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!

A horde of bones

Well folks, the gradual climb out of the hole that was my life is progressing, thanks again to all of you who helped me via the gofundme.  Mwah X

So I have been getting a fair bit done. I also started a teaching position yesterday that I will talk about after the companies official announcement- the gofund me also drew the attention of employers.  Also it drew threatening emails from transphobic rednecks who don't quite have the grasp of what intersex means and think it is a 'lifestyle choice'- buuut anyway, let's just focus on the positives shall we?  A nice contract job, a successful gofundme and lots pf fan messages that make me feel human again.

So I have been pushing on with Skulldred, and painting both for that and for therapeutic benefits (my anxiety is pretty crushing right now).  I managed to get further with that glorious dragon Rhiannon gave me as a gift.  He is drawing a pleasing amount of coos from the folk who I share office space with.  This pleases me greatly, and probably pleases The Old Ones too.  Lovely chaps.

Still lots to do, but I am loving working at the bigger scale.  She looks epic on the demo game table... See?

I mounted her on an old CD, and used ripped up cork coasters to build up the base around her.

This picture shows the playtest warbands assembled from cheap Bones minis.  I have painted them to 'kinda playable' tabletop standard, but most are not finished.  I really miss my lamp, magnifying glasses, paints and inks.  Oh well, I should be getting my passport shortly and that will let me have storage to move my stuff up.  

Slowly but surely.

Skulldred 4 Bones wip

So here is a WIP shot of my two Skulldred playtesting warband.  Lots to do, and I am just aiming for tabletop ready standard at the moment.

Reaper Bones are a really cheap way to do this.  My goblins cost $9, three bugbears for $15 and so on.  That is retail price- you can probably get cheaper directly online.

One cute trick I have been using is the office cappachino machine to heat up and straighten the bent shafts (ooh missus!) by applying steam directly to specific areas.

Bones

Over the last few days I have been rebuilding two cheap Skulldred warbands  using Reaper Bones for playtesting and diagram photos to replace those lost.  You may remember the bugbears I bought for therapy, the pillar to remind me of your support etc?  Well those have been joined by a six pack of goblins, a sodding great ogre, some tiik fishmen and a sea hag.  I have been speed painting them to tabletop standard, and it has been lovely to get back on that horse.

As for rules, I have recovered a Skulldred beta 4 PDF version from an email (it is actually one I sent to Ken St.Andre to review) and am currently porting it back across to open office ready to rebuild.

The nice thing about Bones is that they are durable and heavier than GW plastics on larger monsters.  I worry about snapping my GW giant, but a Reaper one?  I could drop kick that bitch across the room and it would be fine.  Anyone in its path probably wouldn't be.

My friend Rhiannon capped off the warband today by gifting me this bad boy for the size 5 category monsters.

It is freaking huge!  

I do love a good undead dragon, since I first battled The Dracoliche in Pillars of Pentagarn.  I have a couple of great lead ones, but was always loathe to play with them as they are a tad fragile.  This one is dropkickable too.

I am dead impressed by it so far.  Cannot wait to see it in action!

Crow Thing!

Well folks, I am officially back producing work!

Here is the final concept for Chaotic Crow-Things leader mini.  Crowangle has long been my most popular mini, outselling absolutely everything three times over.  So I thought I would kick off with his big brothers... a new faction of creepy crow things.

These chaps are just shy of human size, with optional wings, or backpack.  Along with the leader, I plan to give you a pack of modular Crow-Things warriors which you can mix and match parts to make a swarm of these critters.

CrowThing Leader

The green for the leader is already underway.

I am midway through setting up a Patreon.  You will be able to become a Patron to get access to hand signed and numbered prints of all the new concept artwork and illustrations, discounts and access to limited edition variants.  Plus I will be auctioning off the actual original art for you to hang on your wall as part of my strange wanton urge to pay my rent and do this full time.  It's this crazy thing called 'being an artist'.


Thanks again for all the support!

Moving in day

Today was special.  I set up my desk at The Arcade in Melbourne.  It is a collective tank for games development run by The IGDA, so I am surrounded by geeks getting shit done.  My neighbors made games like Armello, Crossy Road and The Fighting Fantasy mobile games.  It's lovely.

I don't have my box containing unfinished greens yet, and only have basic tools, so I am starting a few new minis from scratch until I can get that shipped up and can finish older works.

  I even had to run around Melbourne gathering basic supplies like Kneadatite, superglue and balsa wood.  But by seven o'clock I was settled in and had puttied flat tops on my three balsa mini handles ready for work tomorrow.

What is special about this is that it is all funded by you, my fans.  I will be focusing full time on doing retro mini shit now.  New figures, new webstore, patreon bonus material, illustrations, concept art originals and numbered signed prints, and of course Skulldred (once I have the hard drive shipped and restored.)

This is my job now.  Thanks to you.  X