Archive for the ‘Miniatures’ Category

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Project Projectless

March 28, 2012

I’m stuck with an amazing problem that I never thought I’d have: I don’t have a miniatures project to work on. Ok, that’s not entirely true, as the Aliens board game thing is still very actively in the works. I’ve already painted all the models I need for it, though, so I’m left with terrain building. That’s fun in its own right, but I love painting miniatures. I also love the feeling of picking new miniatures for a project and splurging on them.

I guess this is the fault of being far too active this year. All the Colonial Marines I currently need are painted, and I want a small break from them anyway. Same goes for the Aliens and the Predators. My Blood Bowl team is painted, down to the coach. I could of course add to both projects, but there aren’t currently any must-do things there.

There are a few criteria to a new project:

  • It should be gamable. Even if I never get round to actually playing a game, the potential needs to be there to experience that “oh this’ll be such a cool game” vibe.
  • It should be inspiring. Well, naturally.
  • Suitable miniatures should be available.
  • The project should be scifi-ish. As much as I like vampires, werewolves and zombies, I’m not really in the mood currently.

Simple, right?

There are a few possibilities, which I’m liking at a 75% level. One is expanding the Colonial Marines force outside movie canon, into the comic book and fiction territory. I have somewhat done this already with a combat synthetic. This is a definite possibility. There are plenty of cool things out there. Battle suits, more combat androids, specialist teams, colonists, Xenomorph variants and the like.

Another is some opposition for the Marines. Aliens and Predators I have. Who else? I’ve never been that big of a Terminator fan, and the miniatures might be a tad boring to paint. Any other suitable scifi baddies come to mind?

Any ideas, dear readers? Fiction, comic or movie recommendations? Cool minis for me to look at? Everything will be considered!

Funnily enough, this lack of inspiration -post is the 200th I’ve made, yay!

 

 

 

Posted in Miniatures | 9 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #12 – The Coach

March 24, 2012

It’s time to present to you the coach of the Drakwald Ravens, Nekromantti Ruuminen. As is apparent to my Finnish readers, he is based on Antti Muurinen, the former head coach of the Finnish national football team. I named my coach in a spot of Finnish punning, and his Finnish name translates as “the necromancer Corpsy”.

Ruuminen has built a reputation for solid positivity in our Blood Bowl league. It should be no surprise, as this is what his real-life counterpart looks like:

That open smile, that wonderful moustache!

After the games, he tends to spout lines such as

Against an opponent like that, a tie can be seen as a victory, as can a narrow loss. Even a crushing loss, such as today, should be seen as a positive learning experience, and as such, a victory.

Coming up with a suitable model to represent him on the sidelines was a grueling task. You wouldn’t think so, but it was. Out of sheer curiosity, how many smiling human miniatures do you own? Check it out, you might come away empty-handed. I did, at least. I spent a good while browsing through different manufacturers’ catalogues, thought about sculpting my own, asked around on forums and was left with no great solution to the problem. The few smiling miniatures were stylistically unsuitable for my uses.

Finally I happened to notice a model that was sitting on my desk. It was one that I received from fellow blogger Sho3box as part of one of our trades. The model was that of a man dressed for a wedding, about to pull a gun from inside his jacket. Now, it’s a cool miniature and there’s even a matching bride, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how I could best use him.

A bit later I had my coach. I used ProCreate putty to add the all-important moustache and to turn the mini’s fairly gruff expression into a smile. I sculpted the pistol grip he was holding into a handkerchief, and that’s pretty much it. I did a very quick job on him, and painted his eyes larger and more cartoony than usual. He came out looking like a kindly magician from a kids’ movie. Not my smoothest or neatest paintjob at any rate, but still: great success!

Click for a larger version

I can’t keep myself from posting a song relating to Muurinen/Ruuminen. It laments the coach moving on. The chorus says:

“Wind, blow to where my walrus lies, play a moment with his moustache! Tell him of my love, tell him how I miss him, tell him that I’m still waiting.”

The song, a parody of this one (go ahead, treat yourself to some quality Finnish pop music – English lyrics included!), has become something of a running joke in our Blood Bowl games. Quite deservedly so.

