Lesbian zombies attack IKEA

I survived my chest infection without any xenomorphs bursting through it, and apparently have not become undead.  Has anyone here actually eaten brains?  I have to say I am curious.  If they are nice, then sod becoming an apocalypse survivor, I am gonna get myself bit and have me a bit of a nom nom nom zom rom com fest.

Seriously though, It was touch and go there for a bit.  The doctor was 'very concerned', had me on hospital standby and I had a lot of scary tests.  I was actually scared.  Tough couple of months.

On a lighter note, I always find it amusing when the X Ray technician asks...

 'So Ms. King, are you sure you are not pregnant?'

'Yes'

'Are you certain?'

'Yes'

'Really?'

'I'm a lesbian.'

(Pause)

'Oh.  Ohhhhh.  Okie dokey then'.

Today is the day my IKEA desk arrived!!! This officially puts me back in action vis-a-vis miniature stuff.  I am sooo itching to paint stuff!

Oh god, maybe I am just itching from the zombification process.
 Crap.  Oh well, brains it is.

Laney's Desk in Laney's Lair.  Plus Laney's suitcase she lived out of for a year.

P.S- yes, that is all four Rey pops! and a Spidergwen.  Quorra from Tron II is on the left, and a Reaper Bones Nethermaul sits on my sculpting box.

PPS- yes, that is a Tron II mousemat.

PPPS- yes, that is the latest CD from Garbage!!!  I swoon for Shirley.

PPPPS- I am kinda prepared for my new life as a lesbian zombie.  You should see me in the morning before coffee.

PPPPPS- I am dating TWO ginger haired bisexual classically trained opera singers of Irish descent.  How weird is that?  It's not relevant, just thought I would brag.

Next episode: "Laney actually paints something".

Hydra base redux

I am actually finding being home sick a positive experience at the moment.  It has given me a chance to wind down and tackle some of my niggling little real world life stuff, like unpack the suitcase I have been living out of for nearly a year into my wardrobe, sort my prescriptions out, file some files in filey places. 

 Thank you all again for saving me from homelessness by donating to my GoFundMe which got me in front of my current employers.  Now I am earning my way back onto my feet and supporting my son.  I feel rewarded for all the years of work I put into this blog.  Thank you.

I also ventured out today to buy some warm clothes and visit the hardware store for more practical real life stuff- but never mind that bollocks.  Naturally, my hobby brain insisted I come home with a dusting brush, five minute epoxy and a wooden Kaiser craft coaster that maybe sorta might be just the ticket for my hydra.

It was.

REAPER Bones Hydra

I murdered some of the Reaper Bones Mr. skellingtons to add drama and threat to the base.  They where boring and posed the same anyway.  They died (undied? Died again? Deddered themselves moreso?) so The Mighty Hydra could come to life!

I reposed the tail upwards and around using boiling water and ice water- which is why it isn't primed and overbrushed.  It still overhangs a bit, but it should still be playable without hitting other models too much.

Not sure what colors to go for.  I was going to do a tiamat homage but I would prefer to leave that for a tiamat mini.  I want a giant, decent tiamat mini to cap off my collection- even if I have to sculpt her my thrice damned self.  So swear I on the blood of eighties cartoons that left us without and ending*!  

(*Those kids are still fucking stuck on The Dungeons & Dragons ride, tripping their balls off on whatever The Dungeon Master slipped them.  Anyway, fucking Tiamat rocked my little brain.  I have a Warduke and Uni the Unicorn mini- but will have to convert me the rest.)

For this critter I am thinking brooding dark scales with violent red accent pattern scales.  Maybe yellow to give a toxic feel.  Certainly strongly colored faces to draw attention.  Not sure yet.  All this uncertainty is giving me doubts.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Thanks to my dear friend Niohme Hatchman for keeping my head warm and googly through my illness.  We have already discussed in detail how my intersex nature makes me a child of Slaanesh.  Now I feel Tzeenchian enough to tackle that sexy, sexy Silver Tower box set soon.  :)

Check out her comics at http://www.naomihatchman.com/Bio.html

And maybe buy a hat.

