlestar Galactica project. Anyway, now that I've switched to sci-fi mode and have two tables covered with spacehips - fleet scale and fighter scale - I'll post some stuff in revenge.
While searching for new items from the Shapeways/Star Ranger crowd of companies, I found a new shop doing not-Trek stuff:
These are the basic Heavy Cruisers of legend, and are pretty sweetly detailed. The "alien heavy cruiser" has already had its basecoat applied, I find it helps somewhat with the slightly roughness of the White/Strong/Flexible material (which is still way cheaper than the other materials). Coincidently, Klingon Armada and Romulan Armada (licenced Starmada variants in the Starfleet Battles Universe) just made their way to the E23 Warehouse for digital ordering, so now I have a game to go with them, although I'll be tweaking the ship stats to bring them more in line with the TV series. The Armadas are set in the General War (SFU)/post-movie (TV) era, and I'd like to scale them back.
And then for my super-VSF project, using Iron Stars, I picked up Objects May Appear's Gothic Space Fortress. It's an expensive bugger, but the discount helped, and it's awesome. I think the Germans are getting it, but I'll see.
And then for Land Ironclads, also part of the VSF-unity, I picked up (from left to right) some self-propelled superguns (going to the French), a monster ironclad, going to the Turks, and well, the gingerbread house from hell. I'm going to make it the largest possible ironclad in the game, all tricked out with options, but of course it'll be stationary, so maybe some sort of battlefield HQ.
So all this madness, and the fact I'm spending so much time prepping and so little painting, has made me consider establishing a theme for 2011 around painting and terrain, and that's it. Only a few essential purchases (mainly terrain), and no more prepping until I've cleared the backlog that's currently prepped, for a year. More on this in a future post, as I establish my rules.
While searching for new items from the Shapeways/Star Ranger crowd of companies, I found a new shop doing not-Trek stuff:
These are the basic Heavy Cruisers of legend, and are pretty sweetly detailed. The "alien heavy cruiser" has already had its basecoat applied, I find it helps somewhat with the slightly roughness of the White/Strong/Flexible material (which is still way cheaper than the other materials). Coincidently, Klingon Armada and Romulan Armada (licenced Starmada variants in the Starfleet Battles Universe) just made their way to the E23 Warehouse for digital ordering, so now I have a game to go with them, although I'll be tweaking the ship stats to bring them more in line with the TV series. The Armadas are set in the General War (SFU)/post-movie (TV) era, and I'd like to scale them back.And then for my super-VSF project, using Iron Stars, I picked up Objects May Appear's Gothic Space Fortress. It's an expensive bugger, but the discount helped, and it's awesome. I think the Germans are getting it, but I'll see.
And then for Land Ironclads, also part of the VSF-unity, I picked up (from left to right) some self-propelled superguns (going to the French), a monster ironclad, going to the Turks, and well, the gingerbread house from hell. I'm going to make it the largest possible ironclad in the game, all tricked out with options, but of course it'll be stationary, so maybe some sort of battlefield HQ.
So all this madness, and the fact I'm spending so much time prepping and so little painting, has made me consider establishing a theme for 2011 around painting and terrain, and that's it. Only a few essential purchases (mainly terrain), and no more prepping until I've cleared the backlog that's currently prepped, for a year. More on this in a future post, as I establish my rules.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Jealousy Will Get You Nowhere
There's been a lot of blog posts and tutorials etc. about using CD's as bases for terrain and scenics, and I've been trying to collect CD's where and when possible, including making the sad decision that some of my computer games from the early 1990's were never going to get played again. However, even after that cull, I still had less than 20 CD's to get to work on.
But problem solved! During a re-carpeting at work, someone mentioned that during the clean-up to get his office cleared, he'd thrown out a couple of hundred CD's of an old annual report. I immediately raided the garbage, and am now set up for terrain bases for life! Life, I tell you!
And I think the storage towers can be used as a scenic in their own right, with a bit of work.
But problem solved! During a re-carpeting at work, someone mentioned that during the clean-up to get his office cleared, he'd thrown out a couple of hundred CD's of an old annual report. I immediately raided the garbage, and am now set up for terrain bases for life! Life, I tell you!