 

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | Tagged | 10 Comments »

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More hive accessories – Aliens game board update #4

March 20, 2012

Work on the board is progressing steadily. Since the last post I’ve managed to complete five more obstacle pieces for the board. Shown below are four normal, one square filling obstacles.

Click for a larger version

The first one is a collection of beads and hardware store goods. The second one is a hollow wall anchor (as shown in the previous post). The third one is a container from Ainsty. It has been heavily alienized with conduit tubing and insulation paste. The fourth one is a small container from Ainsty. It has been left clean, as some parts of the reactor room will be relatively free of infestation.

The fifth piece I’ve completed is a large obstacle covering four squares.

Click for a larger version

I have no idea what it is. It’s built out of a toilet bowl cleaner bottle cap, two wooden IKEA furniture pegs and two small beads. It looks scifi-ish enough I think. I was even adventurous enough to try some OSL when painting it. I tried to convey the look of emergency/alarm lights, and I think it came out ok.

Comments, criticism, new ideas? Hit me!

Posted in Miniatures, Scenics, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #11 – The League of Extraordinary Fun

March 14, 2012

Our Blood Bowl league has taken off magnificently. So far we’ve had a grand total of 19 [sic] games since the start of the season in January, and the fourth round of matches is almost finished.

The Swamp Shamans' Kroxigor Shiva prepares to lay down some hurt. (Click for a larger version)

Blood Bowl has really become something of a “thing”. The games and the league are turning into something much more than the sum of their parts. Let me list (since I’m partial to lists) some of the things that make it so much fun:

  1. Social events. This is really what the games are turning into. More and more people will flock to see games played by others, offering their commentary and interpretation of game events, having a few beers and simply having a good time. With people working, studying, getting children and things like that, quality time like this tends to be hard to come by in the same quantities as five to ten years before.
  2. Narratives. We’ve long had an internet discussion forum, which is nowadays almost completely devoted to all things Blood Bowl. One of the best aspects are the narratives building around the league, its coaches and its players. From the bitter hometown rivalry between the wealthy dwarf team of Blackpit Arsenal and their working-class opposition, the chaos dwarves of Blackpit Chaotic to the naughty nun team of the Marienburg Spankers (with their trademark pass action declaration  “Nun shall pass!”), the narratives, game reports and the like are often hilarious stuff. All the ten players in our league are avid role-players, and as such no strangers to happily making up intricate stories about simple events. The narratives also form something of a pressure valve, allowing frustratingly bad luck with the dice to be explained away as bribed referees and the like.
  3. Excitement. Blood Bowl is an excellent game – I think the best one Games Workshop has ever created. It strikes a good balance between skill and luck. The games tend to be really exciting, with adrenaline levels spiking and palms sweating as a mere 2+ roll stands between victory and defeat. Today’s game was a great example, with the Lustrian Swamp Shamans squeezing a 3-3 tie against the Sea Elf Seahawks with a daring passing play – only succeeding on a roll of 6.

The Seahawks' elves Shanghai and Singapore try to stare down their cold-blooded opponents. (Click for a larger version)

These things combine to make our Blood Bowl league so much more than just a bunch of games played with miniatures. I can’t tell what it exactly is, but I can honestly say that it’s been a long while since I’ve enjoyed miniature gaming this much.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | 2 Comments »

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Accessorizing the hive – Aliens game board update #3

March 4, 2012

This is an update on my Aliens game board project. I’m at a point where I’ve glued most of the magnet pieces to the game board. I’d show you pictures, but it’s not much to look at currently, just black squares on a foam board. I’m going to focus on something much more interesting, in other words the various obstacles dotting the board. These are based on magnets, and should be pretty interchangeable throughout the board. I had three guidelines for these:

  1. Quick and easy. On a quick count, I need to make 23 of these. Since I want to eventually finish the board, I don’t want to spend an hour on each, but rather be able to churn them out at a steady rate, while still having them look nice enough.
  2. Cheap. See above. While it would be lovely to have 23 exquisite resin terrain pieces, I’m trying to keep my costs down.
  3. Large enough to block LoS. In the board game, all obstacles block line of sight. Me being something of a pedant at times, I didn’t want obstacles so small that I couldn’t see them blocking line of sight.