Remember, Tzeench can see you.

Boning Harryhausen and Pulp

Nothing exciting today peeps- the weather in Melbourne is chilly and moist, meaning spray priming is out.

Still, progress is progress, and I have progressed with progression on the progress on... Fuck, where was I?

I dun did stuff to minis.

Reaper Bones Hydra and Cave Troll

Since it's Harryhausen's birthday (ish), bless him, I thought it time to finally base up that Reaper Bones hydra I got a while back for my Skulldred Demo Table.  A cave troll hovering about also got a based.  Considering it's Ray's day- I feel like he should be converted to a cyclops, rather than the obvious LOTR homage that he is.  I dislike LOTR, so he will not be grey when I finally paint him.

One does not simply post a meme in her blog

I am gonna heat up the hydra and repose her a little- mainly curling that tail back onto the base to make gameplay easier.

I was thinking the base needs some broken pillars or something.  I will worry about that once the hydra is painted.  I just used a CD and some cork- but it will be very boring.  Maybe some stonework or critters or treasure on there.  I will raid the Bones shelf to see what bits I can find.

Buzz Barker's Island Hoppers by Pulp Minis

Tally appears to be somewhat ho on this next picture.  Pulp Minis.  I went with the spanner option for the mechanic, since my collection has plenty of guns in it already, and maybe I feel a little uncomfortable with guns at the moment, after the whole Pulse Massacre and following bullshit gun lobbying shitfest.  I will get over it, I am sure, but I have to admit balling my fucking eyes out for a good week.

I went with Renedra Low Profile 25mm bases, they seemed swamped by my usual 30mm.

Here is a progress shot of the minis I started on.  Still a lot to do, and I am disappointed by the amount of dust in the undercoat.  That room was awful.  May just strip and do over.

Inquisitory chicky babe (in case the boob armor didn't give you a clue) and Citadel EPIC Chaos Primarch 

Welp, signing off with an older picture of me back when I was a redhead (I am goth black now)- with one of my Ray Harryhausen laser scan dolls.  Thanks for all the good times Ray, you magic man, you!

Welease tha Kwaken!

Silver Tower, death rattles and PAX Aus

Ahhh poo, this silly bitch has gone and got a secondary infection off of suspected whooping cough- so that's seven weeks of being sick.

I am crapola at looking after myself, so I am following my friends advice 'treat yourself like you where your own girlfriend'.  Huh.  Why didn't I think of that?

Well, since the doctor has confined me to stay home in the warm for a week, my meta-girlfriend-self was sooo sweet and treated me to Warhammer Quest:  Silver Tower.  Wow, she is so awesome!  Thanks me.  You're welcome me.  X

Finally a descent product from GW this year

51 minis for $250 bucks, that's actually pricing the minis at around $5 each- plus lots of card and dice and shit I will probably forget about.  Why oh why cannot citadel apply this to their main ranges?  Even $10 a mini would be... Er... Something.

Box art from Silver Tower

Look at all the gribbly monsters and Most importantly... Familiars!!!!  I freaking love familiars!!!  jes Goodwin hooked me on them back in the eighties, and I have been obsessively collecting them ever since.  Reaper, Rackham- if it's a wee diddy thing, it's on my pull list.

I will clear my small backlog first before starting it.

Gotta say, if Age of Sigmar contained these minis and a points system, it would have been a 'must have' instead of a 'what the fickety-fuck is this shitballs?'.

On that subject, the guy in the shop said he has sold zero Sigmar boxes.  Nada.  None.  Nothing.  His customers hate it.  Cabbage riding Orruks?  Nope.  Everyone is sticking to 40k or hopping over to X Wing, which I think will be my next game.  But first I must recover and get back to work.  Gotta get me a Rey flown falcon baby, because #wheresrey? Hasbro dropped the ball shaped pooch and fuck it when it comes to Rey. 