And I think the storage towers can be used as a scenic in their own right, with a bit of work.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Mars and Spears
So at least this time Mars and spears could have some relationship, but in this instance they actually don't, other than being what I spent a chunk of the weekend on.
On the Mars front, I scored big this weekend at a local used book store. I had most of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series already, but was missing 4 novels in the middle of the series. I went to the store on a hunt for a few items, and asked the clerk on hand if I could go through the "Burroughs crate" - some prolific authors get their own box rather than go on the shelves. Going through the crate there were the usual bazillion Tarzan novels, which I read as a kid and still have a bunch of, and some Pellucidar stories I was missing, which was a minor score, and some one-offs that look cool. But no Mars novels and no Venus novels (I was short the first and the last of that series).
However, as I was going to pay, the store owner came back and was there to ring me up, when he saw I'd been through the Burroughs crate, he said he had a new box of Burroughs that he hadn't even inventoried or priced yet, and was I interested? After the polite version of a "hell yeah", I got my mitts on the new arrivals, and found ALL 4 of the Mars novels I was missing, and the last of the Venus series (The Wizard of Venus).
Conveniently enough, I've been prepping some 28mm "not" John Carter of Mars figures, mainly from Parroom Station, but also new arrivals from Tinman Miniatures. Here's a sampling of Parroom's White Ape, Banth, and John Carter, and Tinman's Woola.
You can see in the background some of the other stuff I've been prepping - apes on motorcycles, not-Space Marines, pulp figures, and 18C India for skirmishing...
Which brings me to the spears. I have Freikorp's 15mm History of India range on the go for that skirmish project, and the generic spearmen need spears. After some reading on TMP, I tried to make my own with some brass wire (I had florist wire on hand as backup) and I was surprisingly successful, they actually look like spears!
As always, the pictures can be clicked to bring up larger versions.
On the Mars front, I scored big this weekend at a local used book store. I had most of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series already, but was missing 4 novels in the middle of the series. I went to the store on a hunt for a few items, and asked the clerk on hand if I could go through the "Burroughs crate" - some prolific authors get their own box rather than go on the shelves. Going through the crate there were the usual bazillion Tarzan novels, which I read as a kid and still have a bunch of, and some Pellucidar stories I was missing, which was a minor score, and some one-offs that look cool. But no Mars novels and no Venus novels (I was short the first and the last of that series).
However, as I was going to pay, the store owner came back and was there to ring me up, when he saw I'd been through the Burroughs crate, he said he had a new box of Burroughs that he hadn't even inventoried or priced yet, and was I interested? After the polite version of a "hell yeah", I got my mitts on the new arrivals, and found ALL 4 of the Mars novels I was missing, and the last of the Venus series (The Wizard of Venus).
Conveniently enough, I've been prepping some 28mm "not" John Carter of Mars figures, mainly from Parroom Station, but also new arrivals from Tinman Miniatures. Here's a sampling of Parroom's White Ape, Banth, and John Carter, and Tinman's Woola.
You can see in the background some of the other stuff I've been prepping - apes on motorcycles, not-Space Marines, pulp figures, and 18C India for skirmishing...Which brings me to the spears. I have Freikorp's 15mm History of India range on the go for that skirmish project, and the generic spearmen need spears. After some reading on TMP, I tried to make my own with some brass wire (I had florist wire on hand as backup) and I was surprisingly successful, they actually look like spears!
As always, the pictures can be clicked to bring up larger versions.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
2 and 3mm Scenics (WiP)
The last few weeks have been spent basing some 2mm Star Wars and 18th century India figures (possible the the widest gaps in interest one can imagine), but on the painting table my poor Vietnam project has been pushed to the side, literally, for some scenic pieces from Irregular (2mm) and Simply 6 (3mm). These are still being finished, but here's an early peek at them.
Since the manor on the right is actually intended as a plantation house for my Vietnam project, I guess the little guys can't complain too much.
The one on the left is for some TBD European project.