These guidelines were easy enough to follow. So far I’ve constructed three pieces, and I’m happy with all of them.

Click for a larger version

The first one is composed of a hollow wall anchor, available from hardware stores for a few euros per a bag of four or five. I removed the screw in the middle for an instant scifi-industrial looking structure. Next I added on some electrical wire and conduit tubing, applied a liberal amount of insulation paste and left it to dry. I then sprayed everything black and gave the Alien goo two drybrush layers of grey (GW Codex Grey and Fortress Grey) followed by a black wash (GW Badab Black). The visible part of the wall anchor was given a drybrushing first with VMC Oily Steel and then VMC Natural Steel. I finally gave the Alien parts a layer of gloss varnish for a wet look and to create more contrast between the alien and the man-made. The final step was to add a few drops of Scotch universal glue gel. As it began to dry, I stretched it around with a toothpick to create strands of that sticky resin the Xenomorphs tend to leave around, the messy critters they are.

Click for a larger version

The second one basically consists of a resin container from Ainsty. I simply glued it on a piece of magnetic sheet, which I’d covered with plastic bug screen to match the game board. Some insulation paste was added to Xenomorph it up a bit. Again I sprayed everything black, and then drybrushed the container with a suitable colour (GW Shadow Grey), and painted the Alien stuff as above, with the same gloss varnish treatment. While this piece is generally more expensive than the previous one, I happened to have the Ainsty bits around already, so I didn’t have to buy new stuff specifically for this.

Click for a larger version

The third terrain piece is a very simple, cheap scratchbuild. Like all of my hive accessories, there’s a square piece of magnetic sheet. On that I glued a 30mm stainless steel washer. On top of the washer I glued a plastic base from a Mantic miniature, and covered that with a small square of bug screen. I then glued four beads in the corners to look like rivets. Once more out came the black spray, followed by painting the steel like above. There was one problem, however: guideline #3, the line of sight one. Nice enough as it was, there was no way that flat ventilation thing would block line of sight. However, as I’m a clever little monkey, I’d taken this into account! I glued some white craft wool to the grid to represent steam billowing up (sadly not too visible in the photo), and gave it a spray of matt varnish to keep it in shape. Quick, easy, cheap as chips and guaranteed to block your LoS.

Here’s a final shot comparing them with a Woodbine miniature. I think they look fine. Opinions?

Click for a larger version

 

Posted in Miniatures, Scenics, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments »

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Sizing up

March 2, 2012

To my regular readers, apologies in advance. The post mentions a fair few points that I’ve made earlier, so there’ll probably be a feeling of repetition here.

Miniature size/scale is one of those things that tends to come up whenever different ranges are discussed. Some people will stalwartly refuse to combine different ranges in their games, if they’re not stylistically compatible. I used to be one of these people. However, as years have gone by I’ve started to alter my stance. See, the Colonial Marine review I did left me with a slew of miniatures from various manufacturers, in different sizes and styles. As I tend to favour a “waste not, want not” approach when it comes to miniatures (and stuff in general), I figured that the differences weren’t such a problem.

I think that one of the main reasons for the aversion to mixing sizes and styles comes from the way we view miniatures. Most comparisons are done at eye level, setting the miniatures next to each other and noting all the differences. However, when gaming we view the minis from what – half a metre, metre (that’s two to three feet for all you silly ancient measurement system types) up? In most games they aren’t next to each other either, and our eye will probably focus on the uniting factors, such as paint schemes and basing, instead of the differences.

Allow me to demonstrate. In the pictures below there’s a variety of scifi miniatures from six different manufacturers painted with a similar colour scheme. There are major differences in size and proportions, and viewed next to one another, the ranges certainly don’t look too compatible in terms of size and style, although the paint scheme and basing does help.