Gotta say, dating me has really raised my bar for potential future girlfriends.  I am generous, thoughtful, I understand my miniature addiction, love eighties goth music, funny, am totally freakin' gorgeous and actually can make a cup of tea to British standards (the color of he-man).

Oh, and if you would actually like to meet lil' ole me and see me model on computer things live, or get free lessons on how to, you will find me at PAX australia 2016 at the CG Spectrum booth.

I will also be on a couple of the panels, talk about my past works in character design for games (I worked on Dragonage, Civilization IV, Unreal Tournament 04, Lord of The Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and many more).  These days I mentor the next gen online.

I will also be on panels covering some of the LGBTIQAP+ and feminist issues in games- most specifically how to design female characters.

Also you may spot me at the Reaper Painting tables.  Because minis.

 <3

B.A.B with pulp in it.

Some of my new recruits have finally been based and primed.  I have only a short time left here at this house before I move again, so I wanted to have something done.  Melbourne weather isn't great for spray primers so I went with a BIG ASSED BRUSH(tm).

Back, left to right.  Swamp Dragon (grenadier) Saruman (GW), Mortarian, Angron, Magnus The Red (Citadel), Front Row: Unidentified Warzone mini, Knight (Ral Partha), Unknown snake priest, Lotr Goblin (GW)

And I added Buzz Barker's island hoppers to my collection, for my first outing into pulp.  I figure with all the dinosaurs and fishmen I have, they should have some pulp shennanigans.  Besides, the pack had a dog and a chick in it.  You know how I feel about dog and chick miniatures.  :)

Buzz Barker's Island Hoppers- (Pulp minis)

Hopefully some new paint jobs soon!

Psychohugs!

Old photos

Going through some stolen data tapes some Bothans gave to me, I found these pictures.  It has me all excited about getting through the next three months, when I can afford to get a place and ship them up.

I have a large Rogue Trader / 2000ad collection, all based on Renedra low profile bases ready for street fighting.  In addition to these beauties, I have plenty of original Warzone metals, Hassslefree and Bob Olley Sci fi to keep me pew-pewing for years.

This is an old pick when I was trying out ply bases.  Cannot wait to paint the shit out of that cow, and the 80's ninjas painted as power rangers.  Most of these where rebased to 30mm.

One of the last shots of my desk before the dark days descended.  Many Bothans died to bring me that gorgeous little Ral Partha Winged Leopard.

One or two minis here and there.

Scrap thingies for whatchamacallit hordeymcwars.

Doom chicken from Woahmawhores.  Her sister was midway through a spiderlegs conversion.  There is a thumpy claw golem thingie for the team, a Denice-negra or whatever her name is and Doomgore Angrygoth who I converted to be on an undead horse.

I am such a huge fan of warblehorlicks.

Okay, sleep now.  Hopefully I have that reoccuring dream I have where I am in this massive second hand miniatures bootsale and find a tin full of mcDeath figures.

G'night lead heads.

A gift for Ms. A

A dear friend of mine in England went under the knife yesterday.  To celebrate her surviving the NHS, I granted her one wish, like the twisted goth fairy sculptress I am.

She wished for a 90's TV version of Cyclops converted from the current Knight Games one.  

Granted, mortal!

Now my local miniature store is Mind Games in Melbourne.  They don't have the most fluid turnover in stock (their Reaper minis have desperately needed a restock for six months now) but I try and support bricks and mortar where I can.

So what are the odds they have the model as a single blister, considering it has been discontinued and rolled into a box set?

Well dayum, I rolled a natural 20.

This is my first encounter with Knight Models and I have to confess being underwhelmed.

For starters, I cannot understand why this model has seperate arms.  It is ridiculous how mini companies make gaming figures that require pinning of thin, long levers like this.  The pose it on a plane!!!  In my day it would have been a single cast.