And I also have some 3mm ruins from Simply 6 for city-fighting in Vietnam, still working on how to achieve depth to the rubble. There are four in total, these two are to be "concrete", the other two will be the typical white buildings that seem to be common in pictures of Tet (or at least the Osprey version).
The Star Wars project gets its first piece with an ion cannon base for the Battle of Hoth:
And for good measure, a missile base for a temperate world...
On to 18th century India, for which I'm using both of Irregular's "mid-east" pieces as a town and village respectively...
I plan on getting two more of these and doing them in more of a Northwest Frontier paint scheme. These two are for more tropical India.
I also have a cathedral and castle from Irregular underway. The red base around the cathedral is an attempt to show red cobblestones, hopefully drybrushing and a wash help pull out the details. Interestingly, while searching online for photos of a cathedral to base a paint scheme on, I found which cathedral this seems to be based on - that of Cologne.
And finally, here's a couple shots of a fantasy castle, in near-2mm scale, that came from some knick-knack store a long time ago. I think I remember what town I bought it in, but I'm not really sure of what store. This was way before I took up miniatures again, and before I even knew of 2mm as a scale, I just picked it up as a trinket, along with some little dragon figurines. Realizing it could serve a better purpose as a scenic bit, I stuck it to a base and am giving it a go. The hills and grass need some work, as do the boulders in the stream, otherwise I think it looks pretty good. And has given me a whole new appreciation for knick-knack stores...need to do some hunting for some of its brethren!
Since the manor on the right is actually intended as a plantation house for my Vietnam project, I guess the little guys can't complain too much.
The one on the left is for some TBD European project. And I also have some 3mm ruins from Simply 6 for city-fighting in Vietnam, still working on how to achieve depth to the rubble. There are four in total, these two are to be "concrete", the other two will be the typical white buildings that seem to be common in pictures of Tet (or at least the Osprey version).
The Star Wars project gets its first piece with an ion cannon base for the Battle of Hoth:
And for good measure, a missile base for a temperate world...
On to 18th century India, for which I'm using both of Irregular's "mid-east" pieces as a town and village respectively...
I plan on getting two more of these and doing them in more of a Northwest Frontier paint scheme. These two are for more tropical India.I also have a cathedral and castle from Irregular underway. The red base around the cathedral is an attempt to show red cobblestones, hopefully drybrushing and a wash help pull out the details. Interestingly, while searching online for photos of a cathedral to base a paint scheme on, I found which cathedral this seems to be based on - that of Cologne.
And finally, here's a couple shots of a fantasy castle, in near-2mm scale, that came from some knick-knack store a long time ago. I think I remember what town I bought it in, but I'm not really sure of what store. This was way before I took up miniatures again, and before I even knew of 2mm as a scale, I just picked it up as a trinket, along with some little dragon figurines. Realizing it could serve a better purpose as a scenic bit, I stuck it to a base and am giving it a go. The hills and grass need some work, as do the boulders in the stream, otherwise I think it looks pretty good. And has given me a whole new appreciation for knick-knack stores...need to do some hunting for some of its brethren!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Well, in a fit of something, possibly stupidity
I started another blog: Mahindya 1750 for my 18th century Imagi-nations set in a fictional Indian sub-continent.
The introductory post there pretty much explains everything. I set it up separately so it would have a clear lineage, rather than the clutter that is here. I may have to do this with some other projects too, eventually - Kull comes to mind.
I also made it separate to give it a different look and feel. I was actually trying for more of a newspaper look, but maybe I'll save that for more contemporary projects, AK-47 Africa or Back of Beyond stuff. The look now does have a sort of old-world feel, me thinks anyway.
The introductory post there pretty much explains everything. I set it up separately so it would have a clear lineage, rather than the clutter that is here. I may have to do this with some other projects too, eventually - Kull comes to mind.
I also made it separate to give it a different look and feel. I was actually trying for more of a newspaper look, but maybe I'll save that for more contemporary projects, AK-47 Africa or Back of Beyond stuff. The look now does have a sort of old-world feel, me thinks anyway.
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