L to R: Woodbine, Denizen, Copplestone, 1st Corps, Hasslefree, em4, em4 plastic. Click for a larger version

Let’s have a look at the picture below. For some obscure reason my Marines have wandered onto a Blood Bowl pitch, where they are about to take on the Drakwald Ravens who are incidentally another group of miniatures of various styles and manufacturers. The photo is taken from a gamer’s eye view, e.g. me sitting down and viewing the game board from a usual gaming height. See my point? The same size and style differences are still present, but in my humble opinion they are far less prominent, even to the point of being negligible. The eye is drawn to the different bases (green vs. grey) and colour schemes (the Marines’ green and camo vs. the Ravens’ black and purple). What we have here is not a motley collection of miniatures of various sizes and styles, but rather two coherent factions.

Click for a larger version

Your mileage may vary, of course, but I believe that sticking too adamantly to a single manufacturer’s ranges will sometimes unnecessarily limit your options. Naturally if you’re painting miniatures only for display, it’s another story. If not, do something wild (well, ‘geek-wild’) and try mixing two or more ranges if you haven’t already.

Crazy, I know!

Posted in Editorial, Miniatures | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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From the painting desk #14 – Colonial Marines

February 28, 2012

I just completed these five models. They were specifically painted for my Aliens board game project. What these five models reminded me of is that I [expletive] hate batch painting. It’s dull, it’s dreary and it takes most fun out of the area of the hobby that I enjoy most – painting. After much eye-rolling, cursing and exasperated sighs, they’re finally finished – luckily they turned out alright. All miniatures except Frost (holding a pistol), who is a conversion of an em4 plastic trooper, are Woodbine Colonial  Marines. They were nice enough to paint, and I pretty much just followed my regular recipe for painting CMs. I’m quite happy with how some things turned out, such as Vasquez’s darker skin colour. Some of the teeth sculpted on the models make them look a bit squirrel-ish, but who’s counting.

Painted Colonial Marines

Click for a larger version

With all the minis I need for the project now finished, I can move on with the game board as well!

Posted in Miniatures, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments »

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Predator review updated again

February 18, 2012

Just a short note to let you know that my 28mm Predator review has been updated with two more models from Predastore – the Jungle-Predette and the Chasing-Hunter. See the review post for details and comparison shots.

Jungle-Predette

Chasing-Hunter

Posted in Miniatures, Sci-Fi | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

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Hive pageant – Aliens game board update #2

February 13, 2012

After my last post I’ve received very good comments regarding the hive walls. I agree that the first test piece was lacking that biomechanic look so iconic to the Alien franchise, so I went to work on different prototypes. I bought some electrical wire (as it’s very cheap and holds its shape) and using blue foam offcuts and Tetra paste I knocked together three prototypes for hive wall styles. I’ve shown them painted, with everyone’s favourite smartgunner Drake for comparison. What do you think? They’re still lacking all sorts of lumps, holes, glue-goo, gloss varnish, ribbing and things like that, but these should give a rough idea. None of them are quite right, but I have a feeling I’m getting there. They are a bit sparse, for one, so I really need to add a lot more stuff in.

First test – While I like the spinelike ribbing on the vertical struts, I quickly noticed that the background desperately needs texture. It’s also a bit too spider web looking.

Click for a larger version

Second test – In this one I like the organic look of the tubes. It’s much too sparse, though. The addition of a simple texture to the wall makes a huge difference.

Click for a larger version

Third test – In my opinion this is the most Gigeresque of the test pieces. I like the ribbed texture on the wall. A lot of the wire was left exposed to create a smooth look. I used some heavy drybrushing to emulate Giger’s airbrushed style.

Click for a larger version

In my own opinion there are good elements in all of them that could/should be combined. I hope you’ll agree that these are much closer to H.R. Giger’s aesthetic than my previous outing. There are two styles of hive wall that I’ve spotted in the films. One is a very random, swirly, gooey one, whereas the other one is very much straight-off Giger with less “bio” and more “mechanical”.

Here are some shots from Aliens to illustrate the look I’m trying to achieve. There’s obviously a lot of randomness, as well as plenty of organic looking strands of Xenomorph resin. Of course I’ll need to leave some original walls showing through as well to create a contrast between the man-made and the alien.

Click for a larger version

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Now’s the time for comments. As you can see, I’m teetering between different options so input is very valuable at this time. Don’t be afraid to be critical, either!