Cyclops accidentally smells his armpits with his visor open

I also dislike the poses and proportions on almost all the models.  Harley looks kinda bored and her henchmen look like they a queuing for Killing Joke concert tickets in the rain.  I suspect I know why.  Having done the DC pitch for Arkham Asylum, I can only imagine the notes and revisions going back and forth.

Now, being the kinda woman who is rather partial to women, I thought about supporting the team and buying Batwoman (who, as you should know is the first openly lipstick lesbian character in DC history), but the pose and fragile peices stopped me dead.

This led me to daydream on the train back today.  I was thinking what an eighties Citadel licensed superhero range would look like.  Ten bucks says they would have assigned Ally Morrison to the job, and that would have been gloriously whacky.  At least he would give us decently sized heads with clear, paintable facial features (albeit with big mouth barrels) unlike Knight model's finicky pinheaded lot.

Oh well, Ms. A is an excellent mini painting mistress, I am sure she can get some character into him.

Get well soon Ms. A!

Excelsior!!!

Ral Partha Chaos Wars

Oooh, I just spotted this!!!!

Don't you see?  Don't you see the wonderfulness of this???

He is released!!!

That wierdly posed troll/ogre thingie that I could never find is now available for sale!!!!

Wooooot!

When I have money, someday, I shall buy several of these and do glorious things to them!

I have a desk! And other little miracles of existence

 I have a desk and a daylight lamp.  This means craft!

Check out these Epic Chaos Primarchs looking all based up and shit.

My flatmate jury rigged a daylight lamp strip onto an old ikea desk lamp arm for me today and we finally cleared enough room to give me a hobby space.  I am excitimicated!

(My idea of jury rigging involves gaffa tape, chord, pegs and possibly a brunette or two... but I digress.)

She is taking me up to the local mall tomorrow so I can stock up on staples like brushes, primer, windex and distilled water.  

I won my court case and my job is going well, so I will be able to get myself a secure flat nearer the city in a month or two, and that means I can finally ship my entire studio and collection up out of storage.  King's minis will be back in business again, like the old days.

These guys will no doubt follow on behind!

Epic Primarchs

It's really validating when your local game store guy pulls you aside to I.D all the figures in a box of second hand minis and an onlooker watches as you deftly seperate out by make, era, generation and box set, and proceed to match up seperate bitz and discuss how you can tell who sculpted what and why.

Shit folks, hold the phone... it's like I am an expert in something!

I miss this.  I love rummaging through second hand stalls at CanCon with my Friends, identifying shit for them and whooping with excitement when I find cool shit, like these guys...

Four sexy little Epic Primarchs.

Old school Primarchs before they became expensive resin angry men(tm)

Ooooh, you dirty little leaden bastards!

They are chillin in the stripping jar now (or at least, when I dun wrote this here post) and I will no doubt apply paint to them.

It has been about a year since I was separated from my collection.  A strange anniversary, but warming to think I shall soon have my own place and enough money to ship it all here.  Unpacking is going to be very sweet.

Nearly out of this ordeal.  Court case wrapped up (I won), credit card paid pff and a great full time job teaching people how to model digitally.

Soon this blog will return to its former glory!  

Digital green: chaosette wip

It's been a while since I have had access to a PC that can do digital sculpting.  I had a bit of a play last night and knocked out this digital green of a chaos thug.

I haven't done any 3D printed minis yet, so once I am done playing with this I want to get a few run off.

Lots to do, the proportions need to be pushed more to eighties minis to fit my theme and she probably will have some clothes, armor and more chaosy weapons. 

But hey, nice to be back making stuff.

More free stuff

Another wonderful gift arrived from my friend Kezia- who is a talented mini painter herself.

A Grenadier Swamp Dragon, Ral Partha Pegasus, Citadel and Ral Partha wizards and Charon himself.

I can't place this guy though.  Clearly he is James Earl Jones from Conan The Barbarian, but no markings.

Turelio is sending me the missing models from The Fellowship diorama- bless his cottom socks.  Repay his kindness by visiting his blog here (http://tureliopt.blogspot.com.au/?m=1)

Gifty McGiftface and The case of the disappearing Hobbits

Pippin:  'Lol.  Aggro'ed.'

One of my gift mini packages arrived today.  This gem plus a stack of plastics of various LOTRiness.

Sadly, some of the fellowship have journeyed elsewhere, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth (of Sauron).  A big thanks to Eyecandy animation in Canberra for the donation!

So I have a confession.  

Sorry... But I hate Lord of The Rings.  The books, the films and especially The Hobbit in all its dreadful forms.  Now, I appreciate the significance and importance of the series... I just don't like it.  None of it.  About the only thing I dig is the concept of Ringwraiths riding Fell Beasts.  A ghost on a giant fucking carrion thing swinging a mace? That's freaking great!

I.. Uh.. Oh, fuck it... since I am confessing geek shame, I also really hate watching anime.  I can stomach the GITS movie and Akira, and the studio Ghibli stuff is charming, but everything else I have seen just shits me.  Especially the TV series stuff like fucking Attack on Titan and bloody Neon Genesis Evan... Fuck it, why bother finishing the title, the ending was shit.

What else?  Oh yeah... Torchwood.  Uhg.

And Capaldi.

I have a lot of dislike for geek stuff.  Should I hand in my geek cred card?

Weird energy day

So, I get a message from an old friend from my college days and he has a box of old minis he wants to get rid of 'to clear up some mental space'.

I gladly accepted them.  For mental space reasons, of course.

Then, later the same day a completely different friend offered me a box of miniatures that she wanted to get rid of 'to clear up some mental energy'.

Naturally they where grenadier monsters that where all gaps in my collection (and that is a tricky thing to do).

Naturally, mental space comes first!  I bravely accepted them.

What is going on?

Anyone else got some mental energy they need clearing up?  ;)

Skulldred demo table

So after a lot of work and penny pinching, I am slowly managing to assemble a new demo game for Skulldred Skirmish at The Arcade.

The game itself is also coming along, having been partly reassembled from locked PDFs of earlier versions.

The current version knocks size scores down one dice, so human sized models get 2 dice instead of 3.  It also limits gangups to 2 dice, with more possible for swarmers (a special ability).  This makes the regular game less about just tight clusters, spreading out the combat to give a more RPGesque feel.

To simplify things further, all attacks that land cause a straight line back recoil (unless you have dodge special ability that gives you a 180 arc), and the most drastic change is models with armor get an 'armor save'- the attacker rerolls the damage dice, and any dive that roll equal or less than the armor score gets discarded.  This makes it immediate and allows little guys to get lucky shots in on big guys.  If this brings the damage down to zero, the model still has to recoil back or be stunned.  This also allows for multiple wound scoring attacks for heavy weapons (the remaining damage is how many wounds you score- capped to 3 for heavy weapons and 4 for magic) and extra damage dice attacks (like explosives).  

Magic and power attacks are charged by spending pips on power dice- so magicians charge up for bigs spells or keep a steady stream of little ones if you need to.  Things like dragon breath, dragon punches, petrifying gaze and spinning attacks are powered by power dice.  Power is not just for wizards now!

So those changes are all working nicely.

After six years of hell, it will be finally good to kiss this project and set it free.

Toy update

Speed painted!

Grrr!  Arg!

Undead warband

An undead warband for under $50?  Yoink.

I won't be painting these guys up for a while, as I will be visiting Sydney to appear on the CGSpectrum booth at GX Australia to do some live digital sculpting demonstrations.

I am rather stressed right now thanks to having to go to court over my horrible encounter with transphobic police, so a little retail therapy was in order.

I am not sure if I will do square bases on all of these.  I am not sure of anything lately.  Feeling uncertain about the future.

Meh.