Posted in Miniatures, Scenics, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , | 7 Comments »

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Dry heat – Aliens game board update #1

February 10, 2012

The Aliens board game game board (tee-hee) project I announced a while back is going strong. In this post I’ll take a look at what’s happening with it.

The board

In the previous post I wondered about a suitable flooring texture – brass and resin alternatives were too costly. I considered textured styrene sheets, but couldn’t find a suitable texture. In the end I settled for a cheap and easily handled material: plastic bug screen. It provided me with a nice mesh texture, and perhaps most importantly it was dirt cheap. I bought a large offcut sheet for 5€, and it’s over twice the size I needed.

Yesterday I cut a suitable shape from the sheet and glued it over the board with watered-down PVA. I left the staircase portion unglued. After the glue had dried, I carefully removed the rectangle with a craft knife. The bug screen has the added bonus of showing through the markings I made on the board earlier.

Click for a larger version

Today the mailman brought me the magnetic sheets that will be used to attach the terrain pieces to the board, so today will probably see some test fitting – not to mention testing whether the magnets have a strong enough hold. If they don’t, it’s back to the proverbial drawing board.

Accessories

The game board is clogged with various obstacles, and I’ve slowly gone to work on them as well. Shown below are some of the things I intend to use.

Various scifi bits and bobs from Ainsty. I bought these earlier to use in my Triton-4 Aliens/Predator/Colonial Marines campaign – which might or might not return. They’ll serve their purpose wonderfully here as well.

Click for a larger version

Scratch-built junk. Every miniature gamer hoards up things they might need one day. Lo and behold, this is “one day”! Out will come the random bits bought from hardware stores, beads, offcut pieces of sprue and miniatures and things like that. This project is a fine way to use them, since a lot will be covered more or less with Xenomorph gunk (more on that below). There is one innovation I’m actually proud of, and that’s using my Mantic bases. I’ve assembled quite a few from ghoul and zombie sets, and until now I’ve had no use for them. Now I’ve combined them with some of the extra bug screen I have, and they make wonderful exhaust vent -type thingies. A slight problem is that in the board game all obstacles block line of sight. In Aliens, however, there is steam billowing all around the reactor room (“Yeah, but it’s a dry heat!”), so I’m thinking of using craft wool to simulate steam issuing from the vents.

Alien gunk. This gave (and might still be giving) me a hard time. While I love the biomechanical Xenomorph look, it’s a bastard to recreate in larger quantities. Ready-made resin sets exist, but that would rapidly escalate the costs of this project – something I definitely don’t want. My current choice is to go with Tetra paste, which is a somewhat elastic paste for sealing windows, bathroom tiles and the like. This doesn’t produce a neat, organic surface, but rather a creepy, gooey one. It can be crudely shaped and takes paint well. Below is a quick mock-up using a blue foam offcut and some paste. On the right you can see the same piece with a quick, patchy paintjob (black with grey drybrushing, ink wash, I’ll later add some strands of glue for that sticky look) and a Marine to give you an idea of how it looks. Definitely let me know what you think. In my opinion it looks nice enough, even if it is a slight departure from the source material.

Click for a larger version

Miniatures

Unsurprisingly I have a whole lot of Colonial Marines. All I needed to do was pick out a suitable selection to match the characters in the film. I took some liberties to save me some time. What I needed was Apone (flamethrower), Crowe (pistol), Dietrich (flamethrower), Drake (smartgun), Frost (pistol), Hicks (shotgun), Hudson (pistol), Vasquez (smartgun) and Wierzbowski (flamethrower). Surprisingly I had less than half of suitable minis for these fellows painted. Like the Marines in the film, the lack of pulse rifles proved troublesome.

Here are the painted ones. Apone and Drake are from em4, while Crowe and Hudson are from Copplestone Castings.

L to R: Apone, Crowe, Hudson, Drake. Click for a larger version

And the unpainted ones. Apart from Frost they’re all Woodbine designs models. Frost is an as-of-yet unfinished conversion of an em4 plastic trooper.

L to R: Dietrich, Frost, Hicks, Vasquez, Wierzbowski. Click for a larger version

That’s the project so far. Comments and critique, send them my way!

Posted in Miniatures, Scenics, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments »

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