Dollar store monsters

Dollar store toys are a fantastic source of cheap miniature gaming stuff.  I am addicted to browsing through the shops, staring at cheap crappy knock offs and dreaming up ways I turn them into something special.

I grabbed these two toys on the weekend for a crippling $4 total, whilst my girlfriend was hunting for glowsticks for a costume. Yeah, she is a batshit crazy arty type too <3.

How to convert your dragon...

Rowr.  Dinosaurus wrecks!

Since my recent misfortunes, pushing my dollar value has never been so important.  But there is a joy to turning trash into treasure!  Rich or poor I am going to be haunting dollar stores.

I am drooling over some of the amazing minis coming out at the moment, but this will do plenty for playtesting Skulldred and keeping me in craft projects.

Aaaaaaaand after a short lunch break session, I have the joints filled and have remodelled the 'train your dragon' toy a little by shaving off its bulbous cartoon eyes and adding some of my own.  I am tempted to do more prominent ball eyes and add spikes.

I used a water thinning putty to fill toy cracks- in this case aves apoxie- so I can use a moist brush to smooth it down.  I only use greenstuff to fill flexible models.

[update]

Okay, so I made some balls of putty at the end of lunch and let them dry.  I glued them onto the face then sculpted around them, using a blue heavy mix of greenstuff with a little super sculpey added (to help control the stickiness and hold its shape).

The eyelids where made with two sausages.  The first is for the lower lid.  It is pushed into place, then smoothed in.  The top lid goes over this, and is shaped to give some expression before smoothing.  I will let this dry overnight before washing off the vasoline off with alcohol wipes and basecoating.

Meanwhile...

Rowr!  Dinogasm!

Rest in Peace Wayne

Wayne England has passed away.  Condolences to family and friends, and to those of us who remember this issue especially fondly.

Thoughts on Bones

My local game store's Reaper minis are running a tad low, so it was nice to see a few more appear on the shelf- obviously emptying out the last of the stored stock.  Delightfully, this included three more pillars of good, so I yoinked them, plus three 'ghostly summons'- which are just perfect as magical portals for Skulldred- so much yoink!

If I could steer the direction of Reapers Bones, there are a few things I would like to see...

Firstly, the medium has proven itself as a good gaming material.  Durable, light and affordable.  All good.

I would like to see the polymer tinted a little more away from white.  Bone color to go with the name perhaps, but a warm mid grey would be a good idea in my book.  I have an eldritch horror mini from the earlier release that was more towards this color- and the striking difference was you could see all the detail.  I think customers would be more likely to buy them when they can actually make out what treasure is inside.  It would make painting easier too.

Secondly, I would like Reaper to step away from the recasting metal originals and make new masters for future releases specifically for bones.  Why?  Well, it would mean artist can exaggerate and deepen the detail that is lost in the process for starters.  The second reason is to allow for modilarity, which is my third point...

Modularity.  Bones polymer works perfectly with superglue, so multipart models are not the daunting problem they are in metals- it is actually desirable. I haven't picked up any of the zombies, skeletons and so forth because they are just repeats.  Yaaaaaawn.  But a sprue of arms and seperate legs and bodies?  Yes please.  I love the Nova corps models, but an tactical squad of identical poses?  Blehg.

Third is the packs.  I would like to see them orientated to more 'encounter packs'.  So, for example, rather than hunt down two packs of troops, a leader and some treasure- it's all bundled into a mid sized pack.

Likewise, a skeleton encounter- dwarf villagers, a pack of dungeon debris, a bunch of pillars- etc.

This would get over the current problem I can see of lonesome stock no one needs sitting on the shelf.  I picked up Eregris Darkfathom to lead my Tiik army, but there are ten or more just sitting there lonely.  No one needs fish preists without fish warriors- and the shop is all out of warriors.

Finally, updating Warlord and packaging the minis with bases and cards in skirmish packs suitable for that game would be a no brainer.  Warlord could be sold off the back of Bones.

Thoughts?  Stick em below biatches!